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How Robust is Laboratory Gift Exchange?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Gary Charness ,
Guillaume R. Frechette  and
John H. Kagel
Gary Charness
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9210, USA
Guillaume R. Frechette
Affiliation:
Harvard Business School, Boston MA 02163, USA
John H. Kagel*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
*
email: kagel.4@osu.edu
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Abstract

The gift-exchange game is a form of sequential prisoner's dilemma, developed by Fehr et al. (1993), and popularized in a series of papers by Ernst Fehr and co-authors. While the European studies typically feature a high degree of gift exchange, the few U.S. studies provide some conflicting results. We find that the degree of gift exchange is surprisingly sensitive to an apparently innocuous change—whether or not a comprehensive payoff table is provided in the instructions. We also find significant and substantial time trends in responder behavior.

Keywords

gift exchangerobustnessframing

JEL classification

D21: Firm Behavior: Theory A13: Relation of Economics to Social Values J30: General C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 2004 , pp. 189 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

*

This research was conducted while Charness was visiting The Ohio State University.

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