[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v181y2019icp186-189.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who delegates? Evidence from dictator games

Author

Listed:
  • Gawn, Glynis
  • Innes, Robert
Abstract
We conduct and compare two binary dictator experiments in which the available payoff profiles are identical. In one of the games, selfish payoffs can be probabilistically implemented either via a delegate or directly; in the other game, the same payoffs can only be implemented by direct choice. We find that (1) the delegation option is almost entirely chosen by those who would otherwise be generous dictators, (2) the delegation option thereby leads to a greater overall propensity for selfish payoffs, and (3) in the delegation game, selfish dictators exhibit a net preference for direct vs. delegated decisions, consistent with recent research on decision rights.

Suggested Citation

  • Gawn, Glynis & Innes, Robert, 2019. "Who delegates? Evidence from dictator games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 186-189.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:181:y:2019:i:c:p:186-189
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2019.05.027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176519301867
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2019.05.027?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Regine Oexl & Zachary Grossman, 2013. "Shifting the blame to a powerless intermediary," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 306-312, September.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Holger Herz & Tom Wilkening, 2013. "The Lure of Authority: Motivation and Incentive Effects of Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1325-1359, June.
    3. Björn Bartling & Ernst Fehr & Holger Herz, 2014. "The Intrinsic Value of Decision Rights," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2005-2039, November.
    4. Edward P. Lazear & Ulrike Malmendier & Roberto A. Weber, 2012. "Sorting in Experiments with Application to Social Preferences," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 136-163, January.
    5. Fershtman, Chaim & Gneezy, Uri, 2001. "Strategic Delegation: An Experiment," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(2), pages 352-368, Summer.
    6. Lucas C. Coffman, 2011. "Intermediation Reduces Punishment (and Reward)," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 77-106, November.
    7. David Owens Jr. & Zachary Grossman Jr. & Ryan Fackler Jr., 2014. "The Control Premium: A Preference for Payoff Autonomy," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 138-161, November.
    8. John R. Hamman & George Loewenstein & Roberto A. Weber, 2010. "Self-Interest through Delegation: An Additional Rationale for the Principal-Agent Relationship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1826-1846, September.
    9. Björn Bartling & Urs Fischbacher, 2012. "Shifting the Blame: On Delegation and Responsibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 67-87.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ezquerra, Lara & Kujal, Praveen, 2020. "Self-selecting into being a dictator: Distributional consequences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    2. Argenton, Cédric & Potters, Jan & Yang, Yadi, 2023. "Receiving credit: On delegation and responsibility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    3. Hausfeld, Jan & Fischbacher, Urs & Knoch, Daria, 2020. "The value of decision-making power in social decisions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 898-912.
    4. Gawn, Glynis & Innes, Robert, 2021. "Machiavelli Preferences Without Blame: Delegating Selfish vs. Generous Decisions in Dictator Games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    5. Feess, Eberhard & Kerzenmacher, Florian & Timofeyev, Yuriy, 2022. "Utilitarian or deontological models of moral behavior—What predicts morally questionable decisions?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gawn, Glynis & Innes, Robert, 2021. "Machiavelli Preferences Without Blame: Delegating Selfish vs. Generous Decisions in Dictator Games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Ezquerra, Lara & Kujal, Praveen, 2020. "Self-selecting into being a dictator: Distributional consequences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    3. Gawn, Glynis & Innes, Robert, 2019. "Lying through others: Does delegation promote deception?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 59-73.
    4. Hausfeld, Jan & Fischbacher, Urs & Knoch, Daria, 2020. "The value of decision-making power in social decisions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 898-912.
    5. Ertac, Seda & Gumren, Mert & Gurdal, Mehmet Y., 2020. "Demand for decision autonomy and the desire to avoid responsibility in risky environments: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    6. Jiabin Wu, 2018. "Indirect higher order beliefs and cooperation," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(4), pages 858-876, December.
    7. Lucas C. Coffman & Alexander Gotthard-Real, 2019. "Moral Perceptions of Advised Actions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(8), pages 3904-3927, August.
    8. Silvia Dominguez Martinez & Randolph Sloof, 2016. "Communication versus (Restricted) Delegation: An Experimental Comparison," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-050/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Pikulina, Elena S. & Tergiman, Chloe, 2020. "Preferences for power," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    10. Randolph Sloof & Ferdinand von Siemens, 2015. "Decision Initiation, Decision Implementation, and the Allocation of Decision Rights," CESifo Working Paper Series 5509, CESifo.
    11. Burdin, Gabriel & Halliday, Simon & Landini, Fabio, 2018. "The hidden benefits of abstaining from control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 1-12.
    12. Peter H. Kriss & Roberto Weber, 2013. "Organizational formation and change: lessons from economic laboratory experiments," Chapters, in: Anna Grandori (ed.), Handbook of Economic Organization, chapter 14, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Bartling, Björn & Grieder, Manuel & Zehnder, Christian, 2017. "Competitive pricing reduces wasteful counterproductive behaviors," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 34-47.
    14. Gary Charness & Ramón Cobo-Reyes & Juan A. Lacomba & Francisco Lagos & Jose Maria Perez, 2016. "Social comparisons in wage delegation: experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 433-459, June.
    15. Mathieu Chevrier & Vincent Teixeira, 2024. "Algorithm Delegation and Responsibility: Shifting Blame to the Programmer?," GREDEG Working Papers 2024-04, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France, revised Sep 2024.
    16. De Chiara, Alessandro & Engl, Florian & Herz, Holger & Manna, Ester, 2022. "Control Aversion in Hierarchies," FSES Working Papers 527, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Freiburg/Fribourg Switzerland.
    17. Argenton, Cédric & Potters, Jan & Yang, Yadi, 2023. "Receiving credit: On delegation and responsibility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    18. Sutan, Angela & Vranceanu, Radu, 2016. "Lying about delegation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 29-40.
    19. Roman Inderst & Kiryl Khalmetski & Axel Ockenfels, 2019. "Sharing Guilt: How Better Access to Information May Backfire," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(7), pages 3322-3336, July.
    20. Tobias Regner, 2018. "Reciprocity under moral wiggle room: Is it a preference or a constraint?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(4), pages 779-792, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Delegation; Moral preference; Dictator game;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:181:y:2019:i:c:p:186-189. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.