Why blame?
Journal of Political Economy, cilt.121, sa.6, ss.1205-1247, 2013 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 121 Sayı: 6
- Basım Tarihi: 2013
- Doi Numarası: 10.1086/674409
- Dergi Adı: Journal of Political Economy
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1205-1247
- Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
We provide experimental evidence that subjects blame others on the basis of events they are not responsible for. In our experiment an agent chooses between a lottery and a safe asset; payment from the chosen option goes to a principal, who then decides how much to allocate between the agent and a third party. We observe widespread blame: regardless of their choice, agents are blamed by principals for the outcome of the lottery, an event they are not responsible for. We provide an explanation of this apparently irrational behavior with a delegated-expertise principal-agent model, the subjects' salient perturbation of the environment. © 2013 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.