Does Entitlement Crowd Out Efficiency or EqualitySeeking?- Selling the Roles in Generosity Game Experiments -

In generosity games, one agreement payo is exogenously given,whereas the other is endogenously determined by the proposer's choice of the"pie" size. This has been shown to induce pie choices which are either efficiencyor equality seeking. In our experiment, before playing the generosity game,participants are asked to buy their role via a random price mechanism. Thisshould entitle them to exploit the chances which their role provides and atthe same time avoid the selection bias of competitive auctions. We nd thatentitlement crowds out equality seeking and strengthens efficiency seeking.Interpreting participants' willingness to pay as an aspiration level of how muchthey want to earn, our design further allows us to test for satiscing behavior.Indeed, we find evidence for satiscing behavior in the data.