Talk:Inequity aversion

Latest comment: 7 years ago by ExpertIdeasBot in topic Dr. Balafoutas's comment on this article

Disambiguation link repair: Expert knowledge needed! edit

This page has a link to the disambiguation page equilibrium. Please edit it to point to the specific most relevant article. Thanks. --Coppertwig 21:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Definition of Anthropology edit

"non-humans in anthropology." I'm no expert, but I'd say that if anthropologists are studying this phenomenon in non-humans, we should direct them to a biology department, stat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.29.71 (talk) 04:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

Re-write needed edit

The page needs to be re-written. Currently there is too much discussion and detail on individual studies and specific researchers. I've done the first little bit of the sections, but it needs considerably more work to finish up the rest of the article. WLU 23:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Nonsense paragraph edit

I can't really make sense of this paragraph:

In 2004 Dirk Engelmann and Martin Strobel performed experiments to test the predictions of IA, and found inconsistencies.2 Although it can hardly be expected that such a simple model will produce falsifiable results in a complex area like human psychology there may be other, equally simple models that fit the data better. (See Bounded rationality.) For instance, the Raúl López Pérez alternative: Anger and Guilt (2004).

2 The alternative hypothesis that Fehr and Schmidt's Inequity Aversion (IA) model is most commonly tested against is Charness and Rabin's 2002 quasi-maximin model, which predicts a preference for maximizing both the aggregate reward and the reward of the party doing the worst. Engelmann and Strobel's experiments from 2004 seem to fit the quasi-maximin predictions better than the IA. Quasi-maximin is more concerned with economic efficiency than fairness, and may predominate when the 'players' know one another or are playing for psychologically low stakes. Other empirical results give IA the greater predictive power. For instance, Güth, Kliemt and Ockenfel (2003), and Chmura, Kube, Pitz, & Puppe (Working Paper, 2004) find that 'fairness' dominates when the payoff asymmetry is large.

It seems like the footnote should be integreated into the paragraph itself to make a complete section. WLU 20:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Organization edit

Since this is such an active topic of research, it may be difficult for WP to keep fully on top of it. I think there are several aspects to emphasize:

  • The Fehr-Schmidt model is precise and clear, whatever its empirical failings may be. I think it would make sense to fully restate that model here, and interpret it.
  • Fehr-Schmidt does reasonably well as an explanatory model among the class of consequentialist models (ie, models that depend only on pecuniary payoffs). However, consequentialism doesn't suffice: people care about the intent of those they interact with (cf Thaler, Falk-Fehr-Fischbacher, and many others).
  • The best place to organize top-level discussion of these issues would be an article on social preferences, which I just started. Jeremy Tobacman 22:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Uh? edit

[...] it is studied in non-humans in anthropology

Methinks that somebody doesn't know what anthropology is. --76.217.95.43 (talk) 08:22, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Dr. Duffy's comment on this article edit

Dr. Duffy has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


Missing key reference: Bolton and Ockefels (2000) which was developed simultaneously with Fehr and Schmidt and is more general, i.e., it allows for nonlinear inequity averse preferences.

ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition Author(s): Gary E Bolton and Axel Ockenfels

Source: The American Economic Review, Vol. 90, No. 1 (Mar., 2000), pp. 166-193


We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Duffy has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


  • Reference : John Duffy & Felix Munoz-Garcia, 2012. "Cooperation and Signaling with Uncertain Social Preferences," Working Papers 491, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Economics, revised May 2013.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 16:57, 19 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

Dr. Balafoutas's comment on this article edit

Dr. Balafoutas has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


Although Fehr-Schmidt is certainly the pioneer study in this topic, I believe that more work should be discussed, and certainly these two papers:

Bolton, Gary E, and Ockenfels Axel. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition." The American Economic Review 90.1 (2000): 166-93.

Charness, Gary and Rabin, Matthew, (2002), Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117, issue 3, p. 817-869.

I found the following sentence and the corresponding reference irrelevant: "Other research in experimental economics addresses risk aversion in decision making[7]"

Finally, one issue of semantics: Although the term "inequity aversion" is used in the original paper of Fehr and Schmidt, the alternative term "inequality aversion" is often used in the literature instead. The difference is subtle, but important: "inequity" refers more to principles of justice and fairness, while "inequality" refers more to the observed difference between two payoffs (i.e., to an unequal distribution). For instance, when Bolton and Ockenfels (see reference above) discuss Fehr and Schmidt's theory, they refer to it as "inequality aversion". The distinction between the terms "(in)equity" and "(in)equality" is in any case not trivial.


We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Balafoutas has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


  • Reference : Loukas Balafoutas & Rudolf Kerschbamer & Martin Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2013. "Revealed distributional preferences: Individuals vs. teams," Working Papers 2013-17, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, University of Innsbruck.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 18:46, 27 June 2016 (UTC)Reply