IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/989.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Everyone Wants a Chance : Initial Positions and Fairness in Ultimatum Games

Author

Listed:
  • Grimalda, Gianluca

    (Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain.)

  • Kar, Anirban

    (Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi)

  • Proto, Eugenio

    (University of Warwick)

Abstract

Fairness emerges as a relevant factor in redistributive preferences in surveys and experiments. We study experimentally the impact of varying the probability with which players are assigned to initial positions in Ultimatum Games (UGs). In the baseline case players have equal opportunities of being assigned the proposer position –arguably the more advantaged one in UGs. Chances become increasingly unequal across three treatments. We also manipulate the inter-temporal allocation of opportunities over rounds. We find that : (1) The more initial chances are distributed unequally, the lower the acceptance rates of a given offer ; consequently, offers increase ; (2) Being assigned a mere 1% chance of occupying the proposer role compared to none, significantly increases acceptance rates and decreases offers ; (3) Players accept even extreme amounts of unequal chances within each round in exchange for overall equality of opportunities across rounds. Procedural fairness – both static and dynamic - has clear relevance for individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Grimalda, Gianluca & Kar, Anirban & Proto, Eugenio, 2012. "Everyone Wants a Chance : Initial Positions and Fairness in Ultimatum Games," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 989, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:989
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2012/twerp_989.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoffman Elizabeth & McCabe Kevin & Shachat Keith & Smith Vernon, 1994. "Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in Bargaining Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 346-380, November.
    2. Karl Schurter & Bart J. Wilson, 2009. "Justice and Fairness in the Dictator Game," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(1), pages 130-145, July.
    3. Corneo, Giacomo & Gruner, Hans Peter, 2002. "Individual preferences for political redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 83-107, January.
    4. Karl Schurter & Bart J. Wilson, 2009. "Justice and Fairness in the Dictator Game," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(1), pages 130-145, July.
    5. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 121(2), pages 699-746.
    6. Alberto Alesina & George-Marios Angeletos, 2005. "Fairness and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 960-980, September.
    7. Corneo, Giacomo & Fong, Christina M., 2008. "What's the monetary value of distributive justice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 289-308, February.
    8. Cox, James C., 2004. "How to identify trust and reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 260-281, February.
    9. Michal Krawczyk, 2011. "A model of procedural and distributive fairness," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 70(1), pages 111-128, January.
    10. Todd L. Cherry & Peter Frykblom & Jason F. Shogren, 2002. "Hardnose the Dictator," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1218-1221, September.
    11. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    12. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2005. "Beyond outcomes: measuring procedural utility," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 57(1), pages 90-111, January.
    13. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    14. Gächter, Simon & Thöni, Christian, 2010. "Social comparison and performance: Experimental evidence on the fair wage-effort hypothesis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 531-543, December.
    15. Forsythe Robert & Horowitz Joel L. & Savin N. E. & Sefton Martin, 1994. "Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 347-369, May.
    16. Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David K., 2012. "Fairness, risk preferences and independence: Impossibility theorems," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 606-612.
    17. Gary E Bolton & Jordi Brandts & Axel Ockenfels, 2005. "Fair Procedures: Evidence from Games Involving Lotteries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(506), pages 1054-1076, October.
    18. Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis & Melissa Osborne Groves, 2008. "Introduction to Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success," Introductory Chapters, in: Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success, Princeton University Press.
    19. Edi Karni & Zvi Safra, 2002. "Individual Sense of Justice: A Utility Representation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 263-284, January.
    20. Hammond, P.J. & , ., 1987. "Consequentialist foundations for expected utility," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 1987016, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    21. 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.
    22. Olivier Armantier, 2006. "Do Wealth Differences Affect Fairness Considerations?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(2), pages 391-429, May.
    23. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    24. Alice Becker & Luis Miller, 2009. "Promoting justice by treating people unequally: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(4), pages 437-449, December.
