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SELF-SERVING BIAS AND REDISTRIBUTION IN A

CONTINUOUS SETTING

Elena-Maria Smprini

(11831804)

Track: Behavioral Economics and Game Theory

ECTS:18

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ABSTRACT

Self-serving bias and Redistribution in a Continuous Setting

Elena-Maria Smprini

Supervisor:

Dr. Joël van der Weele

The present study investigates the impact of attitudes towards success and failure and wealth inequality on the degree of redistribution. Subjects made redistributive choices in a dictator game where the source of income was either ambiguous or unambiguous. I did not find any significant difference in the average redistribution between the two environments. The subjects completed a task which determined their role in the game. The differences in wealth were induced by the presence of a variation in the endowments of the participants. The endowment of a participant influenced her beliefs towards success and affected the preferences for redistribution not only when it defined a different role for the person but also when it determined its position among her peers. The dictators with lower scores favored redistribution more, even if they had earned their role as a dictator in the game. An analysis aimed to estimate the additional share of redistribution that people endorse when there is no self-interest.

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Statement of Originality:

This document is written by Elena Maria Smprini who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of

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APPROVED BY:

________________________________________________

Dr. Joël van der Weele, ​Faculty of Economics and Business

APPROVED BY:

________________________________________________

Dr. Ivan Soraperra, Faculty of Economics and Business

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SELF-SERVING BIAS AND REDISTRIBUTION IN A CONTINUOUS

SETTING

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

University of Amsterdam

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Master’s Program in Economics

By

Elena-Maria Smprini

Amsterdam, Netherlands

July 2018

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction 2. Literature

2.1 Attitudes and preferences for Redistribution 2.1.1 Economic Man

2.1.2 Social Preferences 2.2 Formation of beliefs and attitudes

2.2.2 Economic Experience

2.2.3 Self-serving bias and attitudes to success/failur​e 3. ​The Experiment

3.1. Experimental Design

3.1.1 Dictator with Ambiguity 3.1.2 Benevolent Dictator 3.1.3 Dictator with Luck 4. ​Hypotheses

5. ​The Results

5​.1 General results

5​.1.1 Dictator with Ambiguity 5​.1.2 Benevolent Dictator 5.1.3 ​Dictator with Luck 5​.2 Hypotheses

5​.2.1 Treatment effect on Redistribution 5​.2.2 Beliefs

5​.2.3 Wealth inequality - Self serving bias 6​. Discussion

Ap​pendix ​References

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1.

Introduction

Over the last three decades, the income inequality increase in the developed world appears to challenge economists, with the determinants of this phenomenon constituting a central topic for economic research and policy discussion (​Gordon and Dew-Becker, 2008; Heathcote et al., 2010​ ). ​Duca and Saving (2016) pointed that wealth inequality is related to political polarization, and raised questions about the impact of the interaction in preferences for redistribution. The outstanding prevalence of inequality across the world is accompanied by a variation of compensation and redistribution policies. Countries with greater wealth gap exhibit less support for redistributive policies and greater acceptance of the situation. A comparison between the highly unequal United States of America and Western Europe provides further evidence in favor of the trend (​ Kerr, 2014​). Additionally, ​Almas et al. (2016)

showed that Scandinavians hold different views from Americans regarding the source of income inequality in societies. Scandinavians favored redistribution at higher rates although they were presented with identical situations and complete information about the source of inequality.

People’s perceptions about the sources of wealth or poverty (self-reliance versus societal factors) seem to transform the level of redistribution across otherwise comparable societies (​Cruces et al. 2013​ ), but can people always estimate the source of wealth inequality? In many cases, individual income (or in general success) is partially earned and partially a result of random factors. If we consider that people are born with unequal opportunities, (for instance, we are born in different countries or in families with different education background and wealth) it is not clear whether someone’s success in life comes from her individual characteristics and effort or by other external factors. Social norms and law require social support for minorities and the less fortunate members of the society. Once again, in some cases the source of poverty is not easily defined and the fair amount of redistribution is difficult to be determined. These challenges beg the question of how people’s perceptions about the source of wealth are affected by ambiguity and consequently how this environment affects the preferences for redistribution. It is important to examine if the preferences for redistribution change between an ambiguous and an unambiguous situation.

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The supply for redistribution is not only shaped by people’s perceptions about the source of income but also by economic experience (​Deffains et al., 2016​ ). Successful participants in a real effort task seem to redistribute less units between two other players. The effect of economic experience, however, has been studied only for two groups of people, the overachievers (decision makers) and the underachievers (recipients). We do not know a great deal about the preferences for redistribution of people with the same role in decision making but with different endowments. A continuous setup of earnings creates a more realistic environment and allows us to observe if there is polarization of beliefs among people with the same property rights. Which is, therefore, the effect of the beliefs and economic experience on redistribution in a continuous setting of earnings?

This paper aims to answer these questions and studies how the attitudes towards redistribution are affected by the ambiguity about the source of income and the differences in the relative income of participants. The main focus of my work is the degree of redistribution between rich and poor members of a society and contributes to the literature on social preferences which is analyzed in the next section. The experimental approach describes a situation in which participants do not know if earnings from a task are determined by merit or partly by luck. I am examining whether this ambiguous environment affects the preferences for redistribution and whether differences in wealth generate different attitudes toward redistribution among decision makers. The earnings of the participants are described by a continuous setup in order to investigate the impact of the wealth differences on redistribution. The main findings of the study are summarized below. First, the average redistribution in the ambiguous environment does not differ significantly from the average redistribution in the unambiguous context. Nevertheless, the preferences for redistribution seem to differentiate, since in the first case there is more egalitarianism and in the second more libertarianism . Second, people's attitudes toward success and failure are negatively affected1

by the earnings of an individual. The analysis also shows that the magnitude of individual’s earnings matters even if there is no self-interest. More specifically, the less successful participants tend to redistribute more even when all the subjects have obtained the same role in the game. Third, I investigated whether the level of wealth inequality reinforces the effect of biased views towards success on redistribution and amplify the income differences, or it

1We refer to the fairness ideas: strict egalitarianism, libertarianism, and liberal egalitarianism as presented by ​ Cappelen et

al. (2007)​. These fairness ideas could be described by the “max-min” principle ​ (Rawls, 1971)​, the entitlement theory and the accountability principle ​(Konow, 2000)​ ​respectively.

