Z:gnu-www-ja-frank--cbd4b7-The other major study of wheth/en

The other major study of whether economists behave differently from members of other disciplines is by John Carter and Michael Irons (1991). These authors measured the self-interestedness of economists by examining their behavior in the ultimatum bargaining game. This is a simple game with two players, an &ldquo;allocator&rdquo; and a &ldquo;receiver.&rdquo; The allocator is given a sum of money (in these experiments, $10), and must then propose how to divide this sum between herself and the receiver. Suppose, for example, the allocator proposes $X for herself, the remaining $(10-X) for the receiver. Once the allocator makes this proposal, the receiver has two choices: (1) he may accept, in which case each player gets the amount proposed by the allocator; or (2) he may refuse, in which case each player gets zero. The game is played only once by the same partners.