The fair division of losses

本项目旨在研究个人和公司行为者的分配问题。当前的Covid 19危机清楚地表明，在许多现实生活中，不仅需要分配收益，而且通常(货币)成本、(卫生纸短缺，或者更糟糕的是，呼吸器或重症监护病房)需要分配损失。这就提出了一个问题：行为者如何在必须分担损失的情况下作出决定，以及是什么影响了他们的行为？前身项目的研究工具已证明其效用，因此应予以保留。这意味着我们继续将博弈论与前景理论的假设相结合，并将其应用于最后通牒博弈(UG)和独裁者博弈(DG)，以进一步研究公平在讨价还价中的作用。在我们之前的项目中，我们能够证明，在使用货币预付机制的实验中，损失可以真实地产生。我们发现，与收益领域的类似决定相比，人们在一次性决定损失方面不那么慷慨。我们以前的发现表明，这种公平规范的侵蚀是由于受试者的公平偏好(强制性规范)和我们对决策情境的实验性操纵(描述性规范)的交互作用。在这个后续项目中，我们想从两个方面来研究这一方法。首先，我们希望对先例项目预定的一次性决定进行一系列实验，即在可能受到制裁的损失领域做出一次性决定。众所周知，制裁(代价高昂)的可能性已经增加了合作(这里：公平)行为，而且没有实际执行制裁。然而，对于亏损领域来说，这绝不是微不足道的。在这里，代价高昂的制裁不会导致进一步的利润损失--这在实验室实验中通常是这样--而是导致更多的损失。这使得制裁、从而在理论上不太可能实现公平规范的稳定。由于被禁止进行实验室实验，Covid 19危机阻止了对公平决策中规范的调查。第二，我们想要评估当预期改变时重复决策中公平规范的稳健性。我们预计，如果受试者对其他受试者行为的预期(描述性规范)被证明是错误的，那么最初稳健的公平决定将随着时间的推移而改变。在这方面，我们已经进行了一项试验性研究，并反复进行了DG。这项研究经验表明，在这两个领域，无论是收益还是损失，当重复决策时，公平准则都会受到侵蚀。此外，损失域的行为动力学不同于收益域的行为动力学。在这项后续研究中，我们希望使用我们之前描述的理论和方法工具，在重复使用UG和DG的一系列实验中，系统地检查这些发现。

This project aims at the examination of distribution problems of individual and corporate actors. The current Covid 19 crisis strikingly shows that in many real-life situations not only gains need to be divided, but that often (monetary) costs, shortage (of toilet paper, or worse, of respirators or intensive care units), say losses are to be divided. This raises the question: How do actors decide in situations in which losses have to be divided and what influences their behavior?The research tools of the precursor project have proven their utility and shall therefore be retained. This means that we continue to combine Game Theory with assumptions of the Prospect Theory and apply it to Ultimatum Games (UG) and Dictator Games (DG) to further investigate the role of fairness in bargaining over losses. In our previous project, we were able to show that losses can be realistically induced in experiments using a monetary prepaid mechanism. We showed that people are less generous in one-shot decisions over losses as in similar decisions in the domain of gains. Our previous findings indicate that this eroding of the fairness norm is due to an interaction of subjects’ fairness preferences (injunctive norm) and our experimental manipulation of the decision situation (descriptive norm).In this follow-up project we want to pursue this approach on two tracks. First, we want to conduct the series of experiments on one-shot decisions that had been scheduled for the precedent project, namely one-shot decisions in the loss domain with the possibility of sanctions. It is well known that already the (costly) possibility of sanctions increase cooperative (here: fair) behavior, and that without having the sanctions actually being executed. However, this is by no means trivial for the domain of losses. Costly sanctions here do not lead to further lost profits - as is usually the case in laboratory experiments - but to additional losses. This makes sanctions and thus the stabilization of the fairness norm theoretically less likely. The investigation of norms in fair decisions was prevented by the Covid 19 crisis since it was inhibited to conduct laboratory experiments.Second, we want to evaluate the robustness of the fairness norm in repeated decisions when expectations are changed. We expect that initially robust fair decisions will change over time if subjects’ expectations regarding the behavior of other subjects (descriptive norm) have been proved wrong. In this regard, we already conducted a pilot study with repeated DG. This study shows empirically that in both domains, gains and losses, fairness norms erode when decisions are made repeatedly. Furthermore, the behavioral dynamics in the loss domain differ from those in the domain of gains. In this follow-up study we want to systematically examine these findings using our previously described theoretical and methodological instruments in an experimental series with repeated UG and DG.