Efficiency and Voluntary Redistribution under Inequality

Masaki Aoyagi, Naoko Nishimura and Yoshitaka Okano

ISER Discussion Paper from Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University

Abstract: This paper presents an experimental analysis of two-by-two coordination games in which player 1 earns a substantially higher payoff than player 2 except in the inefficient equilibrium where they earn the same payoffs. The main focus is on the comparison of two treatments with and without the ex post redistribution stage in which both players may voluntarily transfer their payoffs earned in the game to the other player. We find that (1) the transfer opportunity raises the probability of coordination on an efficient equilibrium, (2) a transfer from player 1 to player 2 is positive, and is higher when player 2 chooses the action corresponding to the efficient equilibrium, and hence (3) the transfer opportunity tends to improve the efficiency and equity of the final outcome. Furthermore, these tendencies are stronger when the two players have conflicting interests over the two equilibria than when they have common interests.

Date: 2017-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-gth
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.iser.osaka-u.ac.jp/library/dp/2017/DP0992.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dpr:wpaper:0992

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ISER Discussion Paper from Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Librarian ().