Humans often lie strategically. We study this problem in an ultimatum game with an informed proposer and an uninformed responder, where the former can send an unverifiable statement about his endowment. A simple message game with heterogenous players with respect to lying costs shows that in...

Combining the methodologies of experimental economics and molecular genetics, we report a genetic association between sex-hormone genes and ultimatum game (UG) behavior in a discovery sample from China and a replication sample from Israel. The androgen receptor gene is found to be associated...

In this paper we import a mainstream psychological theory, known as attachment theory, into economics and show the implications of this theory for economic behavior by individuals in the ultimatum bargaining game. Attachment theory examines the psychological tendency to seek proximity to another...

In three-party ultimatum games, the proposer can first decide whether to exclude one responder, which increases the available pie. The experiments control for intentionality of exclusion and veto power of the third party. We do not find evidence for indirect reciprocity of the remaining...

We show that subjects who set their minimum acceptable offer to zero in an ultimatum game are the most generous players in a dictator game. This finding challenges the interpretation of the acceptance of low offers as payoff-maximizing behavior.

Recent experimental research has shown that when rating systems are available, buyers are more generous in accepting unfair offers made by sellers. It has also shown that sellers make fairer decisions when they are rated, while some studies show that they are little affected by the rating...

Take-it or leave-it offers are probably as old as mankind. Our objective here is, first, to provide a, probably subjectively colored, recollection of the initial ultimatum game experiment, its motivation and the immediate responses. Second, we discuss extensions of the standard ultimatum...

We report results from an Ultimatum Game experiment with and without pre-play communication, conducted both in a real-world experimental laboratory and in the virtual world Second Life. In the laboratory, we replicate previous results that communication increases offers and agreement rates...

This paper shows that identical offers in an ultimatum game generate systematically different rejection rates depending on the other offers that are available to the proposer. This result casts doubt on the consequentialist practice in economics to define the utility of an action solely in terms...

This paper employs experiments to examine the effects of social comparisons in ultimatum bargaining. We inform responders on the average offer before they decide whether to accept or reject their specific offer. To provide a metric for social comparison effects, we compare them with another...