Luck, choice and responsibility — An experimental study of fairness views

We conduct laboratory experiments where third-party spectators have the opportunity to redistribute resources between two agents, thereby eliminating inequality and offsetting the consequences of controllable and uncontrollable luck. Some spectators go to the limits and equalize either all or no inequalities, but many follow an interior allocation rule. These interior allocators regard an agent's choices as more important than the cause of her low income and do not always compensate bad uncontrollable luck. Instead, they condition such compensation on the agent's decision regarding controllable luck exposure, even though the two types of luck are independent. This allocation rule is previously unaccounted for by the fairness views in the literature. Moreover, its policy implications are fundamentally different in that it extends individual responsibility for choices made to also apply to areas that were not affected by these choices. •We ask which inequalities impartial spectators find fair to eliminate.•In our experiment inequalities arise because of uncontrollable or controllable luck.•Spectators do not always compensate agents' bad uncontrollable luck.•Spectators condition compensation on whether the agent attempts to control luck.•Spectators extend a responsibility norm to situations where choice is irrelevant.