Werner Güth
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3605170 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Werner Güth |
| NOMBRES | Werner |
| APELLIDO | Güth |
| FIRMA | GUTH W |
| AFILIACIONES | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6810-6720 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 68 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 191 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 67 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1964 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
Bidding for better jobs
There is evidence from experiments, using real-effort tasks and tournament incentives, documenting women performing worse than men under competition. We question whether this perhaps is due to the very particular way in which competition is typically studied in lab experiments. We alternatively model competitive behavior in firms by letting experimental participants compete in bidding for salaries (prizes) of different sizes in flat or steep orga…
When efficient help is perceived as greed
We study charitable behaviour when genuine donations can be misinterpreted as being greedy. This is relevant when private benefits from donating, like tax exemptions, bring into question whether donors are truly altruistically motivated. In our experiment, a potential donor, the distributor , decides how to split a sum of money between themselves, a paired non-distributor , and a charity of their choice. Choosing to donate part of the sum to char…
Exploiting Ultimatum Power When Responders Are Better Informed − Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Conflict Resolution
In dyadic ultimatum bargaining proposers, who are privately informed about the pie size, can exploit their “moral wiggle room” by engaging in unfairness which is unobservable by responders. Our setup instead assumes better informed responders and, as a consequence, limits ultimatum power and questions conflict resolution via acceptance of ultimatum proposals. In addition to testing the game theoretic solution, based on common opportunism, we asse…
Experimental Effects of Institutionalizing Co-determination by a Procedurally Fair Bidding Rule
From an institutional perspective we contribute to corporate governance of firms by (1) proposing a procedurally fair mechanism that is ethically desirable, and (2) experimentally testing whether procedural fairness crowds-in ethical behavior of managers (on behalf of shareholders) and workers. The experiment sees one ‘manager’ and three ‘workers’ (possibly representing three sections of the firm) co-determining an efficiency-enhancing investment…
The better toolbox
In experimental economics one can confront a “don’t!”, as in “do not deceive your participants!”, as well as a “do!”, as in “incentivize choice making!”. Neither exists in experimental psychology. Further controversies exist in data collection methods, e.g., play strategy (vector) method in game experiments, and how to guarantee external and internal validity by describing experimental scenarios by field-related vignettes or by abstract, often fo…
Inefficient Cooperation Under Stochastic and Strategic Uncertainty
Stochastic uncertainty can cause coordination problems that may hinder mutually beneficial cooperation. We propose a mechanism of ex-post voluntary transfers designed to circumvent these coordination problems and ask whether it can increase efficiency. To test this transfer mechanism, we implement a controlled laboratory experiment based on a repeated Ultimatum Game with a stochastic endowment. Contrary to our hypothesis, we find that allowing vo…
Believing in Corporate Social Responsibility
On a global market firms are randomly paired to engage in duopolistic competition based on conjectural payoffs, possibly different from true profits. Evolutionary fitness follows true profits. Competitors have beliefs about how competitor's price and own corporate social responsibility (CSR) expenditures determine own demand. In the tradition of indirect evolution, specifically evolution of preferences, we first solve all possible duopoly markets…
Experimental evidence of behavioral improvement by learning and intermediate advice
What are you calling intuitive? Subject heterogeneity as a driver of response times in an impunity game
Compulsory Disclosure of Private Information
Compulsory disclosure of private information to an uninformed seller or buyer ofa company is intended to induce welfare-enhancing transactions. Our theoretical and experimental investigation suggests different effects of information disclosure on seller and buyer decisions. When sellers are uninformed, information disclosure increases the probability of transactions, whereas when buyers are uninformed, disclosure increases the probability of tran…
To be at the tail of the lions or the head of the foxes
Agents seeking an opportunity for profit often have to compete with others who pursue the same opportunity. When having to choose between a number of opportunities differing in their value and if individuals differ in their chances of outperforming others, the choice can be cognitively and emotionally demanding. We explore choice between opportunities using stylized Lions–Foxes games. In such a game, each of three players, with different odds of …
Behavioral spillovers in local public good provision
Ultimatum Concession Bargaining
We collect experimental evidence on a modified version of the standard ultimatum game in which the responder states an acceptance threshold below which the offer is rejected and both players, proposer and responder, are allowed several attempts to reach an agreement by conceding. Proposers concede by increasing offers and responders concede by decreasing acceptance thresholds. Treatments differ in whether a further attempt requires that at least …