    25. Ruben Durante & Louis Putterman & Joël Weele, 2014. "Preferences For Redistribution And Perception Of Fairness: An Experimental Study," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1059-1086, August.
    26. Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2005. "Preferences for redistribution in the land of opportunities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 897-931, June.
    27. 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.
    28. Shaun Hargreaves-Heap & Yanis Varoufakis, 2002. "Some Experimental Evidence On The Evolution Of Discrimination, Co--Operation And Perceptions Of Fairness," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 679-703, July.
    29. Fong, Christina, 2001. "Social preferences, self-interest, and the demand for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 225-246, November.
    30. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    31. Burrows, Paul & Loomes, Graham, 1994. "The Impact of Fairness on Bargaining Behaviour," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 201-221.
    32. Trautmann, Stefan T., 2009. "A tractable model of process fairness under risk," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 803-813, October.
    33. Michal Krawczyk & Fabrice Le Lec, 2010. "‘Give me a chance!’ An experiment in social decision under risk," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(4), pages 500-511, December.
    34. Binmore, Ken & Morgan, Peter & Snaked, Avner & Sutton, John, 1991. "Do people exploit their bargaining power? An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 295-322, August.
    35. Gianluca Grimalda & Anirban Kar & Eugenio Proto, 2012. "Everyone Wants a Chance: Initial Positions and Fairness in Ultimatum Games," Working Papers 2012/21, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    36. Hessel Oosterbeek & Randolph Sloof & Gijs van de Kuilen, 2004. "Cultural Differences in Ultimatum Game Experiments: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 7(2), pages 171-188, June.
    37. Edi Karni & Tim Salmon & Barry Sopher, 2008. "Individual sense of fairness: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 11(2), pages 174-189, June.
    38. Anand, Paul, 2001. "Procedural fairness in economic and social choice: Evidence from a survey of voters," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 247-270, April.
    39. Peter A. Diamond, 1967. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparison of Utility: Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75, pages 765-765.
    40. Ruffle, Bradley J., 1998. "More Is Better, But Fair Is Fair: Tipping in Dictator and Ultimatum Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 247-265, May.
    41. 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.
    42. Trautmann, Stefan T. & Wakker, Peter P., 2010. "Process fairness and dynamic consistency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 187-189, December.
    43. Schotter, Andrew & Weiss, Avi & Zapater, Inigo, 1996. "Fairness and survival in ultimatum and dictatorship games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 37-56, October.
    44. John List & Todd Cherry, 2000. "Learning to Accept in Ultimatum Games: Evidence from an Experimental Design that Generates Low Offers," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(1), pages 11-29, June.
    45. Machina, Mark J, 1989. "Dynamic Consistency and Non-expected Utility Models of Choice under Uncertainty," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 27(4), pages 1622-1668, December.
    46. David Dickinson, 2000. "Ultimatum decision-making: A test of reciprocal kindness," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 151-177, March.
    47. Krawczyk, Michal, 2010. "A glimpse through the veil of ignorance: Equality of opportunity and support for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 131-141, February.
    48. Justin Esarey & Timothy C. Salmon & Charles Barrilleaux, 2012. "What Motivates Political Preferences? Self-Interest, Ideology, And Fairness In A Laboratory Democracy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(3), pages 604-624, July.
    49. 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.
    50. Robert Slonim & Alvin E. Roth, 1998. "Learning in High Stakes Ultimatum Games: An Experiment in the Slovak Republic," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 569-596, May.
    51. Froot, Kenneth A., 1989. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation with Cross-Sectional Dependence and Heteroskedasticity in Financial Data," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(3), pages 333-355, September.
    52. Stefan Trautmann, 2010. "Individual fairness in Harsanyi’s utilitarianism: operationalizing all-inclusive utility," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(4), pages 405-415, April.
    53. Eckel, Catherine C & Grossman, Philip J, 2001. "Chivalry and Solidarity in Ultimatum Games," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(2), pages 171-188, April.
    54. repec:cup:judgdm:v:5:y:2010:i:2:p:83-101 is not listed on IDEAS
    55. Karla Hoff & Priyanka Pandey, 2006. "Discrimination, Social Identity, and Durable Inequalities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 206-211, May.
    56. Marwell, Gerald & Ames, Ruth E., 1981. "Economists free ride, does anyone else? : Experiments on the provision of public goods, IV," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 295-310, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The weak demand for equal opportunity
      by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2012-05-24 19:31:12

