Providing revenue-generating projects under a fair mechanism: An experimental analysis

Werner Güth (), Anastasios Koukoumelis, Maria Levati and Matteo Ploner

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2014, vol. 108, issue C, 410-419

Abstract: This paper considers a procedurally fair provision mechanism that allows members of a small group to determine, through their bids, which project to implement. Previous experiments with (only) costly projects have demonstrated that the mechanism is efficiency enhancing. Our experiment tests whether the mechanism remains conducive to efficiency when revenue-generating, but less efficient, projects are made available. We find that this is not the case. Additionally, we detect no significant difference in bid levels depending on whether mixed valuations are present or absent, and on whether the others’ valuations are known or unknown. We interpret these results as evidence that the availability of revenue-generating projects engenders a biased perception of the efficient costly project.

Keywords: Public projects; Bidding behavior; Procedural fairness; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 D63 H44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268114000699
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:108:y:2014:i:c:p:410-419

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2014.02.024

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().