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on Experimental Economics |
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Issue of 2019‒10‒14
27 papers chosen by |
| By: | Herbert Ntuli; Anne-Sophie Crépin; Caroline Schill; Edwin Muchapondwa |
| Abstract: | We investigate the behavioural responses of resource users to policy interventions like sanctioned quotas and information provisioning. We do so in a context when multiple resources (pastures and wild animal stocks) are connected and could substantially and drastically deteriorate as a result of management. We perform an experimental study among communities that are managing common pool wildlife in Zimbabwe. We find that user groups manage these resource systems more efficiently when faced with either a policy intervention, or the possibility of a drastic drop in stocks or combination of both, compared to groups facing a standard resource growth without possibility of drastic drop. Although a sanctioned quota performs better than information under some circumstances, information can be a good substitute in situations when a quota is either suboptimal or expensive as is the case in most developing countries. However, the combination of both interventions is better than either quota or information in managing complex ecosystems. Our main innovation is applicability of the experimental design, including complexities associated with linked resource systems. Our study also provides pragmatic evidence of the role of carrot and stick institutions versus information provisioning in governing common-pool wildlife in Southern Africa. These results can inform policymakers and development practitioners. If they aim to avoid a drastic drop in linked resources, they can either use a policy intervention with sanctioned quota or information. The combination of both types of interventions might be most appropriate. |
| Keywords: | Collective action, common pool resources, laboratory experiments, regime shift, social ecological system, threshold |
| JEL: | C93 D01 D02 Q57 Q58 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:772&r=all |
| By: | Sen Kunal; Banerjee Prasenjit; Iversen Vegard; Mitra Sandip; Nicol² Antonio |
| Abstract: | In emerging economies, pro-social policy outcomes may be prevented by bureaucratic‚ inefficiency, capture by elected or non-elected office holders, or by other hurdles. For local‚ citizens, uncertainty about the true cause of such failures often prevails.We study the pro-sociality‚ of politicians¢â‚¬â„¢ decision-making in a modified dictator game with real politician participants in rural‚ India. In our game, a recipient citizen does not know whether dictator politician capture or bad‚ luck is to blame when receiving zero. Using a 2 ƒâ€” 2 design, we investigate how the combination‚ of two non-monetary instruments affect politician behaviour in this hard to govern environment.‚ The first instrument, a (non-binding) promise, is a commitment device; the second introduces a‚ minimal relational lever between the politician and the recipient. We find that politician-dictator‚ giving becomes dramatically more pro-social, from zero to 50:50-giving, when these two‚ instruments are combined.Our results provide new insights about the scope for norm-based, lowcost‚ mechanisms to tackle governance-related asymmetric information challenges in developingcountry settings. |
| Keywords: | Asymmetric information,Field experiment,Politician,promise |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2019-60&r=all |
| By: | Haelermans, Carla (General Economics 2 (Macro)); Ghysels, Joris (vdab, brussels) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyze the effect of involving parents in human capital investment. We study the effect of a parental app on student effort in a digital homework practice tool, and its effect on subsequent human capital development. The randomized field experiment includes more than 2000 7-9 grade students of 2 schools and we specifically focus on different socio-economic status (SES) groups. The results indicate that parental involvement via an app positively affects effort and human capital development of 7th and 8th grade students, but not of 9th grade students. The positive effects are mainly driven by low-SES students and are larger for males. |
| Keywords: | parental involvement, randomized field experiment, Socio-Economic Status, SES, student effort, human capital development, secondary education |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I24 C93 |
| Date: | 2019–10–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2019025&r=all |
| By: | Pereira Santos, João; Tavares, José; Vicente, Pedro C |
| Abstract: | We report on a large-scale field experiment to assess ATMs (automatic teller machines) capacity to "get out the vote". This is a heretofore unexploited method. Our experimental design used the universe of functioning ATMs in Portugal. We randomly selected a set of treatment civil parishes, where a civic message took over the totality of ad time, which we compare with a set of control areas. The campaign we follow was active for three days before and during the 2017 local elections. Although we do not achieve statistical significance on a stable but small average treatment effect, when we consider the intensity of treatment, results show a statistically significant increase in the likelihood of voting. Placebo tests using turnout rates in previous elections strengthen our interpretation. We ran a post-treatment survey around ATMs located in two neighbouring civil parishes, one treated, the other not. We found a sizeable difference in recall. |
| Keywords: | ATMs; Local Elections; Portugal; Voter mobilization |
| JEL: | C93 D72 H70 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13991&r=all |