Concession Bargaining
We test experimentally whether dynamic interaction is crucial for concession bargaining. In our complete information bargaining experiments, two parties with asymmetric conflict payoffs try to agree how to share a commonly known pie by bargaining over a finite number of successive trials (agreement attempts). We compare the fully dynamic interaction to one less dynamic and one static protocol. In the quasi-dynamic protocol, later trials merely re…
Mentally perceiving how means achieve ends
Mental modeling ranges from pure categorization, for example, of linguistic concepts, to cognitive representation of complex decision tasks involving stochastic uncertainty and strategic interaction. In the tradition of consequentialistic bounded rationality, we assume to choose among choice alternatives by anticipating their likely implications. Such deliberation basically requires causal relationships linking own choices (means) and determinant…
A hybrid public good experiment eliciting multi-dimensional choice data
More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments
Deterministic versus probabilistic consequences of trust and trustworthiness
Does Procedural Fairness Crowd Out Other-Regarding Concerns? A Bidding Experiment
Bidding rules that guarantee procedural fairness may induce more equilibrium bidding and moderate other-regarding concerns. Here, we investigate procedural fairness as in Güth (2011). In our experiment, we assume commonly known true values and only two bidders to implement a best-case scenario for other-regarding concerns. The two-by-two factorial design varies ownership of the single indivisible commodity and the price rule. We find more equilib…
Effects of exclusion on acceptance in ultimatum games
Loss Aversion and Learning to Bid
Bidding challenges learning theories. Even with the same bid, experiences vary stochastically: the same choice can result in either a gain or a loss. In such an environment, the question arises of how the nearly universally documented phenomenon of loss aversion affects the adaptive dynamics. We analyse the impact of loss aversion in a simple auction using the experienced‐weighted attraction model of learning. Our experimental results suggest tha…
Rules (of Bidding) to Generate Equal Stated Profits
Although one may hope to achieve equality of stated profits without enforcing it, one may not trust in such voluntary equality seeking and rather try to impose rules (of bidding) guaranteeing it. Our axiomatic approach is based on envy-free net trades according to bids, which, together with the equality requirement, characterize the first-price auction and fair-division game.
Being of two minds
Mutual interdependence versus repeated interaction
Relations of mutual interdependence have been regarded as necessary for human cooperation to evolve. However, many studies in the social sciences indicate that repeated interaction suffices to establish cooperation. We examine this issue by means of a voluntary social exchange experiment where mutually interdependent players coexist with merely dependent ones. We systematically vary the degree of mutual interdependence and the length of the time …
Experimentelle Wirtschaftsforschung
Das Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Seminar Ottobeuren ist eine traditionsreiche Institution für wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Forschung. In jedem Jahr trifft sich ein kleiner Kreis ausgewiesener Experten eines speziellen Forschungsgebietes zu einem Symposium in Ottobeuren. Das jeweils gewählte Thema wird von mehreren Seiten beleuchtet: Neue theoretische Ansätze werden diskutiert, neue empirische Befunde vorgestellt und wirtschaftspolitische Schlussf…
Ultimatum bargaining behavior
Two-Level Ultimatum Bargaining with Incomplete Information
Journal Article Two-Level Ultimatum Bargaining with Incomplete Information: an Experimental Study Get access Werner Güth, Werner Güth Humboldt University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Steffen Huck, Steffen Huck Humboldt University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Peter Ockenfels Peter Ockenfels Goethe University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Acad…
Bargaining Outside the Lab – A Newspaper Experiment of a Three‐Person Ultimatum Game
5,132 readers of the German weekly, "Die Zeit", participated in a three-person bargaining experiment. In our data analysis we focus on (1) the influence of age, gender, profession and medium chosen for participation and (2) the external validity of student behaviour (inside and outside the lab). We find that older participants and women care more about equal distributions and that Internet users are more self-regarding than those using mail or fa…
The Indirect Evolutionary Approach
Besides opportunistically rational choice, emotion and commitment to norms influence human choice behavior. Traditionally economists have opted for the rationality side while sociologists worked the other side of the street. By pursuing an indirect evolutionary approach one can integrate the two polar extremes to some extent in one model. To that end preferences on which rational choices depend are treated as endogenous to an evolutionary process…
Being of two minds
When to Coalesce
In multi-party democracies, several parties usually have to join together in coalition to form government. Many aspects of that process have been fairly fully investigated, others less so. Among the latter is the timing of the formation and announcement of coalitions.While the dominant popular image may be one of parties meeting together after the election to hammer out a coalition agreement, pre-election coalitions of one sort or another are act…
