TY  - RPRT
A1  - Bruttel, Lisa Verena
A1  - Güth, Werner
A1  - Hertwig, Ralph
A1  - Orland, Andreas
T1  - Do people harness deliberate ignorance to avoid envy and its detrimental effects?
T2  - CEPA Discussion Papers
N2  - Envy is an unpleasant emotion. If individuals anticipate that comparing their payoff with the (potentially higher) payoff of others will make them envious, they may want to actively avoid information about other people’s payoffs. Given the opportunity to reduce another person’s payoff, an individual’s envy may trigger behavior that is detrimental to welfare. In this case, if individuals anticipate that they will react in a welfare-reducing way, they may also avoid information about other people’s payoffs from the outset. We investigated these two hypotheses using three experiments. We found that 13% of our potentially envious subjects avoided information when they did not have the opportunity to reduce another participant’s payoff. Psychological scales do not explain this behavior. We also found that voluntarily uninformed subjects did neither deduct less of the payoff nor less frequently than subjects who could not avoid the information.
T3  - CEPA Discussion Papers - 17 
KW  - envy
KW  - emotion regulation
KW  - deliberate ignorance
KW  - punishment
KW  - experiment
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-444463
SN  - 2628-653X
IS  - 17
ER  - 
TY  - RPRT
A1  - Graeber, Daniel
A1  - Hilbert, Viola
A1  - König, Johannes
T1  - Inequality of Opportunity in Wealth
BT  - Levels, Trends, and Drivers
T2  - CEPA Discussion Papers
N2  - While inequality of opportunity (IOp) in earnings is well studied, the literature on IOp in individual net wealth is scarce to non-existent. This is problematic because both theoretical and empirical evidence show that the position in the wealth and income distribution can significantly diverge.We measure ex-ante IOp in net wealth for Germany using data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Ex-ante IOp is defined as the contribution of circumstances to the inequality in net wealth before effort is exerted. The SOEP allows for a direct mapping from individual circumstances to individual net wealth and for a detailed decomposition of net wealth inequality into a variety of circumstances; among them childhood background, intergenerational transfers, and regional characteristics. The ratio of inequality of opportunity to total inequality is stable from 2002 to 2019. This is in sharp contrast to labor earnings, where ex-ante IOp is declining over time. Our estimates suggest that about 62% of the inequality in net wealth is due to circumstances. The most important circumstances are intergenerational transfers, parental occupation, and the region of birth. In contrast, gender and individuals’ own education are the most important circumstances for earnings.
T3  - CEPA Discussion Papers - 69 
KW  - inequality
KW  - wealth
KW  - inequality of opportunity
KW  - decomposition
Y1  - 2023
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-609673
SN  - 2628-653X
IS  - 69
ER  - 
TY  - RPRT
A1  - Bruttel, Lisa Verena
A1  - Stolley, Florian
A1  - Utikal, Verena
T1  - Getting a Yes
BT  - An Experiment on the Power of Asking
T2  - CEPA Discussion Papers
N2  - This paper studies how the request for a favor has to be devised in order to maximize its chance of success. We present results from a mini-dictator game, in which the recipient can send a free-form text message to the dictator before the latter decides. We find that putting effort into the message, writing in a humorous way and mentioning reasons why the money is needed pays off. Additionally, we find differences in the behavior of male and female dictators. Only men react positively to efficiency arguments, while only women react to messages that emphasize the dictator’s power and responsibility.
T3  - CEPA Discussion Papers - 2 
KW  - dictator game
KW  - communication
KW  - inequality
KW  - text analysis
KW  - experiment
Y1  - 2019
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-427638
SN  - 2628-653X
IS  - 2
ER  -