IESE Research Papers
No D/652:
Helping the meaner, hurting the nicer: The contribution versus distribution game
Gianandrea Staffiero ()
Abstract: Wide experimental evidence shows that people do care about
their opponents' payoff during social interaction. Our research aims to
shed light on the relative importance of different motives in non-selfish
choices highlighted in the recent literature. After a standard public-good
game, one player is given the possibility to increase or decrease his
opponent's payoff. While our baseline treatment replicates the tendency to
hurt richer but lower-contributing players and help poorer but
higher-contributing players, if we add exogenous assignments we find
substantial willingness to hurt the rich, even if they have contributed
more, and to help the poor, even if they have contributed less. These
results show a greater focus on correcting inequality than on punishing or
rewarding particular behavior. Moreover, we also find that subjects
disregard efficiency, in terms of the overall "pie" to be shared. Overall,
our data support inequality aversion as a more robust phenomenon than
reciprocity and efficiency considerations.
Keywords: Fairness; Cooperation; Inequality; Reciprocity; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: C91; D63; H41; (follow links to similar papers)
32 pages, September 24, 2006
Before downloading any of the electronic versions below
you should read our statement on
copyright.
Download GhostScript
for viewing Postscript files and the
Acrobat Reader for viewing and printing pdf files.
Full text versions of the paper:
DI-0652-E.pdf 
Download Statistics
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Silvia Jimenez ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ()
or Helena Lundin ().
Programing by
Design Joakim Ekebom
