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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Benedikt Herrmann (University of Nottingham); Henrik Orzen (University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | While numerous experiments demonstrate how pro-sociality can influence economic decision-making, evidence on explicitly anti-social economic behavior has thus far been limited. In this paper we investigate the importance of spite in experimental rent-seeking contests. Although, as we show, existing evidence of excessive rent-seeking is in theory compatible with fairness considerations, our social preference elicitations reveal that subjects’ investments are driven by spite, not fairness or reciprocity. We also observe a striking disconnect between individuals’ revealed social preferences in our contest game and in a standard prisoner’s dilemma, rejecting the idea that there are consistent pro-social, selfish or anti-social “types”. Moreover, we find that cooperation and reciprocity rates drop substantially after subjects have been exposed to rent-seeking competition. |
| Keywords: | Contests; Other-regarding preferences; Experiments |
| JEL: | A13 C9 D0 D72 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdx:dpaper:2008-10&r=evo |
| By: | Lorenzo Sacconi; Marco Faillo |
| Abstract: | Compliance with a social norm is a matter of self-enforceability and endogenous motivation to conform, which is relevant not just to social norm,s but also to a wide array of institutions. Here we consider endogenous mechanisms that become effective once the game description has been enriched with pre-play communication allowing impartial agreements on a norm (even if they remain not binding in any sense). Behavioral models understand conformity as the maximization of some “enlarged” utility function properly defined to make room for the individual’s “desire” to comply with a norm reciprocally adhered to by other participants – whose conformity in turn depends on the expectation that the norm will be in fact reciprocally adhered to. In particular this paper presents an experimental study on the “conformity-with-the-ideal preference theory” (Grimalda and Sacconi 2005), based of a simple experimental three person game called the “exclusion game”. If the players participate in a “constitutional stage” (under a veil of ignorance ) in which they decide the rule of division unanimously, the experimental data show a dramatic change in the participants’ behavior pattern. Most of them conform to the fair rule of division to which they have agreed in a pre-play communication stage, whereas in the absence of this agreement they behave egoistically. The paper also argues that this behavior is largely consistent with what John Rawls (1971) called the “sense of justice”, a theory of norm compliance unfortunately overlooked by economists and which should be reconsidered after the behaviorist turn in economics. |
| Keywords: | conformist preferences, reciprocity, veil of ignorance, psychological games, fairness, experiments |
| JEL: | C7 C9 D63 D64 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trn:utwpde:0814&r=evo |
| By: | Heike Hennig-Schmidt |
| Abstract: | Psychological game theory can help provide a rational choice explanation of framing effects; frames influence beliefs, beliefs influence motivations. We explain this theoretically, and explore the empirical relevance experimentally. In a 2×2 design of one-shot public good games we show that frames affect subject’s first- and second-order beliefs, and contributions. From a psychological game-theoretic framework we derive two mutually compatible hypotheses about guilt aversion and reciprocity under which contributions are related to second- and first-order beliefs, respectively. Our results are consistent with either. |
| Keywords: | Framing, psychological games, guilt aversion, reciprocity, public good games, voluntary cooperation |
| JEL: | C91 C72 D64 Z13 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:bonedp:bgse15_2008&r=evo |
| By: | Fehr, Ernst; Hoff, Karla; Kshetramade, Mayuresh |
| Abstract: | In a wide variety of settings, spiteful preferences would constitute an obstacle to cooperation, trade, and thus economic development. This paper shows that spiteful preferences - the desire to reduce another's material payoff for the mere purpose of increasing one's relative payoff - are surprisingly widespread in experiments conducted in one of the least developed regions in India (Uttar Pradesh). In a one-shot trust game, the authors find that a large majority of subjects punish cooperative behavior although such punishment clearly increases inequality and decreases the payoffs of both subjects. In experiments to study coordination and to measure social preferences, the findings reveal empirical patterns suggesting that the willingness to reduce another's material payoff - either for the sake of achieving more equality or for the sake of being ahead - is stronger among individuals belonging to high castes than among those belonging to low castes. Because extreme social hierarchies are typically accompanied by a culture that stresses status-seeking, it is plausible that the observed social preference patterns are at least partly shaped by this culture. Thus, an exciting question for future research is the extent to which different institutions and cultures produce preferences that are conducive or detrimental to economic development. |
| Keywords: | Economic Theory&Research,Access to Finance,Debt Markets,Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress,Gender and Social Development |
| Date: | 2008–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4619&r=evo |