Download This PaperInterpreting Redistribution in the Spectator Game
20 Pages Posted: 19 May 2020
Date Written: April 22, 2020
Abstract
Spectators act as a third party, and their decisions affect the payoff for other subjects but not for themselves; there is no trade-off between “one’s own” and “others’” payoff. This feature has caused spectator design to emerge as tool to measure spectators’ inequality preferences as redistribution among “others.” Here, we conducted a spectator experiment in which we fixed the redistribution choice set and varied the salience of the “no distribution” choice. We found a strong effect from this; in the more salience treatment, the inequality that the spectators implemented increased from medium, at 0.34, to very high, at 0.62. After the spectators made their redistribution choice, we asked them what motivated their choice. Analyzing the answers gave support that non-distributive norms matters in the spectator situations.
Keywords: Spectator game; measurement of inequality; salience; exit option
JEL Classification: D63,D90
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