Lying about Delegation

Angela Sutan (1) , Radu Vranceanu (2)

1 BSB - Burgundy School of Business (BSB) - Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Dijon Bourgogne (ESC)
2 ESSEC Business School and THEMA (UMR 8184)

This paper reports results from a three-player variant of the ultimatum game in which the Proposer can delegate to a third party his decision regarding how to share his endowment with a Responder with a standard veto right. However, the Responder cannot verify whether the delegation is effective or the third party merely plays a “scapegoat” role while the decision is made by the Proposer himself. In this imperfect information setting, the Proposer can send an unverifiable message declaring his delegation strategy. The most interesting strategy is “false delegation”, in which the Proposer makes the decision but claims to have delegated it. In our sample, the recourse to false delegation is significant, and a significant number of potential Delegates accept serving in the scapegoat role. However, there are many honest Proposers, and 20% of all Delegates will refuse to be the accomplices of a dishonest Proposer. Responders tend to more readily accept poor offers in a setup that permits lying about delegation; the acceptance rate of the poor offer is the highest when Delegates can refuse the scapegoat role.

Mots clés: delegation of responsibility; lies; communications strategy; ultimatum game; dishonesty

Domaines: Economies et finances

Angela Sutan, Radu Vranceanu. Lying about Delegation. 2015. ⟨hal-01109345⟩