The importance of moral reflection and self-reported data in a dictator game with production

This article studies how individual behavior is affected by moral reflection in a dictator game with production. We make individuals reflect on fairness, in a structured way, before they play the dictator game. Our results suggest that moral reflection not only increases the weight people attach to fairness in distributive choices, but also has a strong effect on what people consider fair. Furthermore, we study the informational value of self-reported data. We find that self-reported data have substantial informational value, but do not add explanatory power to a random utility model estimated on purely behavioral data. Finally, we study whether there is a self-serving bias in the participants’ fairness perceptions, but do not find much evidence of this phenomenon in the data.