Rituals of Reason: Experimental Evidence on the Social Acceptability of Lotteries in Allocation Problems
The code for the treatment of the data is available on Humanum’s GitLab at the repository rituals-of-reasons-reproduction and the research data here. Accepted at Games and Economic Behavior.
Abstract
We study collective preferences towards the use of random procedures in allocation mechanisms. We report the results of two experiments in which subjects choose a procedure to allocate a reward to half of them. The first possibility is an explicitly random device: the outcome of a lottery. The second is an equally unpredictable procedure with an identical success rate, but without explicit randomization. We identify an aversion to lotteries, particularly when compared to procedures reminiscent of meritocratic ones. In line with the literature, we also find evidence of a preference for control in most procedures.
Bibtex Citation
For the paper:
@article{BOUACIDA202523,
title = {Rituals of reason: Experimental evidence on the social acceptability of lotteries in allocation problems},
journal = {Games and Economic Behavior},
volume = {152},
pages = {23-36},
year = {2025},
issn = {0899-8256},
doi = {10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.001},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825625000478},
author = {Elias Bouacida and Renaud Foucart},
keywords = {Lotteries, Mechanism design, Allocation problems, Procedures, Tie-breaking rule, Social choice},
abstract = {We study collective preferences towards the use of random procedures in allocation mechanisms. We report the results of two experiments in which subjects choose a procedure to allocate a reward to half of them. The first possibility is an explicitly random device: the outcome of a lottery. The second is an equally unpredictable procedure with an identical success rate, but without explicit randomization. We identify an aversion to lotteries, particularly when compared to procedures reminiscent of meritocratic ones. In line with the literature, we also find evidence of a preference for control in most procedures.}
}For the data:
@data{NZTMN9_2024,
author = {Bouacida, Elias and Foucart, Renaud},
publisher = {Recherche Data Gouv},
title = {{Données de réplication pour : Rituals of Reasons: A Choice-Based Approach to the Acceptability of Lotteries in Allocation Problems}},
UNF = {UNF:6:WMWaP7x55KMxLV190+CM/Q==},
year = {2024},
version = {V1},
doi = {10.57745/NZTMN9},
url = {https://doi.org/10.57745/NZTMN9}
}