Would You Mind if I Get More? An Experimental Study of the Envy Game

Sandro Casal, Werner Güth (), Mofei Jia and Matteo Ploner
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Mofei Jia: School of Social Sciences, University of Trento

No 2011-051, Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Abstract: Envy is often the cause of mutually harmful outcomes. We experimentally study the impact of envy in a bargaining setting in which there is no conflict in material interests: a proposer, holding the role of residual claimant, chooses the size of the pie to be shared with a responder, whose share is exogenously fixed. Responders can accept or reject the proposal, with game types differing in the consequences of rejection: all four combinations of (not) self-harming and (not) other-harming are considered. We find that envy leads responders to reject high proposer claims, especially when rejection harms the proposer. Notwithstanding, maximal claims by proposers are predominant for all game types. This generates conflict and results in a considerable loss of efficiency.

Keywords: Social Preferences; Conflict; Experimental Economic; Bargaining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 D63 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-11-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-hpe
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Journal Article: Would you mind if I get more? An experimental study of the envy game (2012)
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