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creates a reverse effect due to inequality aversion and restricts the result of self-serving bias in preferences for distribution. I found that the relation between wealth inequality and redistribution was close to zero in both ambiguous and unambiguous treatments. Moreover, libertarianism, was observed even in the unambiguous environment. Some people seem to attribute their success to their abilities and distributed according to the scores, even though it was clarified to them that the earnings were randomly determined. Finally, an effort was made to estimate the additional share of redistribution that people endorse when there is no self-interest.

The paper proceeds as follows. The second section presents a preview of the related literature about the preferences for redistribution and their determinants. The third section describes the experimental design. The fourth section develops the hypotheses of the study. The fifth, presents the results of the experiment and the analysis of the data and the sixth section concludes.

2.

Literature

What are the preferences for redistribution and how are they affected by attitudes towards luck and effort in success? The present study deals with the determinants of distribution in an ambiguous environment and focuses on the role of belief polarization and the magnitude of wealth inequality. I will briefly summarize the relevant literature about people’s distributive choices and I will focus the review on the literature about the factors that influence this behavior as it is more closely related to my research.

2.1 Attitudes and preferences for Redistribution

2.1.1 Economic Man

Some studies claim that an individual’s belief about what is considered fair reallocation is affected by the result of the redistribution on her income (​ Roberts, 1977; Varian, 1979​). The determinant for redistribution in this case is self-interest and personal values. ​Ubeda (2014) separates the self-interested behavior in pure selfish and self-serving behavior. When people are trying to optimize their material reward and directly benefit from redistribution, Ubeda classifies it as pure selfish behavior. Selfish people are not concerned

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about the well-being of others. In experimental economics people who present purely selfish behavior with maximizing strategy are consistent across contexts. ​Brosig et al. (2007) showed that individuals who have only monetary incentives and no social conscience display a selfish behavior regardless the context and the environment. This behavior is known as the “homo economicus effect” (​Varian, 1979​). Contrarily, Ubeda claims that self-serving behavior combines multiple behavioral incentives and people in this case face a trade-off between material incentives and social concerns for others. The self-serving use of these motives is characterized as self-interest. For example, Durante et al., (2014) mentioned that self-interest can induce preferences for redistribution as a form of social insurance in people with average or above-average income. In this case, self-interest is presented in the form of self-serving behavior, as the wealthier people indirectly exploit these policies to secure their property.

2.1.2 Social Preferences

On the opposite side, there are many studies that question the validity of the homo economicus effect as a general redistributive behavior rule in democratic societies (​ Bütler, 2000; Boeri et al., 2001; Ackert et al., 2007​). ​Henrich et al. (2001)​ , conducted a cross-national survey and found that the “Economic Man” model was not sustained in any society they had studied. Instead, they discovered that the form of reallocation presented large variety across different societies and distinct social groups. People might behave selfishly, but there are also individuals who care about the payoffs of others. ​ Arrow (1963)​, observed that individuals show a propensity to offer equal resources to all members in a society or to equalize the existing differences in wealth, implying that preferences are not directly related to personal income. A possible explanation for this altruistic behavior is the common consensus that a large share of people draw gratification by living in an “ethical” society (​Thurow, 1971​). In accordance with this, ​Andreoni and Miller (2002)​, studied unselfish behavior and displayed that these preferences can be economically rational. In other words, some people are willing to sacrifice their own payoff in order to minimize wealth inequality. Thus, people illustrate concerns about both their own and others’ payoff when they are making redistributive decisions.

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2.1.3 Heterogeneity in Preferences

In the social preferences literature, there are many studies that detect a trade-off between multiple factors which generate a variety in the preferences for redistribution.

Balafoutas et al. (2013)​ , examined the trade-off between “equality, equity and incentives” in a lab experiment. In their study, the subjects were initially endowed with unequal wealth. They had to redistribute their units either in a group project, in which the funds would be ascended, or in a private account. Then, the members of each group had to elect a redistributive regime in the group project. The regime options were an egalitarian rule, a proportional rule and a combination of these procedures. They found that during the voting procedure, people were affected by an egalitarian and equity interest.

People express diverse concerns about justice and equity, which by extent generate mixed preferences for redistributive policies. ​In some situations people seem to worry more about the efficiency or the self-interest, regardless if these concerns lead to decisions which increase inequality. In other cases people present aversion το inequality and are willing to sacrifice their personal earnings in order to diminish income differences. ​ Engelman and Strobel (2002) found that the impact of efficiency and maximin preferences is more robust than that of inequity aversion in redistributive choices. In contrary, ​ Korenok et al. (2012)

showed the reverse result that the majority of dictators in their experiment exhibited inequality aversion while the maximin preferences were less important. In addition, some individuals are affected by reciprocity and prefer equalizing policies, while others learn what is considered fair by their social environment and act accordingly to avoid disconformity (​Piketty, 1995​).

There are many economic models which attempt to combine these effects and demonstrate the preference for redistribution as a function of various attitudes towards fairness. In their model, ​ Alesina and Angeletos, (2005) exhibited how the relation between “social beliefs” and “welfare policies” can generate more than one equilibrium, not only the strict egoistic behavior accompanied by the complete acceptance of wealth inequality. ​ Tyran and Sausgruber (2006) used the adapted inequality aversion model to study behavior in a2 simple public goods game with an ex-post redistribution rule. They found that this model

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could predict better the behavior of individuals than the classical models which assume absolute rationality and selfishness.

The literature suggests that people highly value the individuals with whom they have common interests, characteristics, or belong in the same groups and associations. Motivated by this idea, ​Klor and Shayo (2010) examined the impact of group identity against self-interest on wealth reallocation. They assigned different earnings to the members of two distinct groups and asked them to choose a redistributive tax. They showed that people tend to favor the distribution choices that benefit their cohorts rather than maximize their money payout.

2.2 Formation of beliefs and attitudes

In experimental economics, there is great interest about the factors underlying the formation of personal opinions on wealth inequality and redistribution. There are many studies that investigate the reasons that generate the heterogeneity in beliefs and the factors that could modify them. One of the purposes of the present study is to investigate how some of these factors influence beliefs in a continuous setting and what are the consequences to the distributive choices. This section reviews the literature about the components that shape the attitudes regarding deployment policies.

