IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v257y2025ics0165176525005130.html

Delegating decisions to a lottery can reduce preference for control

Author

Listed:
  • Estache, Antonio
  • Foucart, Renaud
  • Georgalos, Konstantinos

Abstract

We compare in a laboratory experiment preferences for control versus two different forms of delegation. Subjects solve tasks and choose to be paid based on their own answer, their matched partner’s answer, or a “choice lottery” that randomly selects between the two with equal probability. The standard preference for direct control prevails when the delegation is to a specific person. It disappears when the delegation is to a choice lottery. This suggests that resistance to delegation may be reduced when decision-makers can retain partial control by contributing to the choice even if only randomly.

Suggested Citation

  • Estache, Antonio & Foucart, Renaud & Georgalos, Konstantinos, 2025. "Delegating decisions to a lottery can reduce preference for control," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:257:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525005130
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112676
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176525005130
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112676?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Owens Jr. & Zachary Grossman Jr. & Ryan Fackler Jr., 2014. "The Control Premium: A Preference for Payoff Autonomy," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 138-161, November.
    2. Grether, David M., 1992. "Testing bayes rule and the representativeness heuristic: Some experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 31-57, January.
    3. Bouacida, Elias & Foucart, Renaud, 2025. "Rituals of reason: Experimental evidence on the social acceptability of lotteries in allocation problems," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 23-36.
    4. Shane Frederick, 2005. "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 25-42, Fall.
    5. Abizadeh, Arash, 2021. "Counter-Majoritarian Democracy: Persistent Minorities, Federalism, and the Power of Numbers," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 115(3), pages 742-756, August.
    6. Björn Bartling & Ernst Fehr & Holger Herz, 2014. "The Intrinsic Value of Decision Rights," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2005-2039, November.
    7. Edi Karni, 2009. "A Mechanism for Eliciting Probabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 603-606, March.
    8. Randolph Sloof & Ferdinand A. Siemens, 2017. "Illusion of control and the pursuit of authority," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(3), pages 556-573, September.
    9. Schmidt, Robert & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2023. "Implementing (un)fair procedures : Containing favoritism when unequal outcomes are inevitable," Other publications TiSEM 2a9269ef-874d-451a-9e14-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. Gibbard, Allan, 1977. "Manipulation of Schemes That Mix Voting with Chance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(3), pages 665-681, April.
    11. Pikulina, Elena S. & Tergiman, Chloe, 2020. "Preferences for power," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    12. Robert Schmidt & Stefan T Trautmann, 2023. "Implementing (Un)fair Procedures: Containing Favoritism When Unequal Outcomes are Inevitable," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 199-234.
    13. Franklin Allen, 1987. "Notes--Discovering Personal Probabilities When Utility Functions are Unknown," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 542-544, April.
    14. Brownback, Andy & Kuhn, Michael A., 2019. "Understanding outcome bias," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 342-360.
    15. Björn Bartling & Urs Fischbacher, 2012. "Shifting the Blame: On Delegation and Responsibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 67-87.
    16. Thomson, Keela S. & Oppenheimer, Daniel M., 2016. "Investigating an alternate form of the cognitive reflection test," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 99-113, January.
    17. Keela S. Thomson & Daniel M. Oppenheimer, 2016. "Investigating an alternate form of the cognitive reflection test," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 11(1), pages 99-113, January.
    18. Johannes Haushofer & Michala Iben Riis-Vestergaard & Jeremy Shapiro, 2019. "Is there a social cost of randomization?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(4), pages 709-739, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Antonio Estache & Renaud Foucart & Konstantinos Georgalos, 2024. "Preference for Control vs. Random Dictatorship," Working Papers ECARES 2024-10, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Elias Bouacida & Renaud Foucart, 2022. "Rituals of Reason," Working Papers 344119591, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    3. Jean-Pierre Benoît & Juan Dubra & Giorgia Romagnoli, 2022. "Belief Elicitation When More than Money Matters: Controlling for "Control"," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 837-888, August.
    4. Ambuehl, Sandro & Li, Shengwu, 2018. "Belief updating and the demand for information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 21-39.
    5. Bartling, Björn & Cappelen, Alexander & Hermes, Henning & Skivenes, Marit & Tungodden, Bertil, 2023. "Free to Fail? Paternalistic Preferences in the United States," CEPR Discussion Papers 18156, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    6. Bouacida, Elias & Foucart, Renaud, 2025. "Rituals of reason: Experimental evidence on the social acceptability of lotteries in allocation problems," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 23-36.
    7. Ertac, Seda & Gumren, Mert & Gurdal, Mehmet Y., 2020. "Demand for decision autonomy and the desire to avoid responsibility in risky environments: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. David Danz & Dorothea Kübler & Lydia Mechtenberg & Julia Schmid, 2015. "On the Failure of Hindsight-Biased Principals to Delegate Optimally," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(8), pages 1938-1958, August.
    9. Jana Freundt & Holger Herz, 2025. "A Cross-Country Study of Preferences for Choice Autonomy," CESifo Working Paper Series 12238, CESifo.
    10. Özalp Özer & Upender Subramanian & Yu Wang, 2018. "Information Sharing, Advice Provision, or Delegation: What Leads to Higher Trust and Trustworthiness?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 474-493, January.
    11. Crosetto, Paolo & Filippin, Antonio & Katuščák, Peter & Smith, John, 2020. "Central tendency bias in belief elicitation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    12. Klockmann, Victor & von Schenk, Alicia & von Siemens, Ferdinand A., 2021. "Division of labor and the organization of knowledge in production: A laboratory experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 196-210.
    13. Silvia Lübbecke & Wendelin Schnedler, 2020. "Don't patronize me! An experiment on preferences for authorship," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 420-438, April.
    14. John R. Hamman & Miguel A. Martínez-Carrasco, 2023. "Managing Uncertainty: An Experiment on Delegation and Team Selection," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(6), pages 2272-2295, November.
    15. Juan Dubra & Jean-Pierre Beno t & Giorgia Romagnoli, 2019. "Belief elicitation when more than money matters," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1901, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    16. Silvia Dominguez Martinez & Randolph Sloof, 2016. "Communication versus (Restricted) Delegation: An Experimental Comparison," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-050/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    17. Gao, Yuhong & Blayac, Thierry & Willinger, Marc, 2025. "Delegating moral dilemmas in autonomous vehicles evidence from an online experiment in China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 721-752.
    18. Maria Forlicz & Tomasz Rólczyński & Biagio Simonetti, 2023. "Illusion of prediction possibility of random outcomes: experimental results," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 481-495, October.
    19. Pikulina, Elena S. & Tergiman, Chloe, 2020. "Preferences for power," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    20. Zhang, Si-Qi & Li, Ming-Hui & Li, Yu-Chu & Rao, Li-Lin, 2025. "Effects of childhood environments on the discernment of health misinformation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 380(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • H57 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Procurement

    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:257:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525005130. 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.