Shifting the Blame: On Delegation and Responsibility

Björn Bartling and Urs Fischbacher

The Review of Economic Studies, 2012, vol. 79, issue 1, 67-87

Abstract: To fully understand the motives for delegating a decision right, it is important to study responsibility attributions for outcomes of delegated decisions. We conducted laboratory experiments in which subjects could either choose a fair allocation or an unfair allocation or delegate the choice, and we used a punishment option to elicit responsibility attributions. Our results show that, first, responsibility attribution can be effectively shifted and, second, this can constitute a strong motive for the delegation of a decision right. Moreover, we propose a simple measure of responsibility and show that this measure outperforms measures based on inequity aversion or reciprocity in predicting punishment behaviour. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2012
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