Equality, Equity and Incentives: An Experiment

Loukas Balafoutas, Martin Kocher, Louis Putterman and Matthias Sutter

Working Papers from Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck

Abstract: We devise a new experimental game by nesting a voluntary contributions mechanism in a broader spectrum of incentive schemes. With it, we study tensions between egalitarianism, equity concerns, self-interest, and the need for incentives. In a 2x2 design, subjects either vote on or exogenously encounter incentive settings while assigned unequal incomes that are either task-determined or random. We find subjects' voting to be mainly self-interested but also influenced by egalitarian and equity concerns, which sometimes cut in opposite directions. Contributions, which seem mainly determined by boundedly rational responses to incentives, are influenced by egalitarian, equity and strategic considerations.

Keywords: equality; efficiency; voluntary contribution mechanism; incentives; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D31 D63 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67
Date: 2010-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-ltv and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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https://www2.uibk.ac.at/downloads/c4041030/wpaper/2010-26.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Equality, equity and incentives: An experiment (2013)
Working Paper: Equality, Equity and Incentives: An Experiment (2013)
Working Paper: Equality, Equity and Incentives: An Experiment (2010)
Working Paper: Equality, Equity and Incentives: An Experiment (2010)
Working Paper: Equality, equity, and incentives: An experiment (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inn:wpaper:2010-26

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