Self-Serving Dictators

Abstract

We provide experimental evidence of self-serving fairness ideals in a dictator game. Our design includes treatments where funds can be transferred in two ways to the one player and in one way to the other. Two methods for transferring funds to the recipient produce generosity levels similar to those of the regular dictator game. However, two methods for transferring funds to the dictator reduce her generosity substantially. Hence, the fairness ideal adopted by dictators appears to be equal share per individual in the former case (as in the regular dictator game), and equal share per transfer method in the latter case.