Why Blame?

Mehmet Gurdal, Joshua Miller and Aldo Rustichini

No 494, Working Papers from IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University

Abstract: We provide experimental evidence that subjects blame others based on events they are not responsible for. In our experiment an agent chooses between a lottery and a safe asset; payment from the chosen option goes to a principal who then decides how much to allocate between the agent and a third party. We observe widespread blame: regardless of their choice, agents are blamed by principals for the outcome of the lottery, an event they are not responsible for. We provide an explanation of this apparently irrational behavior with a delegated-expertise principal-agent model, the subjects’ salient perturbation of the environment. JEL Classification Numbers: C92; D63; C79. Keywords: Experiments; Rationality; Fairness

Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-gth, nep-hpe, nep-lam, nep-ltv and nep-neu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Journal Article: Why Blame? (2013)
Working Paper: Why Blame? (2013)
Working Paper: Why Blame? (2013)
Working Paper: Why Blame? (2013)
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