Sharing, Gift-Giving, and Optimal Resource Use Incentives in Hunter-Gatherer Society

In the typical hunter-gatherer society, decision-making is collective, yet decentralized, access to resources is shared, goods are typically distributed via reciprocal exchange, sharing, and gift-giving, and the distribution of both income and decision-making power is egalitarian. We argue these features are interrelated. We adopt an incentive-based view of sharing and gift-giving, in which the fundamental role of sharing and gift-giving is to implement socially desirable production decisions in the face of a common resource use problem. We show how this system decentralizes decision-making, while at the same time encouraging agents to make production decisions in the best interests of the group. Sharing rules give agents optimal use incentives, while gift-giving obligations give agents incentives to reveal private information about skill. The system has some interesting properties; for example, it may result in a relatively equal distribution of income, even though the productive capabilities of agents differ. Our theory is also able to account for some features of the ethnographic record that do not jibe well with existing theories of sharing; for example, why the rather extensive free-riding on the efforts of the most productive agents is typically tolerated in hunter-gatherer society.

Social Position and Distributive Justice: Experimental Evidence

Using a simple, double-blind dictator experiment, we examine the extent to which subjects\u27 choices of distributive shares are influenced by unearned social position. We measure social position by the initial distributive shares (resources) and the subjects\u27 ability to determine the final distributive shares (power). We find that subjects\u27 decisions are consistent with Rawls\u27 (1971) hypothesis that individuals expect a greater share when in a position with more power and initial resources. Finally, we test if subjects\u27 choices under a laboratory veil of ignorance are consistent with Rawls\u27 concept of distributive justice. Veiled individuals exhibit preferences that are less risk-averse and have greater variance than Rawls hypothesized. [excerpt

An Experimental Study of the Holdout Problem in a Multilateral Bargaining Game

When an economic exchange requires agreement by multiple independent parties, the potential exists for an individual to strategically delay agreement in an attempt to capture a greater share of the surplus created by the exchange. This holdout problem is a common feature of the land-assembly literature because development frequently requires the assembly of multiple parcels of land. We use experimental methods to examine holdout behavior in a laboratory bargaining game that involves multi-person groups, complementary exchanges, and holdout externalities. The results of six treatments that vary the bargaining institution, number of bargaining periods, and cost of delay demonstrate that holdout is common across institutions and is, on average, a payoff-improving strategy for responders. Both proposers and responders take a more aggressive initial bargaining stance in multi-period bargaining treatments relative to single-period treatments, but take a less aggressive bargaining stance when delay is costly. Nearly all exchanges eventually occur in our multi-period treatments, leading to higher overall efficiency relative to the single-period treatments, both with and without delay costs. [excerpt

Endowment Effects and Contribution Strategies in Public Good Experiments

We investigate behavior in a laboratory public good experiment with unique endowment schemes that allow a wider range of contribution strategies than in standard voluntary contribution mechanism (VCM) experiments. A baseline treatment follows a standard VCM design (subjects receive 10 tokens in each of 10 rounds that may be allocated between a private account and a group account). In a new carry-over treatment, any tokens not allocated to the group account in the current period are made available for contributions in future periods. Under full endowment, subjects receive 100 tokens in round one (rather than 10 tokens per round for each of 10 rounds). In the pledge treatment, subjects’ allocation decisions for an initial endowment of 100 tokens may be changed in any round and are binding only for the final round. We find that the size of the effective endowment and whether contributions are binding significantly impact subject decision making. Deviations from the free riding outcome are greater when subjects have a larger portion of their total endowment earlier in the experiment, and subjects contribute less when their contribution decisions are bindin

U. S. Naval Academy

Student volunteers at the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) participated in one of the following oneshot games: a dictator game, an ultimatum game, a trust game, or a prisoner’s dilemma game. We find limited support for the importance of personality type for explaining subjects ’ decisions. With controls for personality preferences, we find little evidence of behavioral differences between males and females. Furthermore, we conclude that seniority breeds feelings of entitlement- seniors at USNA generally exhibited the least cooperative or other-regarding behavior