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What Is Fair? Experimental Evidence
Author(s) -
Dickinson David L.,
Tiefenthaler Jill
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
southern economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.762
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 2325-8012
pISSN - 0038-4038
DOI - 10.1002/j.2325-8012.2002.tb00500.x
Subject(s) - equity (law) , decision maker , resource allocation , economics , empirical evidence , distribution (mathematics) , public economics , econometrics , microeconomics , resource distribution , actuarial science , management science , political science , mathematics , management , mathematical analysis , philosophy , epistemology , law
There has been growing interest within the economics discipline in the role of equity concerns in the distribution of resources. This paper presents empirical evidence from controlled laboratory experiments where third‐party decision makers allocate resources between two individuals. The experimental results indicate that subjects view a wide range of different allocations as the fair distribution of resources. However, regression analysis indicates that both treatment effects and a few demographic variables explain some of this variation in fairness concepts. Most significantly, decision makers rewarded subjects who earned their favorable positions, and the gender of the decision maker was an important predictor of the allocation chosen.