This paper studies how children learn to bargain. We performed simple anonymous bargaining experiments with real payoffs with 256 children from age 8 to 18. On average, offers by even the youngest children were close to optimal, given the responses. Both offers and responses were similar to the...

In this paper we examine how risk attitudes change with age. We present participants from age 5 to 64 with choices between simple gambles and the expected value of the gambles. The gambles are over both gains and losses, and vary in the probability of the non-zero payoff. Surprisingly, we find...

The most distinctive prediction of prospect theory is the fourfold pattern (FFP) of risk attitudes. People are said to be (1) risk-seeking over low-probability gains, (2) risk-averse over low-probability losses, (3) risk-averse over high-probability gains, and (4) risk-seeking over...

This paper describes some simple economic experiments that can be done using children as subjects. We argue that by conducting experiments on children economists can gain insight into the origins of preferences, the development of bargaining behavior and rationality, and into the origins of...

In this paper we study trust/reciprocity behavior in children ages eight to eighteen using an augmented version of Berg et al.’s (1995) trust game. This study is intended to inspect and reveal when certain aspects of trust behavior are formed in individuals. In addition, we examine the affect...

We study the development of bargaining behavior in children age seven through 18, using ultimatum and dictator games. We find that bargaining behavior changes substantially with age and that most of this change appears to be related to changes in preferences for fairness, rather than bargaining...