Re: [Marxism] The ultimatum game.

[David Picón Álvarez <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "Shane Mage" <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
"If its a billion dollars being divided at 1000/1 everybody, I'm sure,
would take the one."

Hmm, not sure I get this. You mean if there is a player that can divide 
1000000000 dollars amongst 1000 people? Or one player that gets $1b and 
gives a thousandth to the second player?

"If its ten bucks, nobody would.  If the "experiment" involved a
continuum of values reaching into real wealth and a fixed division
ratio I'd bet that percentage of acceptance as a function of sum to be
divided would increase monotonically.  In accordance with "traditional
utility maximization theory" theory as well as with common sense.  But
one can only ask, with Wittgenstein, "is this game actually played?""

An interesting intuition, but it appears not to hold, at least not with the 
monotonicity suggested:

"It has been hypothesised (e.g. by James Surowiecki) that very unequal
allocations are rejected only because the absolute amount of the offer is 
low.
The concept here is that if the amount to be split were ten million dollars 
a
90:10 split would probably be accepted rather than spurning a million dollar
offer. Essentially, this explanation says that the absolute amount of the
endowment is not significant enough to produce strategically optimal 
behaviour.
However, many experiments have been performed where the amount offered was
substantial: studies by Cameron and Hoffman et al. have found that the 
higher
the stakes are the closer offers approach an even split, even in a 100 USD 
game
played in Indonesia, where average 1995 per-capita income was 670 USD.
Rejections are reportedly independent of the stakes at this level, with 30 
USD
offers being turned down in Indonesia, as in the United States, even though 
this
equates to two week's wages in Indonesia.[8]

8:   See "Do higher stakes lead to more equilibrium play?" (page 18) in 3.
  Bargaining experiments, Professor Armin Falk's summary at the Institute 
for
  the Study of Labor."

As to whether the game is played, forgive me if I naively assume you're 
asking if this is more than a Gedankenexperiment, in which case, it seems 
that economics and psychology departments do indeed arrange this kind of 
experiments from time to time.

--David.


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