There has been growing interest within the economics discipline in the role of equity concerns in the distribution of resources. This paper presents empirical evidence from a series of controlled laboratory experiments where third-party decision-makers must allocate resources between two individuals. The experimental results indicate that subjects view a wide range of different allocations as the fair distribution of resources. Regression analysis indicates that both treatment effects and a few demographic variables explain some of this variation in fairness concepts. Most significantly, decision-makers rewarded subjects who earned their favorable positions and the gender of the decision-maker was an important predictor of the allocation chosen

Co-author Jill Tiefenthaler, Colgate University