Justice and Fairness

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Justice and Fairness

• Karl Schurter
• Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science

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Fairness is not Just

• Fair derived from fair play
• Different connotations
• Das ist nicht fair
• Fair implies equity
• Equal opportunity
• Equal reward

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The Philosophy of Justice

• Retributive vs. Distributive
• Just desert
• How do we calculate desert?
• Veil of ignorance

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Judging an Application

• Reason does not deliver justice
• Criteria for desert
• Weight
• Achievement or potential

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Assumptions of the Veil of Ignorance

• There is only one just outcome
• Desert is calculable
• Not applicable to real problems
• Can be simulated in the laboratory

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Procedural Justice

• Clearly defined rules
• Informed consent
• Symmetric information
• Equal opportunity

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Hypotheses

• Justice and fairness are different motivational
  factors
• They have different impacts on economic
  decision-making

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Experimental Design

• Dictator Game
• Two players A and B
• Endowment given the pair
• Player A must unilaterally allocate the money
• Informed consent

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Property Rights

• Player A has property rights
• Method of entitlement affects allocation
  distribution
• Random
• Quiz
• Specialized quiz

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Treatments

• Random (Control)
• George Mason trivia quiz
• Seniority
• Die Roll

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Random (Control)

• Computer pairs players
• Game starts immediately

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George Mason Trivia Quiz

• Quiz begins
• Quizzes are scored and ranked
• Top player is made a player A
• Paired with last
• Tie goes to the player who finished first

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George Mason Trivia Quiz (Contd)

• Confounds justice and fairness
• Implications in other experimental research
• Inequity aversion
• Altruism

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Die Roll

• Emphasize fair procedure
• Players choose even or odd after instructions
• Whoever guessed correctly is Player A

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Seniority

• Emphasize justice
• Ranked by credit hours
• Draws on other campus privileges (housing,
  parking, course selection, etc.)

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Expected Results

• No formal theory prediction
• Random treatment will include larger gifts
• Impact of justice and fairness varies across
  cultures