Proceedings of the 16th International Academic Conference, Amsterdam

THE PERCEPTION OF ECONOMIC VALUE LIMITS: A STUDY ON THE ULTIMATUM GAME DECISION PATTERNS

PEDRO MOREIRA

Abstract:

Research on dominant decision patterns within the field of economic psychology has revealed that some of the scientific expectations on human decision and behavior were not confirmed. The results of ultimatum decision games are recurrently used in the identification and description of dominant patterns in value related economic decisions. The study includes an initial review of the literature and the results of a sample of individual decision questionnaires based on the ultimatum game, with parallel questions directed to money proposals and time proposals. Initial conclusions indicate that, after an isolated analysis of the two formats (questions related to money proposals and questions related to time proposals), the results within the money format and within the time format revealed high and significant correlations. In contrast, the comparison between formats produced low and non-significant correlations, suggesting that the object of the proposals may influence the value perception and the response patterns. The study is relevant to pricing and revenue management in no-negotiation settings, as is the case of Internet or online website based e-business. Possible applications in the travel and tourism industry are airline e-tickets, and hotel, tours and events e-bookings.

Keywords: Economic decision patterns, ultimatum game, pricing and revenue management, airline e-tickets, hotel e-reservations, website based e-business.

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2015.016.052

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