Norms in Economic and Ethical Environments

Abstract

In this chapter, we describe some observations in single experiments. First, we deal with a phenomenon of agreements allocating non strongly Pareto optimal payoff pairs. We investigate the arguments the subjects use in the discussions with their group partner when they decide upon their offers. From the bargaining behavior in some of the games we can conclude that envy plays a role. The effect of envy is due to a certain power of the equal payoff principle. In some experiments this principle was not dominated by a collective efficiency principle defined by the strong Pareto efficiency in payoffs.