Inefficiency and Social Exclusion in a Coalition Formation Game

Akira Okada and Arno Riedl

No 64, Economics Series from Institute for Advanced Studies

Abstract: This paper reports the results of experiments involving a 3-person coalition formation game with an ultimatum bargaining character. The grand coalition was always the efficient coalition decision, whereas the values of the 2-person coalitions are varied such that they lead to an efficiency loss in the range of 6.7 up to 30 percent. Furthermore, the 2-person coalition implies social exclusion, since the not chosen member always receives a payoff of zero. Consistent with results reported in the literature on 2- person ultimatum bargaining experiments, negative reciprocity (i.e. punishment of unfair offers) plays a crucial role in decision making. The hypothesis that selfishness and anticipated negative reciprocity by proposers together with actual negative reciprocal behavior of responders lead to inefficient outcomes and social exclusion is strongly supported by the data. It turns out that a huge majority of proposers choose the inefficient and unfair 2-person coalition. Proposer-induced efficiency losses vary between 5 and 20 percent, and one sixth to almost one third of the population is excluded from participation.

Keywords: Coalition formation; Inefficiency; Reciprocity; Social exclusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C91 D61 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 1999-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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https://irihs.ihs.ac.at/id/eprint/1158 First version, 1999 (application/pdf)

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