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Fairness and risk in ultimatum bargaining

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Matt WalkerORCiD

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).


Abstract

We conduct an ultimatum bargaining experiment but, rather than bargaining over money, subjects bargain over lottery tickets for a mutually exclusive prize. We find that proposers offer a significantly lower percentage of lottery tickets to responders than the equivalent offer when bargaining over money. In contrast, responders have a significantly higher acceptance threshold, which is consistent with responders being risk averse and possessing ex-post fairness concerns. This difference can be rationalized if proposers have incomplete information or incorrect beliefs about responders' preferences. We provide evidence supportive of proposers holding incorrect beliefs. Specifically, we observe an incongruence between how sensitive proposers expect responders to be to regret, and how sensitive responders are. By varying the timing of responders' decision, we show that intentions matter and present evidence of an anomaly in responders' preferences. Specifically, when responders decide after the resolution of uncertainty, they are more willing to accept extreme inequality.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Hyndman K, Walker MJ

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Games and Economic Behavior

Year: 2022

Volume: 132

Pages: 90-105

Print publication date: 01/03/2022

Online publication date: 21/12/2021

Acceptance date: 17/12/2021

Date deposited: 29/12/2021

ISSN (print): 0899-8256

ISSN (electronic): 1090-2473

Publisher: Academic Press

URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2021.12.003

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2021.12.003


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