European University Institute Library

Fairness and compliance in the extortion game, Giulia Andrighetto, Daniele Grieco, Rosaria Conte

eng

In this paper we introduce the extortion game and propose a set of experiments aimed at studying both the extorter's and the victim's behavior. The primary focus of our experiments is understanding what determines both the extent of the extortive request and the victim's reaction in terms of compliance. Our results show that the extorter's requests are proportional to the victim's earnings, similar across victims and positively correlated with the level of request the extorter perceives as fair. Punishment is rare and the extorted sums are rather small. Results also shed light on the motivations that make a victim compliant with extortive requests, confirming that punishment plays a role in promoting compliance, but also showing the importance of other concurrent factors like information about peers' behavior and the perceived fairness of the request. Overall, our results indicate that fairness concerns matter even in an context of extra-legal taxation, shaping both extorters' requests and victims' compliance

Includes bibliographical references

no index present

non fiction

Fairness and compliance in the extortion game

937548604

Giulia Andrighetto, Daniele Grieco, Rosaria Conte

EUI working papers. SPS, 2015/01EUI papers