Responsibility for what? Fairness and individual responsibility

Cappelen, Alexander W.; Sørensen, Erik Ø.; Tungodden, Bertil

doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2009.08.005

Cited by 209 publications

(171 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The main result reported in this literature is that people find it fair that the income (output) of a person is in proportion to the work effort (input), and that they dislike deviations from a proportional distribution (10)(11)(12). In line with equity theory, more recent papers in behavioral economics, studying distributive behavior in situations in which people have earned the money being distributed, have found that the majority of people accept income inequalities as fair if the inequalities correspond to differences in contributions (13)(14)(15)(16)(17). Thus, there is evidence suggesting that people are averse both to deviations from an equal income distribution and to deviations from an income distribution in proportion to work effort.…”

mentioning

confidence: 82%

Equity theory and fair inequality: A neuroeconomic study

Cappelen

Eichele

Hugdahl

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The present paper reports results from, to our knowledge, the first study designed to examine the neuronal responses to income inequality in situations in which individuals have made different contributions in terms of work effort. We conducted an experiment that included a prescanning phase in which the participants earned money by working, and a neuronal scanning phase in which we examined how the brain responded when the participants evaluated different distributions of their earnings. We provide causal evidence for the relative contribution of work effort being crucial for understanding the hemodynamic response in the brain to inequality. We found a significant hemodynamic response in the striatum to deviations from the distribution of income that was proportional to work effort, but found no effect of deviations from the equal distribution of income. We also observed a striking correlation between the hemodynamic response in the striatum and the selfreported evaluation of the income distributions. Our results provide, to our knowledge, the first set of neuronal evidence for equity theory and suggest that people distinguish between fair and unfair inequalities.fairness | inequality | striatum | equity theory

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confidence: 82%

Equity theory and fair inequality: A neuroeconomic study

Cappelen

Eichele

Hugdahl

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Fehr and Schmidt, 1999;Fehr and Gachter, 2000;Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003). Some recent experimental evidence suggests that, when assessing outcome distributions, people do distinguish between factors for which players can be held responsible, and those which are beyond their control (Cappelen et al, 2010). If fairness matters to economic agents and alters their behavior, then understanding fairness ought to matter even to the purest positive economist.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inequality of Opportunity, Income Inequality and Economic Mobility: Some International Comparisons

Brunori

Ferreira²,

Peragine³

2013

Policy Research Working Papers

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Despite a recent surge in the number of studies attempting to measure inequality of opportunity in various countries, methodological differences have so far prevented meaningful international comparisons. This paper presents a comparison of ex-ante measures of inequality of economic opportunity (IEO) across 41 countries, and of the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) for 39 countries. It also examines international correlations between these indices and output per capita, income inequality, and intergenerational mobility. The analysis finds evidence of a "Kuznets curve" for inequality of opportunity, and finds that the IEO index is positively correlated with overall income inequality, and negatively with measures of intergenerational mobility, both in incomes and in years of schooling. The HOI is highly correlated with the Human Development Index, and its internal measure of inequality of opportunity yields very different country rankings from the IEO measure

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“…The importance of equity preferences for behavior has been shown in other distribution games as well, where subjects can derive an entitlement, for instance, from the outcome of a preceding production phase (e.g., [20,39,[68][69][70][71][72]). The range of equity norms in these studies is lower, however, than in our experiment, as these results were derived mostly from behavioral data and not from observational data as in our study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral Entitlements and Aspiration Formation in Asymmetric Bargaining: Experimental Evidence from Germany and China

Hennig‐Schmidt

Walkowitz

2017

Games

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Using a unique experimental data set, we investigate how asymmetric legal rights shape bargainers' aspiration levels through moral entitlements derived from equity norms and number prominence. Aspiration formation is typically hard to observe in real life. Our study involves 15 negotiations from Germany and China. Over the course of the negotiation, bargainers discuss the distribution of an amount of money by alternating offers until they consent or break off. Legal rights are randomly assigned by asymmetric outside options. We videotape and code the in-group discussions. In total, verbal data from 30 groups, 1100 pages of transcripts, and 65 h of discussions are content-analyzed. Our main finding is that strong groups derive and defend moral entitlements from equity concerns with regard to their outside options. They strive for equitable but unequal distributions (e.g., proportional split and split the difference). Moral entitlements materialize in the recorded aspiration levels and final payoffs, which exceed the equal split. By contrast, weak groups aim at equality. Over the course of the negotiation, equity tends to lose, while the prominence of round numbers gains importance. Similarities between the subject pools are found in that equity and prominence are both decisive for the formation of aspiration levels. Chinese negotiations are characterized by long periods of stagnation, only minimal concessions, and the communication of false goals. By contrast, Germans steadily reduce their goals and make concessions.

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Responsibility for what? Fairness and individual responsibility

Cited by 209 publications

References 27 publications

Equity theory and fair inequality: A neuroeconomic study

Equity theory and fair inequality: A neuroeconomic study

Inequality of Opportunity, Income Inequality and Economic Mobility: Some International Comparisons

Moral Entitlements and Aspiration Formation in Asymmetric Bargaining: Experimental Evidence from Germany and China

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