IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v141y2016icp173-176.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fairness and persuasion

Author

Listed:
  • Kleine, Marco
  • Langenbach, Pascal
  • Zhurakhovska, Lilia

Abstract

We study experimentally to what extent distributive fairness decisions by impartial authorities are influenced by stakeholders’ fairness opinions. In a three-player allocation game, we compare Communication treatments, in which one of the stakeholders states her opinion prior to the allocation decision, to a Baseline without communication. We find that stakeholders who state their opinion are allocated significantly less money than their counterparts in the Baseline. Asymmetric reactions to the statements appear to be the driving force behind this result: Authorities deviate from their initial fairness judgment and follow stakeholders’ opinions if the requests are moderate; they largely ignore high monetary requests.

Suggested Citation

  • Kleine, Marco & Langenbach, Pascal & Zhurakhovska, Lilia, 2016. "Fairness and persuasion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 173-176.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:141:y:2016:i:c:p:173-176
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2016.02.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176516300489
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2016.02.019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    2. Linda Babcock & George Loewenstein, 1997. "Explaining Bargaining Impasse: The Role of Self-Serving Biases," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 109-126, Winter.
    3. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    4. Alexander W. Cappelen & James Konow & Erik ?. S?rensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2013. "Just Luck: An Experimental Study of Risk-Taking and Fairness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1398-1413, June.
    5. Alexander W. Cappelen & Astri Drange Hole & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2007. "The Pluralism of Fairness Ideals: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 818-827, June.
    6. Mohlin, Erik & Johannesson, Magnus, 2008. "Communication: Content or relationship?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 409-419, March.
    7. Andreoni, James & Rao, Justin M., 2011. "The power of asking: How communication affects selfishness, empathy, and altruism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 513-520.
    8. James Konow, 2000. "Fair Shares: Accountability and Cognitive Dissonance in Allocation Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1072-1091, September.
    9. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    10. Dirk Engelmann & Martin Strobel, 2004. "Inequality Aversion, Efficiency, and Maximin Preferences in Simple Distribution Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 857-869, September.
    11. Xiao, Erte & Houser, Daniel, 2009. "Avoiding the sharp tongue: Anticipated written messages promote fair economic exchange," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 393-404, June.
    12. Croson, Rachel & Konow, James, 2009. "Social preferences and moral biases," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 201-212, March.
    13. Nikiforakis, Nikos & Noussair, Charles N. & Wilkening, Tom, 2012. "Normative conflict and feuds: The limits of self-enforcement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 797-807.
    14. Astri Drange Hole, 2011. "Communication and fair distribution," Rationality and Society, , vol. 23(2), pages 234-264, May.
    15. Pierpaolo Battigalli & Martin Dufwenberg, 2007. "Guilt in Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 170-176, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luisa Herbst, 2016. "Who Pays to Win Again? The Joy of Winning in Contest Experiments," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2016-06, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marco Kleine & Pascal Langenbach & Lilia Zhurakhovska, 2014. "Fairness and Persuasion. How Stakeholder Communication Affects Impartial Decision Making," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2014_03, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    2. Marja-Liisa Halko & Topi Miettinen, 2017. "From ideals to deals—The effect of impartiality experience on stakeholder behavior," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(8), pages 1-16, August.
    3. Kai Barron & Robert Stüber & Roel van Veldhuizen, 2022. "Moral Motive Selection in the Lying-Dictator Game," CESifo Working Paper Series 9911, CESifo.
    4. Emin Karagözoglu & Arno Riedl, 2010. "Information, Uncertainty, and Subjective Entitlements in Bargaining," CESifo Working Paper Series 3133, CESifo.
    5. Marco Kleine & Pascal Langenbach & Lilia Zhurakhovska, 2013. "How Voice Shapes Reactions to Impartial Decision- Makers: An Experiment on Participation Procedures," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2013_11, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, revised Feb 2017.
    6. Barron, Kai & Stüber, Robert & van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2019. "Motivated motive selection in the lying-dictator game," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2019-303, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    7. Caleb Cox & Brock Stoddard, 2023. "Inequality and the Allocation of Collective Goods," Working Papers 23-10, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    8. João V. Ferreira & Erik Schokkaert & Benoît Tarroux, 2023. "How group deliberation affects individual distributional preferences: An experimental study," Working Papers 2301, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    9. Bruttel, Lisa & Stolley, Florian, 2020. "Getting a yes. An experiment on the power of asking," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    10. Reuben, Ernesto & Riedl, Arno, 2013. "Enforcement of contribution norms in public good games with heterogeneous populations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 122-137.
    11. Riccardo Ghidoni & Matteo Ploner, 2021. "When do the expectations of others matter? Experimental evidence on distributional justice and guilt aversion," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(2), pages 189-234, September.
    12. Mollerstrom, Johanna & Reme, Bjørn-Atle & Sørensen, Erik Ø., 2015. "Luck, choice and responsibility — An experimental study of fairness views," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 33-40.
    13. Kleine, Marco & Langenbach, Pascal & Zhurakhovska, Lilia, 2017. "How voice shapes reactions to impartial decision-makers: An experiment on participation procedures," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 241-253.
    14. Daniel Müller & Sander Renes, 2017. "Fairness views and political preferences - Evidence from a large online experiment," Working Papers 2017-10, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    15. Fehr, Dietmar, 2018. "Is increasing inequality harmful? Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 123-134.
    16. Elena Cettolin & Arno Riedl, 2017. "Justice Under Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3739-3759, November.
    17. Daniel Müller & Sander Renes, 2021. "Fairness views and political preferences: evidence from a large and heterogeneous sample," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(4), pages 679-711, May.
    18. Rod Falvey & Tom Lane & Shravan Luckraz, 2022. "On a mechanism that improves efficiency and reduces inequality in voluntary contribution games," Discussion Papers 2022-15, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    19. Dong, Lu & Falvey, Rod & Luckraz, Shravan, 2019. "Fair share and social efficiency: A mechanism in which peers decide on the payoff division," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 209-224.
    20. Bigoni, Maria & Bortolotti, Stefania & Nas Özen, Efşan, 2021. "Economic polarization and antisocial behavior: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 387-401.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fairness; Communication; Third-party decision maker; Benevolent dictator; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • K40 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:141:y:2016:i:c:p:173-176. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.