Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/56913 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
Jena Economic Research Papers No. 2011,004
Publisher: 
Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena
Abstract: 
According to the accountability principle a person's fair allocation takes into account the input-relevant variables she can influence, like effort, but not the variables she cannot influence, like a randomly assigned exogenous factor. This study is based on a real effort-task experiment, where the exogenous influence is twofold: it comes either as a production factor or as a bonus. We confirm that in a base treatment, i.e in absence of exogenous factors, subjects base their allocation decisions largely on effort. When exogenous differences are present behavior changes. Whereas bonuses are largely ignored and subjects still mostly base their decisions on effort, production factors render allocations more selfish. Furthermore, we study whether accountability holds for decisions over opportunities. We apply the so-called lottery-points-method, where a binary lottery in the last experimental stage allocates the whole amount to one of the workers. We find that subjects claim more for themselves when allocating opportunities in all treatments.
Subjects: 
distributive justice
real effort task
procedural fairness
JEL: 
C72
C92
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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