2.2.1 Source of income

The source of income is considered one of the major determinants of individuals’ perspectives on wealth inequality, as people appear sensitive to the process that income is earned. ​Konow (2000)​, proposed the accountability principle, according to which the fair allocation is determined by the variables that one person can influence, like his work and effort, and not by the variables that he cannot affect, like a physical handicap. In other words, individuals should only be empowered to the wealth produced by the means they can logically affect. Konow (2000), showed that when the source of income was randomly determined then the disinterested dictators prefered an equal split, while when the income was affected by merit the redistribution was analogous to the effort. In agreement with this, people tend to be more favorable towards increasing distributive outcomes, when they think that income originated from luck, network and family history rather than individual effort,

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education and ability. This happens because in the first case differences in income between individuals are considered unjustifiable while in the second case justifiable (​ Alesina and Angeletos, 2005​).

Cappelen et al. (2017)​ , designed an ambiguous environment in which luck partially affected the monetary payoff and asked participants to decide the amount of money they wanted to transfer from a wealthier to a poorer subject. They observed that the introduction of merit as a source of income had a significant effect on the share allocated to the wealthier participant. This implied that the third-party subjects highly valued the effort and the abilities of the other subjects and accepted the existing wealth inequality. Therefore, when people have distinct “production functions” and assign strong superiority and importance to the effort or luck then they will favor low or high redistribution respectively.

In our experiment we examine the decisions for redistribution regarding the source of income in a similar setting as that of Cappelen et al. (2017). This format guarantees that reported attitudes are shaped by inequality aversion instead of risk aversion. We use a game with luck and a game with effort. In the present study, subjects were asked to make redistributive choices following the performance of a math task or a game of luck which would determine their social status. Possible deviations from selfish behavior will be a result of fairness concerns, altruism or inequality aversion. One of the main differences with the experimental design of Cappelen et al (2017) is the fact that the decision makers were “spectators” who did not take part in the task that determined the property rights of the participants and consequently their social position. The subjects in our experiment participated in a task in order to define their endowment, regardless if they had a disinterested or an involved role in the game.

2.2.2 Economic Experience

One of the questions that many studies attempted to answer was whether the acceptance of social support and taxation is related to the economic experience (​ Frohlich and Oppenheimer, 1990; Cabrales et al., 2012; Kataria and Montinari, 2012; Cassar and Klein, 2016​). All these studies differ from those presented before because they contain a production function in their experimental design. Subjects defined their endowment by participating in a real effort task or more general in a production phase. For example, ​ Frohlich and Oppenheimer (1990) found that people prefer regimes in which all the members of society

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earn at least a minimum income but with the introduction of a production function they also favor the systems in which the members that produce more are compensated for their contribution.

Kataria and Montinari (2012) tested how the preferences for redistribution are modified according to a combination of the source of income and the economic history. They showed that attitudes towards taxation change when the income is determined by chance, effort or a combination of these two. Their experiment also differs from the previous studies, at the point that the decision makers were not disinterested dictators but their final payoffs would be affected by their reallocation choices. They found that the willingness to redistribute was slightly higher during the luck treatment and there was no striking difference between the effort and the combination of effort and luck, even when subjects were asked to decide after participating in the production phase.

Deffains et al. (2016) investigated the influence of economic experience on the preferences for redistributive systems. ​Participants were paired in groups and earned tokens in a real effort task. They were categorized as overachievers or underachievers according to their score in the task and were asked to choose a distributive rule for the group they had been assigned to. They were informed that their payoff would be affected by a shock (positive or negative) and that their final payout would be determined by the redistributive regime. Deffains et al. (2016) found that economic experience affected the attitudes of the subjects with the overachievers opting for redistribution proportionally to pre-shock payoffs and underachievers prefering to equally divide the sum of the after-shock payoffs.

2.2.3 Self-serving bias and attitudes to success/failure

People are sensitive to economic experience and to the way income is acquired, but entitlements and experience seem to be susceptible to the subjectivity of people. ​ Benabou and Tirole (2006) investigated why people need to believe in a fair world and how these beliefs change across different countries leading to a variation in political views. They attempted to design a model of ideology and examined the influence of the personal goals and the psychological needs on the formation of beliefs and consequently to redistributive policies. They argued that people struggle to motivate themselves towards personal investment and development, and the belief in a fair world creates the necessary stimuli to put more effort. When more people consider that economic success is mainly determined by effort then there

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are more voters who will support and induce a low redistributive policy (or a lower tax). These beliefs, however, can be biased and generate polarized attitudes towards redistribution.

Individual sentiments about fairness or justice turn out to be biased when people face a trade-off between self-interest and personal morality in order to preserve their self-concept and boost their self-image (​Mazar et al., 2008​ ). As an example, it is more gratifying for a poor person to think of himself as hardworking but unlucky and not as lazy. If we consider the accountability principle of ​ Konow (2000) rich people who strive for success are more likely to favor low taxes on effort than the rich people who are just lucky. There is one situation, though, in which lucky people deceive themselves into believing luck was not a success factor, instead they convince themselves that their economic privilege is due to effort and ability. Konow (2000) analyzed how people divide jointly earned rewards and proved that they employ self-deception when they face the trade-off between self-interest and self-awareness “under a veil of ignorance” about income. Under this point of view, attitudes towards redistribution are not simply related to experience and source of income but also to the perception of these two factors, which can be easily biased ​ (Benabou and Tirole, 2002; Carillo and Mariotti, 2000)​.

People who blame bad luck for failure and credit their personal effort and skills for success appear to comprehend and support those who are similar to them. ​ Deffains et al. (2016) in a second study split the participants in their experiment to overachievers and underachievers according to their performance in an easy or difficult real effort task. Then, they asked them to redistribute the sum of the wealth between two other participants, one with high and one with low score, while their own payout was not affected by their decisions. They observed that underachievers favored redistribution to a poor participant more than overachievers. In that treatment, there was ambiguity about the source of income because the subjects did not know in which task they had been assigned to. Despite that, the preferences for redistribution were affected by a self-serving bias towards success and failure. The experimental design of Deffains et al. (2016) is similar to the setup of the experiment presented below.

