Community standards of fairness for the setting of prices and wages were elicited by telephone surveys. In customer or labor markets it isacceptable for a firm to raise prices (or cut wages) when profits arethreatened, and to maintain prices when costs diminish. It is unfair toexploit shifts in...

Contrary to theoretical expectations, measures of willingness-to-accept greatly exceed measures of willingness-to-pay. This paper reports several experiments that demonstrate that this "endowment effect" persists even in market settings with opportunities to learn. Consumption objects (e.g.,...

Prescription dealing with redistribution questions are often influenced by the presumption that individuals behind a veil of ignorance will choose rules that lead to a greater equality of outcomes. However, such preferences may be fragile and dependent on particular circumstances. To the extent...

Recent findings of large differences between people's valuations of gains and losses imply that the common preference order axioms of completeness, transitivity, and dominance on which economic analyses and predictions of consumer behavior are largely based, may not be consistent with actual...