| By: | Shaul Shalvi (University of Amsterdam); Ivan Soraperra (University of Amsterdam); Joël van der Weele (University of Amsterdam); Marie Claire Villeval (University of Lyon) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of advisers in the transmission of ethically relevant information, a critical aspect of executive decision making in organizations. In our laboratory experiment, advisers are informed about the negative externalities associated with the decision-maker's choices and compete with other advisers. We find that advisers suppress about a quarter of "inconvenient'' information. Suppression is not strategic, but based on the advisers' own preferences in the ethical dilemma. On the demand side, a substantial minority of decision makers avoid advisers who transmit inconvenient information (they "shoot the messenger''). Overall, by facilitating assortative matching, a competitive market for advisers efficiently caters to the demand for both information and information avoidance. Decision-makers are less likely to implement their preferred option when they are randomly matched to advisers and there is no scope for assortative matching. |
| Keywords: | Self-deception, information avoidance, unethical behavior, experiment |
| JEL: | D91 C91 D83 D82 |
| Date: | 2019–10–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20190071&r=all |
| By: | David Masclet (CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR1 - Université de Rennes 1 - UNIV-RENNES - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CIRANO - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations - UQAM - Université du Québec à Montréal); Claude Montmarquette (CIRANO - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations - UQAM - Université du Québec à Montréal); Nathalie Viennot-Briot (CIRANO - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations - UQAM - Université du Québec à Montréal) |
| Abstract: | There are many ways of tackling tax evasion. The traditional strategies implemented by tax authorities fight fiscal fraud through audits and penalties. However, there also exist a plethora of unconventional methods, such as whistleblower programs. Although there is rich economic literature on tax evasion, auditing and penalties, tax agencies‘ heavy reliance on whistleblower programs has mostly been ignored. We ran an experiment in which taxpayers can punish tax evaders by reporting them to the authorities, even though it is costly for them to do so and despite the lack of any material benefit from doing so. Information on other taxpayers' compliance rates together with the opportunity to report tax evaders have a positive and very significant effect on the level of income reported. Observing the compliance rates of other participants alone does not suffice to increase tax revenues. |
| Keywords: | fiscal fraud,whistleblowers,ambiguous risk,laboratory experiment. |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02301968&r=all |
| By: | Merkel, Anna; Vanberg, Christoph |
| Abstract: | We conduct 3-person bargaining experiments in which the surplus being divided is produced by completing a prior task. Using a Baron-Ferejohn framework, we investigate how differences in contributions to production affect bargaining under different decision rules. Under unanimity rule, all proposals and agreements constitute convex combinations of the equal and proportional splits. Contrary to our predictions, this pattern largely persists under majority rule. In sharp contrast to prior experiments in which an exogenous surplus is divided, few subjects attempt to build minimum winning coalitions when the surplus is jointly produced. |
| Keywords: | multilateral bargaining; claims; fairness; majority rule; experiments |
| Date: | 2019–10–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awi:wpaper:0670&r=all |
| By: | Gross, Till; Servátka, Maroš; Vadovič, Radovan |
| Abstract: | We examine theoretically and experimentally the implications of trust arising under sequential and simultaneous designs, where one player makes an investment choice, and another player decides whether to share the investment gains. We show analytically that in some cases the sequential design may be outperformed by the simultaneous design. In an experiment we find that the investment levels and sharing rates are higher in the sequential design, but there are no corresponding differences in beliefs. We conjecture that this happens because in the sequential design substantially more trust is necessary to induce cooperation. Our data strongly support this conjecture. |
| Keywords: | trust, investment, efficiency, institutional design |
| JEL: | C9 C91 D02 D9 |
| Date: | 2019–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:96343&r=all |
| By: | Seo-Young Cho (Philipps-Universitaet Marburg) |
| Abstract: | Many of North Korean refugees in South Korea struggle to reconcile their different identities of: being a Korean who shares ethnicity with South Koreans vs. being a North Korean who fled from an estranged neighboring country. This paper shows that emphasizing the Korean unity can help their integration in South Korea, despite considerable differences caused by seven-decade long separation between the North and the South. The results of a behavioral experiment with 130 North Korean refugees conducted in this study suggest that the unified Korean identity stimulates the refugees’ social trust with South Koreans, cooperation in South Korea, and their self-confidence. |
| Keywords: | North Korean Refugees, Identity, Social Trust, Cooperation, Confidence, Integration |
| JEL: | D91 J15 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201925&r=all |
| By: | Rema Hanna (Center for International Development at Harvard University); Benjamin A. Olken |