But are there any other influences that cause variations in the attitudes towards redistribution? What all these studies have in common is that they implicitly assume that the redistributive behavior is the same for every individual in a specific social group and only success and failure affect social preferences. If the attitude regarding redistribution varies

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with the earnings of participants even when they have earned the right to make decisions about wealth distribution, then the degree of wealth inequality could affect the preferences of individuals. More specifically, in the studies mentioned in this section there were only two groups of people, the overachievers and the underachievers while in the present study we want to examine a continuous setting of performance (income) and test how the relative differences affect the share of preferred redistribution​ . ​This component makes the present study more realistic and allows to study the existence of ingroup polarization of attitudes towards redistribution.

3.

The Experiment

The experiment explores the impact of both wealth inequality and self-serving bias, with respect to success and failure, on redistribution. The general idea was to provide a set of strategies to dictators who had earned their income due to luck or due to an ambiguous way and examine how people will react to fine differences in the performance of the potential receivers in each case. The experiment allow us to examine in(consistent) behavior and the effect of wealth inequality and self-serving bias on redistribution.

Experimental Design

I conducted an online dictator experiment with three treatments. The online platform “Gorilla.sc” was used to program the interface and 186 participants were recruited from the online labor market Amazon Mechanical Turk. In the beginning of the experiment, subjects3 were informed that one in each five participants would get an additional bonus and would be paid according to her decisions or the decisions of some other subjects. The bonus ranged from zero to six euros.

The experiment started with subjects answering some questions for statistical purposes. These questions were about demographic characteristics (age, education, gender, nationality, occupation) and about personal beliefs in wealth inequality, the role of luck in life and politics. The questionnaire was included because these characteristics and ideologies could affect the individual decision making and consequently, could be considered essential for the results of this study. Then, the subjects were randomly assigned to one of the three

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following treatments. The first one was the “Dictator with Ambiguity”, which provided a measure of redistribution under wealth variations and ambiguity. The second was the “Dictator with Luck”, which offered a measure of redistribution under wealth variations in an unambiguous environment and the third was the “Benevolent Dictator with Ambiguity”, which presented a control of the participants’ beliefs towards success.

In the first part of these treatments, subjects participated in a math task or in a game of chance, which determined their score in the game. During the math task, subjects were asked to solve a set of eighteen math problems, with a variation in difficulty, in six minutes. The problems presented some sequences of numbers and their solution required addition, multiplication or subtraction of numbers. All participants were presented with the same problems but in a different order. They were given four possible answers in each problem but only one was correct. This task was first tested in thirty volunteers with different backgrounds, to ensure that there will not be self-selection so that, only the people who were good in maths would be able to face these problems. The results showed that, the task in the form presented to the subjects, was relevant to the focus and attention of the volunteers and not to their educational background. Also, six minutes was the average time that these people needed in order to solve the test, even if there were some mistakes. The goal of this task was to induce a feeling of entitlement to the dictators.

Participants were informed that, there were two groups, one with high value and one with low value. In each group, they could earn ten units per correct answer and in the high valued-task they would earn an additional bonus of twenty, thirty or forty units. The score, consequently, derived by their effort (the number of problems solved correctly during the task) and a random component (the value of the task). Subjects did not know which group they had been assigned to. They could estimate how their score was generated but they could not be sure about the source of the income of the other participants. This ambiguous environment favored the development of self-serving bias as presented and analyzed previously in the theory, which is one of the main parts of this study.

During the tasks, participants were collecting Experimental Currency Units (ECUs), and their final score was converted at Euros, at the end of the experiment. The exchange rate was 45 ECU = 1 EURO. For convenience, the minimum score in each treatment was equal to 30 and the maximum score was equal to 180. We view this score as the wealth of the subjects and this characteristic defined the role of the players in the second part of the experiment.

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The subjects could be assigned either to the role of the dictator or to the role of the receiver during the stage of the redistribution. More specifically, the players who scored above one hundred were assigned to the role of the dictator, while the rest of the participants were considered receivers. Following, I present each treatment and explain their significance for the analysis.

3.1.1. Dictator with Ambiguity

Subjects participated in two parts: a math task, which is described above, and a redistribution part. Once they had completed the task, subjects were presented with their score and were asked some questions in order to quantify the beliefs about effort and luck. This way, I could induce a self-serving bias with respect to success and failure, and then examine how beliefs will influence people’s decisions during the redistribution. This procedure was initially proposed by ​ Deffains et al. (2016) in their experiment, as mentioned before. In the present study, participants answered to what extent (in a range from 0 to 10) they believed that their score in the math task was due to: the difficulty of the task, the luck, their skills and their focus - attention . The first two elements describe situational factors 4

(known and as external factors) which occur from the environment or other people and cannot be affected by the subjects . The last two elements refer to individual factors (known 5 and as dispositional factors), which are personal characteristics like personality traits and genetics. According to the theory about self-serving bias people tend to attribute their failure to situational factors and their success to individual factors. I calculated the ratio of the external factors over the individual factors for my analysis and in the following, I will refer to this ratio as beliefs . 6

eliefs

B = Difficulty of task + LuckAbilities + F ocus

The participants with a score over one hundred continued to the second part of the

4There is a screenshot with this step of the experiment in the second section of the Appendix.

5For example, the difficulty of the math task was determined by the experimenter and it was not a factor that the subjects could choose. In addition the luck could not be manipulated as participants were randomly assigned to the groups. 6For the rest of the study, the terms: beliefs, manipulation index and manipulation indicator refer to the ratio presented in this section.

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experiment while the rest of the participants were informed if they were chosen for the additional payout, and then the experiment was over for them.

In the beginning of the second part, participants answered two questions of understanding and the subjects who answered correctly, continued to the redistribution part. At this stage, participants were presented with five strategies and were asked to decide the amount of units, they wanted to transfer to the “poorer” player. They had to allocate the sum of their units and the units of some other players in five rounds of redistribution. The scores of the receivers ranged between thirty and one hundred and were shown in a random order, so that the dictators would not be affected by the order effect. It was also clarified that all participants had taken part in the math test, but receivers were not necessarily assigned to the same group (high or low value) with dictators. The distributors, therefore, did not know whether these people had earned their units with effort or whether their score was affected by the bonus. During the allocation the dictators could observe the specific scores of the other participants. This design generated an ambiguous environment about the source of the wealth while at the same time the wealth inequality (the difference in the performance) changed among strategies, allowing us to measure the redistribution in this situation. At the end of the treatment, the dictators were informed if they were chosen to get the additional payout and the experiment was over.