Determinants of in-group bias
Presents or investments? An experimental analysis
Do people care about democracy? An experiment exploring the value of voting rights
Tax morale and (de-)centralization
Inequality Aversion in a Variety of Games – An Indirect Evolutionary Analysis
The indirect evolutionary approach integrates forward-looking evaluation of opportunities and adaptation in the light of the past. Subjective motivation determines behaviour, but long-run evolutionary success of motivational types depends on objective factors only. This can justify intrinsic aversion to inequality in reward allocation games. Whereas earlier analysis was restricted to specific games, this article considers a more complex environme…
Ultimatum Concession Bargaining
We collect experimental evidence on a modified version of the standard ultimatum game in which the responder states an acceptance threshold below which the offer is rejected and both players, proposer and responder, are allowed several attempts to reach an agreement by conceding. Proposers concede by increasing offers and responders concede by decreasing acceptance thresholds. Treatments differ in whether a further attempt requires that at least …
Bribery and public procurement
A procurement contract is granted by a bureaucrat (the auctioneer) who is interested in a low price and a bribe from the provider. Procurement is thus a multi-dimensional bidding contest with one-dimensional type space (the privately known cost). The optimal price and bribe bid is derived based on an iid private cost assumption. In the experiment, bribes are negatively framed to capture that society is better off if bribes are rare or low. Althou…
Cooperation based on trust. An experimental investigation
On durable goods monopolies an experimental study of intrapersonal price competition and price discrimination over time
Game Theory's Basic Question
The paper introduces and discusses some of the most important conceptual ideas in game theory by exploring their implicit answer to the question: Who is a player? It will be illustrated that some of the most celebrated results in game theory rely on different notions of a player, global players or more independent local decision-makers. The examples are the durable monopoly game, the Folk Theorem for supergames, forward induction solutions for ou…
What are you calling intuitive? Subject heterogeneity as a driver of response times in an impunity game
Concession Bargaining
We test experimentally whether dynamic interaction is crucial for concession bargaining. In our complete information bargaining experiments, two parties with asymmetric conflict payoffs try to agree how to share a commonly known pie by bargaining over a finite number of successive trials (agreement attempts). We compare the fully dynamic interaction to one less dynamic and one static protocol. In the quasi-dynamic protocol, later trials merely re…
Learning to bid – an experimental study of bid function adjustments in auctions and fair division games
We examine learning behaviour in auction and fair division experiments with independent private values under two different price rules, first and second price. Participants play all four games repeatedly and submit complete bid functions rather than single bids. This allows us to study how institutional changes are anticipated and whether learning is influenced by the structural differences between games. We find that learning does not drive bidd…
Financial markets with asymmetric information
Auctions, public tenders, and fair division games
Exploiting Ultimatum Power When Responders Are Better Informed − Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Conflict Resolution
In dyadic ultimatum bargaining proposers, who are privately informed about the pie size, can exploit their “moral wiggle room” by engaging in unfairness which is unobservable by responders. Our setup instead assumes better informed responders and, as a consequence, limits ultimatum power and questions conflict resolution via acceptance of ultimatum proposals. In addition to testing the game theoretic solution, based on common opportunism, we asse…
Inefficient Cooperation Under Stochastic and Strategic Uncertainty
Stochastic uncertainty can cause coordination problems that may hinder mutually beneficial cooperation. We propose a mechanism of ex-post voluntary transfers designed to circumvent these coordination problems and ask whether it can increase efficiency. To test this transfer mechanism, we implement a controlled laboratory experiment based on a repeated Ultimatum Game with a stochastic endowment. Contrary to our hypothesis, we find that allowing vo…
Mentally perceiving how means achieve ends
Mental modeling ranges from pure categorization, for example, of linguistic concepts, to cognitive representation of complex decision tasks involving stochastic uncertainty and strategic interaction. In the tradition of consequentialistic bounded rationality, we assume to choose among choice alternatives by anticipating their likely implications. Such deliberation basically requires causal relationships linking own choices (means) and determinant…
A hybrid public good experiment eliciting multi-dimensional choice data
Capital Exports to Less Developed Countries
Journal Article Capital Exports to Less Developed Countries Get access Capital Exports to Less Developed Countries. By W. Guth. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company (59-61 Spuiweg, P.O. Box 17), 1963. Pp. x + 162.) John Knapp John Knapp University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 74, Issue 293, 1 March 1964, Pages 157–159, https://doi.org/10.2307/2228124 Publis…
Kooperation in Marktwirtschaften
ist emeritierter Direktor am Max-Planck-Institut für Erforschung von Kollektivgütern in Bonn.
