Research report 2003 - Max Planck Institute of Economics (1993 until 2014)

A contest in the German weekly "Die Zeit" as a scientific experiment on bargaining behavior

Authors
Güth, Werner; Schmidt, Carsten; Sutter, Matthias
Departments

Strategische Interaktion (Prof. Dr. Werner Güth)
MPI für Ökonomik, Jena

Summary
Max Planck researchers acquire experimental subjects in cooperation with the German weekly "Die Zeit" instead of running laboratory experiments with students. Their intent is to study decision-making processes among newspaper readers in bargaining situations. The results of the study can be summarized as follows: young male participants with an academic degree who participated in the experiment via Internet seek to maximize their payoff, which is crucial in many economic models. Older female participants, having submitted their decision by mail or fax, prefer fair or moral solutions.

For the full text, see the German version.

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