3​.1.2. Benevolent Dictator

Subjects participated in two parts: a math task and a redistribution part. The first part was exactly the same with that of the previous treatment. The participants who continued to the redistribution part, observed a series of strategies in which they were presented with the scores of eight “pairs of participants”. In this stage, the dictators had to allocate the sum of the units of two other players each time, in eight rounds of decision-making. They had the opportunity to transfer units from the wealthiest to the poorest participant, while observing the scores of both players. Specifically, the scores of the wealthy subjects ranged from 110 to 180 while the scores of the poor people ranged from 30 to 100 and the matched pairs were presented in a random order. The dictators were informed that the scores of these players were determined by the math task, but they might not have been assigned to the same group.

In this treatment, the dictators knew that their payoff would not be affected by their decisions in the strategies as they had the role of a “third-party”, and could earn a fix

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amount, unrelated to the redistribution part. If they were chosen they would be paid according to their score in the math task, so their decisions were freed from self-interest. This type of dictator is known as “benevolent dictator”, proposed by ​ Konow (2000)​. I used this type of dictator to examine the effect of the beliefs with respect to success and failure in redistribution for different combinations of “income”. The wealth inequality between the matched subjects was constant among the strategies in order to exclude its impact on redistribution and test the effect of the score of the dictator and the “poor” receiver in decision-making.

This treatment would also present a measure of the unbiased level of redistribution. The design of the experiment makes feasible the comparison of the redistributive decisions (the percentage of redistribution) in this part with the redistributive decisions (the percentage of redistribution) in the dictator game with ambiguity, for similar wealth changes. As follows, I can analyze how the self-serving bias regarding the effort and luck, affects the redistributive choices. Therefore, I could estimate the additional share of redistribution that people endorse when there is no self-interest and distinguish the effect of self-serving bias from the personal views about fair redistribution. In the case that a person distributes less in the Dictator with Ambiguity compared to the Benevolent Dictator (for the same wealth difference), this difference could be caused by self-serving behavior.

3.1.3. Dictator with Luck

In this treatment I used the classic dictator game in which the scores of participants were determined by a game of chance. In comparison to the previous groups, there was unambiguity about the participants’ source of income and no property right effect from the effort task. So, this design could provide a measure of redistribution in a certain environment. In the first part of the treatment, the computer randomly determined the score of the subjects and presented it, in the form of dice outcomes. Participants were shown an animation of three rolling dice and were informed that the sum of the revealed numbers multiplied by ten would be their score for this experiment. They knew that each die could give any number between one and six and each of these numbers was equally likely. After “rolling” the three dice, the scores were revealed and the roles of the subjects were determined.

The second part of the treatment was similar to that of the dictator with ambiguity. The subjects, initially, answered two questions of understanding and those who answered

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correctly, continued to the redistribution part. Then, the dictators were presented with a series of strategies and were asked to decide the number of units they wanted to transfer to the “poorer” receiver. In addition, the participants were informed, that both their score and the score of the other players were randomly determined by the computer, in the task with the dice. The dictators observed five scores of other participants and in each case they had to redistribute the sum of their score and the score of each receiver, knowing that one of their decisions could affect their payoff and the final payoff of another player. After five rounds of redistribution the participants were informed about the additional payment and the total experiment ended.

In this treatment there was no ambiguity in order to examine the effect of the wealth inequality on redistribution. This way, I controlled for inequity aversion, which could influence the decision making, as it is shown in previous studies. With the term inequity aversion we refer to the tendency of people to oppose to unequal results, as defined by ​ Fehr and Schmidt (1999)​.

1.

Hypotheses

The purpose of this study is to examine whether redistribution is affected by the beliefs of people about the importance of luck and effort in success and by the perception that the difference in the performance of others matters. Ι used a continuous setting to describe the earnings of the participants and generated ambiguity about the source of income in order to analyze how beliefs change in respect to small changes in performance. The continuous setup generates a more realistic environment and allows for examination of the differences in beliefs and redistribution not only between distinct groups of people but also inside a group.

First, I want to examine if there are any treatment effects in redistribution. ​ Cappelen et al. (2017) introduce two conditions about fair allocations, the Fairness Consistency and the Fairness Symmetry. Fairness Consistency requires that the introduction of some luck as a source of income should not make people more inequality accepting and Fairness Symmetry, claims that the weight assigned to the less important source of inequality should be independent on whether it is luck or merit. Cappelen et al. (2017) combined these conditions in a fairness redistributive rule which reports that ​“the importance attached to each of the sources of inequality when determining the fair distribution should be proportional to the

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importance of this source of inequality in determining the earnings of the individuals.” This

rule is certain about situations in which income has been entirely determined by luck or merit but it is difficult to estimate the fair allocation in mixed-situations, especially when there is ambiguity about how much of the earnings derive from each source of income. In their study they found that people tend to redistribute more when luck determines the earnings, while subjects favor more redistribution when the wealth derived from merit in contrast to a mixed source of income . 7

In this experiment, I went this setup a step further and created a situation in which subjects could not estimate if they were involved in a mixed situation or in a pure merit situation. Participants observed their score and the score of the subjects for whom they had been requested to make decisions about their final earnings. In the ambiguous environment, subjects knew that the earnings could derive either partially from luck and merit or completely from merit. They were not sure, though, about the group they (and the receivers) had been assigned to. This setup allows to examine how the ambiguous environment affects the redistributive choices of people. In the unambiguous environment it was clarified that the earnings derived from luck. According to the fairness proportional rule and the results of Cappelen et al (2017), I expect that the decision makers in the Dictator with Luck will favor redistribution more than the dictators in the Dictator with Ambiguity. In both treatments the decisions of the dictators will affect their final payoff while in the Benevolent Dictator there is no self-interest. I anticipate that the average redistribution in the final treatment in which there is no self-interest will be higher than the others. My prediction about the treatment effect on the average redistribution is summarized below:

Hypothesis 1: ​The average redistribution in the Benevolent Dictator will be higher than the average redistribution in the Dictator with Luck and the last one will be higher than the average redistribution in the Dictator with Ambiguity.

