Exogenous Variation of Endowments and Beliefs in a Dictator Game

We study theoretically and experimentally sharing behavior in a dictator game with asymmetrically observed random initial allocation of a fixed surplus. Our findings are consistent with two other-regarding channels mitigating selfish behavior: a belief-independent desire to comply with an equal-sharing norm, and belief-dependent guilt aversion. The norm-channel allows us to manipulate first and second-order beliefs by changing the commonly known distribution of the initial allocation observed only by the dictator. Comparing behavior for fixed endowment in the high and low-expectations treatments, we test for the presence of guilt aversion.