Essays on Inequality, Fairness and Cooperation

Jafarzadeh, Amir (2025) Essays on Inequality, Fairness and Cooperation. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This thesis explores how individuals perceive inequality, fairness and coordination in strategic and non-strategic environments using experimental economics. Across three studies, it examines whether redistribution preferences depend on procedural fairness and the source of inequality, and how individuals coordinate in environments where outcomes hinge on shared expectations.

The first study investigates the role of procedural fairness by testing whether redistribution preferences differ when inequalities arise from unequal opportunities. Using a novel experimental framework inspired by Sugden and Wang (2020), participants engaged in a card game with equal or unequal opportunities before making redistribution decisions. Results indicate that redistribution choices were largely unaffected by equality of opportunity, suggesting that participants prioritise outcomes over processes when evaluating fairness.

The second study extends this inquiry by examining the effects of strategic choice and strategic luck on redistribution. Unlike prior work that focuses on non-strategic settings and random lotteries, this experiment situates inequality within a strategic coordination game, where incomes depend on both individual and others’ decisions. Comparing redistribution under strategic and non-strategic conditions, the findings reveal that initial income distributions exert stronger influence than (strategic and non-strategic) choice versus luck as the source of inequality itself.

The third study shifts focus to coordination behaviour in pure coordination games, addressing why players successfully align choices when labels are present. In a 30-round experiment using labels from diverse categories, participants achieved coordination rates above chance. While online frequency measures (website rankings and Google search rankings) did not predict success, label frequency in books significantly enhanced coordination, highlighting the role of cultural salience in shaping focal points.

Together, these studies contribute to the literature on inequality, fairness and coordination by showing that individuals often emphasise distributive outcomes over procedural considerations, that the initial distributions of incomes outweighs luck versus choice as the origins of inequality, and that cultural salience underpins coordination success.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	09 Mar 2026 11:24
Last Modified:	09 Mar 2026 11:24
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102260
DOI:

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