An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining
Auctions, public tenders, and fair division games
Ultimatum bargaining behavior
Game Theory's Basic Question
The paper introduces and discusses some of the most important conceptual ideas in game theory by exploring their implicit answer to the question: Who is a player? It will be illustrated that some of the most celebrated results in game theory rely on different notions of a player, global players or more independent local decision-makers. The examples are the durable monopoly game, the Folk Theorem for supergames, forward induction solutions for ou…
Economic psychology and experimental economics
Markt- und Preistheorie
On durable goods monopolies an experimental study of intrapersonal price competition and price discrimination over time
Theorie der Marktwirtschaft
One person — many players? On Björn Frank's ‘The use of internal games
On ring formation in auctions
Two-Level Ultimatum Bargaining with Incomplete Information
Journal Article Two-Level Ultimatum Bargaining with Incomplete Information: an Experimental Study Get access Werner Güth, Werner Güth Humboldt University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Steffen Huck, Steffen Huck Humboldt University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Peter Ockenfels Peter Ockenfels Goethe University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Acad…
Cooperation based on trust. An experimental investigation
Financial markets with asymmetric information
Do people care about democracy? An experiment exploring the value of voting rights
Equilibration et dépendance du contexte. Une évaluation expérimentale du jeu de négociation sous ultimatum
[fre] Équilibration et dépendance du contexte. Une évaluation expérimentale du jeu de négociation sous ultimatum La justice réciproque apparaît dans le jeu de la négociation sous ultimatum comme un mobile robuste qui conditionne par un processus d'équilibration les comportements des joueurs vers une issue qui ne correspond pas au seul équilibre de Nash parfait en sous-jeu. Prasnikar et Roth [1992] ont montré que la justice réciproque pouvait être…
The Indirect Evolutionary Approach
Besides opportunistically rational choice, emotion and commitment to norms influence human choice behavior. Traditionally economists have opted for the rationality side while sociologists worked the other side of the street. By pursuing an indirect evolutionary approach one can integrate the two polar extremes to some extent in one model. To that end preferences on which rational choices depend are treated as endogenous to an evolutionary process…
Spieltheorie und ökonomische (Bei)Spiele
Boundedly rational decision emergence – a general perspective and some selective illustrations
Presents or investments? An experimental analysis
A psychological approach to individual differences in intertemporal consumption patterns
Hard Choices Softened Locally
The implementation of a new kidney allocation algorithm by Eurotransplant was a ‘rule choice’ with serious ethical, legal, and political implications. Eurotransplant made that choice in view of a careful analysis of empirically predictable consequences of alternative rule specifications. This paper studies in a stylized way how the decision on the allocation algorithm emerged. Hopefully an understanding of central features of the described succes…
Retributive Responses
Retributive responses play a role in human behavior. Are they triggered primarily by supposed intentions or by observed consequences of actions? Experimental studies were conducted of retributive responses in situations in which the individual actor may inflict harmful consequences without intending to and intend harmful consequences without inflicting them. Results indicate that retributive responses are more strongly influenced by observed cons…
Non-Discriminatory, Envy Free Provision of a Collective Good
Economics (52 obras) · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (50 obras) · Microeconomics (39 obras) · Psychology (32 obras) · Political science (28 obras) · Social Psychology (26 obras) · Computer Science (25 obras) · Game Theory and Applications (18 obras) · Mathematical economics (18 obras) · Social Psychology (18 obras)