Second, I want to investigate the determinants of the beliefs in the present experimental setting and the effect of beliefs on redistribution. As mentioned in the second

7 When people put effort to earn their wealth they tend to redistribute less ​Oxoby and Spraggon (2008)​. They also studied the effect of the receiver’s obtained endowment through costly effort and found that when the receiver earned the property right, the dictator redistribute significantly more. For an additional comments and review of the impact of property rights on dictator game see ​Czap et al (2018)​.

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section, the views towards success and failure have been studied in settings in two possible statuses: the overachievers and the underachievers. These studies found that people who score below the average attribute their failure to external factors while people who score above the average and gain the role of the dictator attribute their success to their abilities. From the perspective of group identity theory (​ Tajfel and Turner, 1979​), this behavior was expected as people identified themselves as part of a specific group (overachievers or underachievers) and consequently interpreted the success or failure of the participants who were categorized as ingroup members in a similar way with themselves. The present study aims to extend the power of this finding and examines whether the wealth differences inside the group of the dictators affect their beliefs and create an ingroup polarization. In other words, I want to test if the more successful dictators will give credit to their abilities for their success and the less successful dictators will shift the blame for their lower score to external factors. Group role and by extent the formation of beliefs are affected not only by the “power” that the subject obtains from this role, but also by her social hierarchy among the people with the same authority (​Klor and Shayo, 2010​). The competition among the dictators about their position in the population could reinforce the self-serving bias towards success and failure in order to explain their final score in the tasks. The experimental setup of the present study, allows to examine whether the attitudes regarding success and failure will be affected by the range of the dictator’s score. The hypothesis about the manipulation indicator is the following:

Hypothesis 2.A: ​The beliefs will be decreasing on the score of the dictators. 8

This study also investigates whether the beliefs of dictators can affect the attitudes for redistribution. Konow (2000) suggests that the decision making theory merges the fairness theory and the cognitive dissonance theory . People decide on fair redistribution according to9 the accountability principle, which requires that the fair allocation of a person varies in proportion to the relevant variables that she can influence but not according to exogenous variables. For instance a person who solves twice as many problems as the other participant is

8 This hypothesis refers to the data obtained from the treatments: Dictator with Ambiguity and the Benevolent Dictator. 9He refers to cognitive dissonance theory as developed more recently by Rabin (1994).

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deserving of twice as much earnings. That also means that subjects should not be rewarded for exogenous variables as the bonus in the setup with ambiguity or the higher dice outcomes in the game with luck. People, however, have egoistic incentives that prevent them from following this rule of redistribution and at this point the cognitive dissonance theory is inserted. The term cognition refers to “desires, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, or pieces of knowledge” and when two of these factors are conflicting then they are called dissonant. In our case the fairness concerns and the desire to maximize the material payoff are dissonant cognitions. In order to avoid this controversy, people could deceive themselves that they earned a higher score due to their abilities and not due to external factors. This would result in lower redistribution in the case of participants who attribute their score mainly to their effort and in higher redistribution in the case of participants who attribute their score to external factors. In this experimental approach I manipulate the notions of the role played by luck in the final score, so I expect that the beliefs will affect the redistribution. I predict that:

Hypothesis 2.B: ​There will be positive relation between the beliefs and the percentage of redistribution (or negative relation between the score (status) of the dictators and the rate of redistribution).

The presence of the continuous setting in the scores allows to study how the beliefs of the dictators change when there are small differences in their earnings and shed new light to their redistributive behavior when they have gained the same property rights. If the data confirm this hypothesis then the level of the wealth could polarize the beliefs of dictators towards luck and effort and consequently affect redistribution, despite their role in the game.

Third, in order to control for the effect of wealth inequality, I will compare the share of redistribution between the Dictator with Luck and the Dictator with Ambiguity. In the Dictator with Luck, participants knew that the scores were determined by a random component. According to the accountability principle, presented above, the fair allocation in this case should be to equalize the sum of the units. In this unambiguous context, therefore, we predict that the majority of the participants will try to equalize the wealth differences and consequently there will be a positive effect of the degree of wealth inequality on the share of redistribution. In the Dictator with Ambiguity the determination of the scores was described by a mixed situation of a random component and the effort. The ambiguity about the source of

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income will leave room for self-serving behavior and the liberal egalitarianism, presented in this environments, will be transformed to libertarianism, resulting in distribution according to the earned scores. This behavior will neutralize the effect of the egalitarianism and the effect of the wealth inequality in the Dictator with Ambiguity will be close to zero. I predict that:

Hypothesis 3​:​The positive effect of wealth inequality on redistribution will be smaller in the 10 Dictator with Ambiguity than in the Dictator with Luck.

4.

The Results

The final division of the participants in each treatment was formulated as follows : 11

“Dictator with Ambiguity” consisted of 51 subjects, “Benevolent Dictator” consisted of 60 subjects, and “Dictator with Luck” consisted of 51 subjects. Participants were presented with some strategies so the observations differ from these numbers. ​ Table I provides an overview of the main features of the redistribution in the total population and in each treatment. The average completion time for the first two treatments was 11 minutes and for the last one 5 minutes. The dictators were on average 32.5 years old and approximately 36 percent of the participants were female. We present some general results for the redistribution in each treatment, and then we evaluate the hypotheses of our study.

TABLE I: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF REDISTRIBUTION

========================================================== Share of Redistribution

- - - Total D. Ambiguity D. Luck Benevolent D. - - - Mean 28.19 21.57 19.63 40.49 Median 28.8 15 12.75 40.45 Standard Deviation 22.58 24.88 20.97 14.61 Observations​ (N) 425 155 110 160 ========================================================== Notes: The table summarizes the main features of the share of redistribution in the total population and in each of the treatments.

10I will run a regression to examine the relation between redistribution and wealth inequality for the treatments: Dictator with Ambiguity and Dictator with Luck. The wealth inequality here, refers to the coefficient of the wealth inequality in the regression.

11We used a between-subject design for the experiment. Each subject participated in one of the three treatments. There was one session per treatment. The participants who were rejected during the questions of understanding were excluded.

