More fair play in an ultimatum game after resettlement in Zimbabwe: A field experiment and a structural model

Kohler, Stefan (2012): More fair play in an ultimatum game after resettlement in Zimbabwe: A field experiment and a structural model. Published in: PLoS ONE , Vol. 5, No. 8 (2013): e64791.

Abstract

Zimbabwean villagers of distinct background have resettled in government organized land reforms for more than three decades. Against this backdrop, I assess the level of social cohesion in some of the newly established communities by estimating average preferences for fairness in a structural model of bounded rationality. The estimations are based on behavioral data from an ultimatum game field experiment played by 234 randomly selected households in six traditional and 14 resettled villages almost two decades after resettlement. In two out of three distinct resettlement schemes studied, the resettled villagers exhibit significantly higher degrees of fairness ($p ≤ 0.11$) and rationality ($p ≤ 0.04$) than those who live in traditional villages. Overall, villagers are similarly rational ($p = 0.30$) but the attitude toward fairness is significantly stronger in resettled communities ($p ≤ 0.01$). These findings are consistent with the idea of a raised need for cooperation required in recommencement.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Africa; behavioral economics; inequality aversion; land reform; impact evaluation; social change; social development; social preferences; structural estimation; quantal response model
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D03 - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure ; Land Reform ; Land Use ; Irrigation ; Agriculture and Environment; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C93 - Field Experiments

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