Children's Inequality Aversion in Ultimatum Games

Individuals do not only make decisions to maximize their own utility, but are also concerned with how their decisions affect others. Theories of inequality aversion, taking fairness considera¬tions into account, suggest that many people dislike inequalities between themselves and others. Testing for inequality aversion is easiest done by using experimental economics, in this paper in the form of an ultimatum game. It is a bargaining game where the subjects get to bargain over a sum of money, with their economic behavior being analyzed and quantified afterwards. Adults who participate act more selfishly if they have to earn their own wealth in the game before starting to play. In this paper, an experiment testing how earned wealth affects children’s behavior is constructed. This is done in order to show that as much as one can prove that even young children take fairness considerations into account, they can also act as selfish actors to a high extent, especially when earning their own wealth before being asked to share it with others.