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5.1 General results

5.1.1 Dictator with Ambiguity

Figure 1 summarizes the information about how many dictators allocated specific percentages of wealth in each treatment. There is noticeable heterogeneity between the treatments. The results of the redistribution in Dictator with Ambiguity are consistent with the existing literature on dictator games. As shown in ​ figure 1​, 30 percent of the observations kept the whole amount of money and did not redistribute at all, which is compatible with

Forsythe et al. (1994)​ , who found that 70 percent of the dictators give some amount to the other player . Only the 9 percent of the subjects tried to equalize the differences in wealth.12 The rest of the participants presented a self-serving behavior with two different forms. Some individuals distributed, as expected, according to the scores of the receivers while others distributed according to scores only for small wealth differences and kept the greater amount of units when there was large wealth inequality. These people care about the monetary payoff when they deal with a considerable amount of units, otherwise they are willing to offer the earned amount of units. We refer to the last type of behavior as self-serving because it was not observed in the treatment of the dictator with Luck and there are not indications that it is a result of the wealth inequality.

5.1.2 Benevolent Dictator

The results in this treatment diverged from the previous findings . Only 2.5 percent of 13 the participants chose not to redistribute at all, while more than 25 percent of the participants divided the sum of the units of the other participants. In this treatment, we also observe many differences in the allocation of the units, compared to the results in the dictator with ambiguity. The mean redistribution was 40.49 percent, which exceeds the mean allocation in the previous group, while it presents the smaller variance among the treatments . An 14

12For additional comments and discussion about the behavior of the dictator see the analysis of ​Camerer (2003)​. 13Cappelen et al. (2017)​ found that approximately 27% of disinterested dictators choose not to redistribute in similar environment and 18% choose to equalize.

14The differences in variance are distinct in​ Figure 2​ as the box in the Benevolent Dictator is tighter than the other two treatments.

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important finding in this context is the fact that dictators with higher scores redistributed less. This finding is presented in ​figure 3 ​and analyzed further in the next section.

Figure 1: Results from the redistribution part in the treatments: Dictator with Ambiguity, Dictator with Luck, Benevolent Dictator.. Bars show the number of observations for the corresponding share of redistribution in each treatment.

5.1.3 Dictator with Luck

In the final treatment, we observe a combination of the extreme outcomes of the previous groups. Specifically, 31 percent of the subjects kept the whole amount, while 18 percent of the dictators prefered to keep the redistribution in a low level at about 10 to 20 percent. The mean percentage of redistribution was 19.63, which is very close to the observed mean of the first treatment. As we can also see in the ​ firstgraph the bars which represent the distribution from 0 to 40 percent move parallel for the two treatments. A significant percentage of participants, however, tried to diminish the wealth inequality by offering half of the units to the other players. This ratio represents 20 percent of the subjects which amounts to more than double the number of dictators with ambiguity who did the same. An unexpected behavior in this case was the redistribution according to scores. In 19 percent of the observations, the subjects offered the amount of units that the other participants had

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scored during the luck game. The remaining dictators used a combination of these three strategies for the redistribution or shared some random amount of units.

5.2 Hypotheses

5.2.1 Treatments effect on redistribution

In order to test the first hypothesis about the comparison of the average redistribution in the three treatments, I performed a non parametric analysis. The ​ second figure​, which illustrates the distribution of the share of reallocation across the three treatments, shows that the distribution in the Benevolent Dictator differs from the others. In order to compare the three unpaired data groups I performed a Kruskal-Wallis test and found that there are significant differences between the treatment groups (p-value<​2.2e-16​). In order to examine which pairs of groups are different I conducted a pairwise Wilcox test and calculated the pairwise comparisons between group levels with corrections for multiple testing. These comparisons show that, the distribution in the Benevolent Dictator is significantly different from the distributions in both the Dictator with Ambiguity and the Dictator with Luck (​p-value< 2e-16 ​and ​p-value=2.8e-15 respectively). There was no statistically significant difference between the Dictator with Ambiguity and the Dictator with Luck and these results are compatible with the box plot below. These findings are also in agreement with the results presented above but they do not confirm the first hypothesis about the average distribution in each treatment. The analysis shows that:

Result 1: ​The average redistribution in the Benevolent Dictator is higher than the average redistribution in the other two treatments and there is no significant difference in the average redistribution between Dictator with Luck and Dictator with Ambiguity.

It seems that the beliefs about the source of wealth inequality and the ambiguity in the context did not affect the average percentage of redistribution in the Dictator with Luck and the Dictator with Ambiguity. We observe, however, differences in the preferences for redistribution as presented in the general results between the two treatments.

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Figure 2: Results from the redistribution part in the treatments: Dictator with Ambiguity, Dictator with Luck, Benevolent Dictator. The box plot shows the distribution of the share of redistribution across the different treatments. The quartiles divide the distribution into four parts. It is easy to see that in the Benevolent Dictator there are many outliers.

5.2.2 Beliefs

We now turn to a regression analysis of the determinants and the effect of beliefs. Tables: ​ 2

and ​3 (column 1) ​ present the estimates for the variables of interest in the two regressions with the inclusion of some control variables.

Determinants

The determinants and the impact of the beliefs, defined as the ratio of the situational factors over the individual factors , have already been studied for two separate social roles:15

the overachievers (decision makers) and the underachievers (receivers) in real effort tasks. In this study, however, the beliefs were analyzed for the sum of the 50 dictators in the treatments: Benevolent Dictator and Dictator with Ambiguity with scores ranging from 110 to 180 in order to define initially, the factors that affect the polarization of the beliefs towards effort and luck.

15As a reminder, the beliefs were calculated by the following formula: Beliefs=(Difficulty of task + Luck) / (Abilities + Focus). The terms manipulation index and manipulation indicator are equivalent to the beliefs for this study.

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In order to examine the determinants of the beliefs and test for the 2.A hypothesis I ran two regressions, the results of which are presented in ​ Table II​. First, the data displayed a negative relation between the political orientation and the manipulation index. The more right subjects defined their beliefs in the political spectrum, the less important they considered the situational factors in the determination of their score. This indicates that right-wingers are more confident about their abilities and provides interesting insight if we consider the argument by ​Cappelen et al. (2006) about political debates. They found that right-wingers value more the individual responsibility on factors that would eventually affect their personal income than the left-wingers. Thus, the beliefs about responsibility over their income make people overconfident about their performance.

