Social preferences across different populations: Meta-analyses on the ultimatum game and dictator game

We perform meta-regressions on a single database containing 96 observations of simple ultimatum games and 144 observations of simple dictator games to disentangle the fairness hypothesis based on the degree of economic development of a country. According to the fairness hypothesis, offers in the two games should not differ if they were motivated by a subject’s fairness concerns. Using the difference across countries between offers in ultimatum and dictator games, we address the effect of being exposed to the market mechanism on pure fairness concerns and other-regarding, expectations-driven fairness. Our results show in particular that the lower the level of economic development in a country, the less likely the rejection of the fairness hypothesis.