Efficiency and egalitarianism: evidence from behavioral games

Justice as the most controversial phenomenon in human thought is a multi-dimensional truth. Income distribution, fairness and entitlement are recognized the most significant aspects of justice. Each society's understanding of these concepts has important effects on labor, goods and services markets as well as on the distribution of income and wealth, redistribution policies and expectations of the societies from governments. This study attempted to investigate these concepts in participant's behavior by the means of four economic experiments (via random sampling of the students of Mazandaran University). Results showed the collusion in the state of group decision – making to increase the sharing of profits of the joint account. That decision-maker is not benefitted causes greater attention to efficiency. Confirming the existence of positive y-intercept in the distribution function represents the attention to the payment of basic rights for those who are not deserved. Allocation of income in the situation of mutual recognition and group decision-making increases with the maximization of the share in production, but this relationship is not a one to one relationship. In addition to verifying impact of merits on the distributing decisions, the results showed that important variables other than the situation of decision – making (in the game) are affecting the decisions of the players such as family income, gender and actual earnings.