Another remarkable point in the present analysis, is the relation between the nationality and the importance of the manipulation indicator. The importance of the situational factors was negatively affected by the American, British and Canadian nationality and positively by the rest European and Asian nationalities that were present in our sample. It is striking that these three countries face the highest income inequality among the OECD countries (​OECD, 2014​). These results, however, were not statistical significant for every nationality. The results come in agreement with the analysis presented in the first section and illustrates the social learning environment effect, presented by ​Piketty (1995)​.

Beliefs were decreasing with the score of the dictator. The magnitude of this result, was close to zero in the regression analysis (-0.009). However, the Spearman rank correlation coefficient showed that the score of the dictator and the Beliefs are significantly correlated with a correlation coefficient of -0.339 and p-value of 0.014. That means that even if the subjects had earned the role of the dictator in the game, they attributed their lower score to the external factors in comparison to the “wealthier” dictators. In the instructions, it was made clear that only the participants who scored above one hundred had earned the role of the decision maker and continued to the second part of the experiment. This fact in combination with the finding presented above, could imply that people did not focus on their achievement (the role of the dictator and the decision maker) but in their failure in comparison to the rest of the dictators (a lower position in the “population of the decision makers”). The ranking in the population, therefore, does not affect only the people who scored below the average but all the participants. Another interpretation of this finding could be related to the confidence of the more successful dictators. If the successful participants are more confident then it is

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reasonable to believe that their score results from their abilities and not from external factors. An interesting point is that the majority of higher scorers in the math task had actually benefited by the bonus but reported a low value to the lucky factor.

Result 2.A: ​There is a negative relation between the beliefs and the score of the dictators.

In the setting of the experiment the scores of the dictators did not diverge significant as they ranged between 110 and 180. It would be interesting to examine the effect of score in an experiment with a greater variation in the earnings. In addition, in the present study a participant could estimate the right answers and predict the value of the bonus, so the source of income might not be very ambiguous. A more ambiguous context might reinforce these results and show if the the negative relation appears due to overconfidence of the successful participants or due to the position in the population and the self-serving bias.

​ TABLE II:​ ​DETERMINANTS OF BELIEFS

======================================================================== Dependent variable: - - - Beliefs (1) (2) - - - Political orientation -0.076** -0.075** (0.028) (0.028) Score -0.009** -0.009** (0.003) (0.003) Gender 0.127 (0.170) Age 0.023** (0.007) Constant 2.256*** 2.198*** (0.481) (0.490) - - - Observations 51 51 R2 0.948 0.949 Adjusted R2 0.936 0.935 Residual Std. Error 0.525 (df = 40) 0.527 (df = 39) ======================================================================== Notes​: ​Dependent variable: The manipulation index, calculated in part 1 of the treatments “Dictator with Ambiguity” and “Benevolent Dictator”. The table presents coefficients from OLS regressions. All regressions control for political fixed effects, personal characteristics fixed effects and performance fixed effects. Score is the result in the math test during part 1 both in the Ambiguity Dictator and the Benevolent Dictator. Political Orientation is measured in a 10-point scale (left-right wing) in the Questionnaire. We also control for Nationality but the coefficient of the dummies are not presented in the table. Standard errors are in parentheses;*p<0.1; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01

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Redistribution

The beliefs in the continuous setting were also examined as an incentive for redistribution. This effect was studied for 155 observations of participants in the Dictator with Ambiguity. In the current treatment, the payoff of the dictators was affected by their decisions, so they faced a trade-off between their self-interest and their moral concerns. However, if the subjects consider fair to redistribute according to the final scores, it means that they ignore the random component that partially influenced their performance and value more the merit, or at least they pretend to do so. The data in this group were normally distributed so I used an OLS regression analysis and a Pearson correlation test to evaluate 16 the hypothesis 2.B about the relation between the beliefs and the share of redistribution and I found the following:

Result 2.B: ​There is positive relation between the beliefs and the percentage of redistribution.

When people attribute their score to the external factors (luck and difficulty of the task) they increase significantly the percentage of the units that they offer to the other participant, as shown in the ​ Table III (column 1, (24.82)). In the previous studies this outcome was reviewed only for disinterested dictators who have no self-interest. I found a similar result in the continuous setup of scores. I also found that the high scorers in the Benevolent Dictator (ranging between 150 and 180) redistribute smaller percentage of units than the low scorers (ranging between 110 and 140), as shown in ​ figure 217. In comparison with previous studies that support the idea that the score of a person affects redistribution when it modifies her property rights, the argument is that the ranking among the dictators influences the preferences for distribution. In this treatment the wealth inequality was kept constant among the strategies, so the observed results come from the ideologies of the participants and their position in the population of the dictators.

16The p-value of the test was 0.024 which is less than th significance level a=0.05 and we can conclude that beliefs and share of redistribution are positive correlated with a correlation coefficient of 0.18.

17The p-value in the Shapiro-Wilk tests for the data in the Benevolent Dictator was 0.00011 which is less than 0.05 and I cannot assume normality. A non parametric analysis also showed a negative relation between the score of the Benevolent Dictators and the share of redistribution. The Spearman’s rank correlation rho was equal to -0.2036 with a p-value=0.009.

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Figure 3: Results from the second part of the treatment: Benevolent Dictator. The bars represent the observed average percentage of redistribution for each score.

5.2.3 Wealth Inequality - Self-Serving bias

In order to examine the third hypothesis I compared the treatments Dictator with Ambiguity and the Dictator with Luck. The data were not normally distributed so in order to compare18 the effect of wealth inequality on redistribution I ran ordinal logistic regressions and the coefficients are presented in ​ Table III(columns 2 and 4). The finding from the comparison of the treatments is the following:

Result 3: ​The effect of wealth inequality on redistribution is approximately the same in the Dictator with Ambiguity and in the Dictator with Luck.

The effect of wealth inequality on redistribution was hardly different for the Dictator with Luck and the Dictator with Ambiguity which is a contrast to the corresponding hypothesis but a more interesting result. The relation between the share of allocation and the wealth inequality was almost zero for both treatments (see ​Table 3​, columns 2 and 4, 0.019 and 0.0201 respectively). This outcome appears intuitive when we consider the results in the

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