Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/322923 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers Series No. 14-13
Publisher: 
Utrecht University, Utrecht School of Economics, Tjalling C. Koopmans Research Institute, Utrecht
Abstract: 
Experimental economics has provided evidence for fairness concerns, but their relative strength and even their stability is still under debate. We reconcile the seemingly inconsistent results by presenting a theory of marginal fairness concerns. The key assumption is that fairness concerns are stable across various decision situations, but individuals care only marginally about other individuals' payoffs. This produces inequitable outcomes when the decision situation is 'unfair' but equitable outcomes when the structure itself is 'fair'. An experimental horse race with competing theories of pure selfishness, pure fairness, and power-/need-based norms, applied across a range of (a)symmetric and (in)transitive experimental decision settings, supports our theory: 80% of the subjects in our experiment appear to be at most marginally fairness concerned.
Subjects: 
fairness
lab experiment
local public goods game
heterogeneous influence stracture
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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