Voice matters in a dictator game

Abstract We conducted a laboratory experiment to study the effects of communication in a dictator game, while maintaining subjects’ anonymity. In the experiment, the recipient has an opportunity to state a payoff-irrelevant request for his/her share before the dictator dictates his/her offer. We found that the independence hypothesis that voice does not matter is rejected. In particular, if the request is for less than half of the pie, the dictator's offer increases as the recipient's request increases. Additionally, there is no dictator who is other-regarding and, at the same time, does not react to the recipient's request.