According to the accountability principle a person’s fair allocation takes into account the input-relevant variables she can in?uence, like e?ort, but not the variables she cannot in?uence, like a randomly assigned exogenous factor. This study is based on a real e?ort-task experiment, where the exogenous in?uence is twofold: it comes either as a production factor or as a bonus. We con?rm that in a base treatment, i.e in absence of exogenous factors, subjects base their allocation decisions largely on e?ort. When exogenous di?erences are present behavior changes. Whereas bonuses are largely ignored and subjects still mostly base their decisions on e?ort, production factors render allocations more sel?sh. Furthermore, we study whether accountability holds for decisions over opportunities. We apply the so-called lottery-points-method, where a binary lottery in the last experimental stage allocates the whole amount to one of the workers. We ?nd that subjects claim more for themselves when allocating opportunities in all treatments.
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