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Joseph Henrich, Richard McElreath

Cited by*: 32 Downloads*: 33

Evidence shows that real-effort investments can affect bilateral bargaining outcomes. This paper investigates whether similar investments can inhibit equilibrium convergence of experimental markets. In one treatment, sellers' relative effort affects the allocation of production costs, but a random productivity shock ensures that the allocation is not necessarily equitable. In another treatment, sellers' effort increases the buyers' valuation of a good. We find that effort investments have a short-lived impact on trading behavior when sellers' effort benefits buyers, but no effect when effort determines cost allocation. Efficiency rates are high and do not differ across treatments.

Joseph Henrich

Cited by*: 43 Downloads*: 24

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Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, Colin F Camerer, Ernst Fehr, Herbert Gintis, Joseph Henrich, Richard McElreath

Cited by*: 75 Downloads*: 66

al behavior better explained statistically by individuals' attributes such as their sex, age, or relative wealth, or by the attributes of the group to which the individuals belong? Are there cultures that approximate the canonical account of self-regarding behavior? Existing research cannot answer such questions because virtually all subjects have been university students, and while there are cultural differences among student populations throughout the world, these differences are small compared to the range of all social and cultural environments. To address the above questions, we and our collaborators undertook a large cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public good, and dictator games. Twelve experienced field researchers, working in 12 countries on five continents, recruited subjects from 15 small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. Our sample consists of three foraging societies, six that practice slash-and-burn horticulture