The social contract in the laboratory. An experimental analysis of self-enforcing impartial agreements
Articolo
Data di Pubblicazione:
2015
Citazione:
The social contract in the laboratory. An experimental analysis of self-enforcing impartial agreements / M. Faillo, S. Ottone, L. Sacconi. - In: PUBLIC CHOICE. - ISSN 0048-5829. - 163:3/4(2015 Jun), pp. 225-246. [10.1007/s11127-015-0246-y]
Abstract:
Social contract theories are based on the idea of the ‘‘consent of the governed,’’
according to which norms, rules and institutions, constitutions in particular, must be based
on the general consensus (or unanimous consent) of the individuals who are subject to the
regulation. The article reports the results of an experiment aimed at identifying the conditions
for the emergence of a self-enforcing social contract in the laboratory. Our main
result is that spontaneous compliance with a non-self-interested norm of distribution is
likely to occur if individuals have been part of the same process of ex ante agreement on
the distributive norm under a ‘veil of ignorance,’ to which the emergence of reciprocal
expectations of conformity is also related. This is in line with Rawls’s idea of an endogenous
‘sense of justice’ stabilizing ex post institutions that would have been ex ante
chosen in the original position.
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Keywords:
Social contract Social norms Distributive justice Beliefs elicitation
Dictator games
Elenco autori:
M. Faillo, S. Ottone, L. Sacconi
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