Working Paper: NBER ID: w25257
Authors: James Andreoni; Deniz Aydin; Blake Barton; B. Douglas Bernheim; Jeffrey Naecker
Abstract: In settings with uncertainty, tension exists between ex ante and ex post notions of fairness (e.g., equal opportunity versus equal outcomes). In a laboratory experiment, the most common behavioral pattern is for subjects to select the ex ante fair alternative ex ante, and switch to the ex post fair alternative ex post. One potential explanation embraces consequentialism and construes the reversals as manifestations of time inconsistency. Another abandons consequentialism in favor of deontological (rule-based) ethics, and thereby avoids the implication that revisions imply inconsistency. We test between these explanations by examining contingent planning and the demand for commitment. While the population appears to be heterogeneous, our findings suggest that the most common attitude toward fairness involves a time-consistent preference for applying naive deontological rules.
Keywords: fairness; social preferences; choice reversals; consequentialism; deontological ethics
JEL Codes: D03; D63
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| fairness perceptions (D63) | choice reversals (D81) |
| ex ante fair allocations (D63) | ex post fair allocations (D61) |
| demand for commitment (J20) | choice reversals (D81) |
| time-inconsistent consequentialist reasoning (D15) | demand for commitment (J20) |