Positive- versus zero-sum majoritarian ultimatum games: An experimental study

An Experimental Study on Dividing Gains through Politics

“…Diermeier and Gailmard () and Hsu et al . () have conducted experiments on MUG where players’ status quos are exogenously given. Both papers show that although the proposer obtains a higher share of the gain because of his or her proposing power, the responders’ share of the gain is substantially above zero.…”

“…Differing from the setting in Diermeier and Gailmard's () experiment where only positive‐sum games are considered, Hsu et al . () contrast the positive‐sum game experiment with the zero‐sum game experiment and find that significantly more proposers adopt a minimum‐winning coalition strategy in the former game than in the latter game. Despite the differences in their experimental designs, both papers show that although the proposer obtains a higher share of the gain because of his or her proposing power, the responders’ share of the gain is substantially above zero.…”

“…Diermeier and Gailmard () and Hsu et al . () have conducted experiments on MUG where players’ status quos are exogenously given. In Diermeier and Gailmard () the proposer's status quo varies across treatments but the two responders’ status quos largely remain the same.…”

“…3 The institutions or rules of MUG are as follows: (1) a fixed gain is divided between one proposer and several responders, (2) the proposer seeks a majority's consent to split the gain among the players, (3) the responders decide whether to accept or reject the proposer's proposed split, and (4) the proposal is adopted if it wins the support of a majority and is defeated otherwise; when defeated, the status quo allocation will be implemented. Diermeier and Gailmard (2006) and Hsu et al (2008) have conducted experiments on MUG where players' status quos are exogenously given. In Diermeier and Gailmard (2006) the proposer's status quo varies across treatments but the two responders' status quos largely remain the same.…”

How do coalitions get built? Evidence from an extensive form coalition game with and without communication

“…Notably, they show that the data is consistent with field data on parliamentary voting-data taken from essentially free form bargaining, and previously interpreted as being consistent with the non-cooperative models. The Baron-Ferejohn model is also the focus of recent experimental papers by Diermeier and Morton (2005), Hsu et al (2008), and Diermeier and Gailmard (2006). 5 While the former paper investigates finite period bargaining under weighted majority rule, the latter two test the influence of disagreement values in a game that is restricted to the last period of the Baron-Ferejohn model.…”