Luck, Choice and Responsibility. An experimental study of fairness views

Johanna Mollerstrom, Bjørn-Atle Reme () and Erik Sørensen
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Bjørn-Atle Reme: Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Postal: Telenor Research, Oslo and, NHH Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway

No 6/2014, Discussion Paper Series in Economics from Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics

Abstract: We conduct a laboratory experiment where third-party spectators can redistribute resources between two agents, thereby offsetting the consequences of controllable and uncontrollable luck. Some spectators go to the limits and equalize all or no inequalities, but many follow an interior allocation rule previously unaccounted for by the fairness views in the literature. These interior allocators regard an agent’s choice as more important than the cause of her low income and do not always compensate bad uncontrollable luck. Instead, they condition such compensation on the agent’s decision regarding controllable luck exposure, even though the two types of luck are independent.

Keywords: Fairness; responsibility; option luck; brute luck; experimen. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D63 D81 H23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2014-03-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Luck, choice and responsibility — An experimental study of fairness views (2015)
Working Paper: Luck, Choice and Responsibility: An Experimental Study of Fairness Views (2015)
Working Paper: Luck, Choice and Responsibility: An Experimental Study of Fairness Views (2014)
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