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Grimalda, Gianluca & Kar, Anirban & Proto, Eugenio, 2012. "Everyone Wants a Chance : Initial Positions and Fairness in Ultimatum Games," Economic Research Papers 270638, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.

    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. Grimalday, Gianluca & Karz, Anirban & Proto, Eugenio, 2012. "Everyone Wants a Chance: Initial Positions and Fairness in Ultimatum Games," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 93, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    2. Gianluca Grimalda & Anirban Kar & Eugenio Proto, 2016. "Procedural fairness in lotteries assigning initial roles in a dynamic setting," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 819-841, December.
    3. Grimalda, Gianluca & Farina, Francesco & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2018. "Preferences for redistribution in the US, Italy, Norway: An experiment study," Kiel Working Papers 2099, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    4. Akbaş, Merve & Ariely, Dan & Yuksel, Sevgi, 2019. "When is inequality fair? An experiment on the effect of procedural justice and agency," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 114-127.
    5. Cardella, Eric & Roomets, Alex, 2022. "Pay distribution preferences and productivity effects: An experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    6. Sugden, Robert & Wang, Mengjie, 2020. "Equality of opportunity and the acceptability of outcome inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    7. Bin Miao & Songfa Zhong, 2018. "Probabilistic social preference: how Machina’s Mom randomizes her choice," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(1), pages 1-24, January.
    8. Gagnon, Nickolas & Bosmans, Kristof & Riedl, Arno, 2020. "The Effect of Unfair Chances and Gender Discrimination on Labor Supply," IZA Discussion Papers 12912, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Fabio Galeotti & Reuben Kline & Raimondello Orsini, 2014. "When Foul Play Seems Fair: Dishonesty as a Response to Violations of Just Deserts," Post-Print halshs-02467507, HAL.
    10. Michele Bernasconi & Enrico Longo & Valeria Maggian, 2023. "When merit breeds luck (or not): an experimental study on distributive justice," Working Papers 2023:02, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    11. Elena Cettolin & Arno Riedl & Giang Tran, 2017. "Giving in the face of risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 95-118, December.
    12. Vanessa Valero, 2022. "Redistribution and beliefs about the source of income inequality," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 876-901, June.
    13. Eisenkopf, Gerald & Fischbacher, Urs & Föllmi-Heusi, Franziska, 2013. "Unequal opportunities and distributive justice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 51-61.
    14. Bartling Björn & Grieder Manuel & Zehnder Christian, 2014. "Does competition justify inequality?," ECON - Working Papers 158, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Nov 2015.
    15. Alexia Gaudeul, 2013. "Social preferences under uncertainty," Jena Economics Research Papers 2013-024, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    16. Schwaiger, Rene & Huber, Jürgen & Kirchler, Michael & Kleinlercher, Daniel & Weitzel, Utz, 2022. "Unequal opportunities, social groups, and redistribution: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    17. Xu, Zhicheng & Palma, Marco A., 2015. "To buy or not buy (insurance)? An experiment on public funds distribution under different rooted risks," 2015 Annual Meeting, January 31-February 3, 2015, Atlanta, Georgia 196649, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    18. Ku, Hyejin & Salmon, Timothy C., 2013. "Procedural fairness and the tolerance for income inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 111-128.
    19. Hyndman, Kyle & Walker, Matthew J., 2022. "Fairness and risk in ultimatum bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 90-105.
    20. Gerald Eisenkopf, 2018. "Unequal Incentives and Perceived Fairness in Groups," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-18, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C99 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Other
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wrk:warwec:989. 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: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    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.