Luck, choice and responsibility — An experimental study of fairness views

Johanna Mollerstrom, Bjørn-Atle Reme and Erik Sørensen

Journal of Public Economics, 2015, vol. 131, issue C, 33-40

Abstract: We conduct laboratory experiments where third-party spectators have the opportunity to redistribute resources between two agents, thereby eliminating inequality and offsetting the consequences of controllable and uncontrollable luck. Some spectators go to the limits and equalize either all or no inequalities, but many follow an interior allocation rule. These interior allocators regard an agent's choices 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. This allocation rule is previously unaccounted for by the fairness views in the literature. Moreover, its policy implications are fundamentally different in that it extends individual responsibility for choices made to also apply to areas that were not affected by these choices.

Keywords: Inequality; Fairness; Responsibility; Option luck; Brute luck; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D63 D81 H23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (67)

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Related works:
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)
Working Paper: Luck, Choice and Responsibility. An experimental study of fairness views (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:131:y:2015:i:c:p:33-40

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2015.08.010

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