ABSTRACT This study examines the effects of causal attributions (luck vs. effort), the cause of a loss (proposer vs. responder), and its type (individual vs. joint) on fairness preferences in loss sharing. In a loss ultimatum game with earned endowments ( N = 246), players were willing to pay more of the loss if their lack of effort caused it, rather than the UG partner's. No significant differences were found if the cause was bad luck. Players were willing to pay less if their bad luck caused the loss, and more if the UG partner's bad luck caused it, compared to lack of effort.
Elisha et al. (Sun,) studied this question.