| Abstract: | To assess ways to achieve widespread health insurance coverage with financial solvency in developing countries, we designed a randomized experiment involving almost 6,000 households in Indonesia who are subject to a nationally mandated government health insurance program. We assessed several interventions that simple theory and prior evidence suggest could increase coverage and reduce adverse selection: substantial temporary price subsidies (which had to be activated within a limited time window and lasted for only a year), assisted registration, and information. Both temporary subsidies and assisted registration increased initial enrollment. Temporary subsidies attracted lower-cost enrollees, in part by eliminating the practice observed in the no subsidy group of strategically timing coverage for a few months during health emergencies. As a result, while subsidies were in effect, they increased coverage more than eightfold, at no higher unit cost; even after the subsidies ended, coverage remained twice as high, again at no higher unit cost. However, the most intensive (and effective) intervention – assisted registration and a full one-year subsidy – resulted in only a 30 percent initial enrollment rate, underscoring the challenges to achieving widespread coverage. |
| Keywords: | Global Health |
| JEL: | I13 O15 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cid:wpfacu:362&r=all |
| By: | Nicolas Jacquemet (PSE - Paris School of Economics); Stéphane Luchini (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - Ecole Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Antoine Malezieux; Jason Shogren (UW - University of Wyoming) |
| Abstract: | Why do people pay taxes? Rational choice theory has fallen short in answering this question. Another explanation, called "tax morale", has been promoted. Tax morale captures the behavioral idea that non-monetary preferences (like norm-submission, moral emotions and moral judgments) might be better determinants of tax compliance than monetary trade-offs. Herein we report on two lab experiments designed to assess whether norm-submission, moral emotions (e.g. affective empathy, cognitive empathy, propensity to feel guilt and shame) or moral judgments (e.g. ethics principles, integrity, and moralization of everyday life) can help explain compliance behavior. Although we find statistically significant correlations of tax compliance behavior with empathy and shame, the economic significance of these correlations are low–—more than 80% of the variability in compliance remains unexplained. These results suggest that tax authorities should focus on the institutional context, rather than individual preference characteristics, to handle tax evasion. |
| Keywords: | tax evasion,tax morale,morality,personality traits,psychometrics |
| Date: | 2019–06–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02290402&r=all |
| By: | Kamei, Kenju; Putterman, Louis; Tyran, Jean-Robert |
| Abstract: | Effective states provide public goods by taxing their citizens and imposing penalties for non-compliance. However, accountable government requires that enough citizens are civically engaged. We study the voluntary cooperative underpinnings of the accountable state by conducting a two-level public goods experiment in which civic engagement can build a sanction scheme to solve the first-order public goods dilemma. We find that civic engagement can be sustained at high levels when costs are low relative to the benefits of public good provision. This cost-to-benefit differential yields what we call a "leverage effect" because it transforms modest willingness to cooperate into the larger social dividend from the power of taxation. In addition, we find that local social interaction among subgroups of participants also boosts cooperation. |
| Keywords: | Civic engagement; Cooperation; Experiment; Public goods provision |
| JEL: | C92 D02 D72 H41 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13985&r=all |
| By: | Dietmar Fehr; Günther Fink; Kelsey Jack |
| Abstract: | A growing literature associates poverty with biases in decision-making. We investigate this link in a sample of over 3,000 small-scale farmers in Zambia, who participated in a series of experiments involving the opportunity to exchange randomly assigned household items for alternative items of similar value. Analyzing a total of 5,842 trading decisions over a range of household items, we show that exchange asymmetries are sizable and remarkably robust across items and experimental procedures. Using cross sectional, seasonal and randomized variation in financial resource availability, we show that exchange asymmetries decrease in magnitude when subjects are more constrained. Consistent with the interpretation that financial constraints increase decision stakes, we also show that trading probabilities increase when the value of the items involved is exogenously increased. |
| JEL: | D14 D90 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26357&r=all |
| By: | BARONE, CARLO; Fougère, Denis; PIN, CLEMENT |
| Abstract: | Shared book reading between parents and children is often regarded as a significant mediator of social inequalities in early skill development processes. We argue that socially biased gaps between parents in access to information about the benefits of this activity for school success contribute to inequalities between children in access to this activity and in their language development. We test this hypothesis with a large-scale field experiment assessing the causal impact of an information intervention targeting parents of pre-schoolers on both the frequency of shared book reading and the receptive vocabulary of children. Results indicate that low-educated parents are more reactive to this information intervention, with significant effects on the language development of their children. We conclude that information barriers on the potential of informal learning activities at home contribute to social inequalities in early childhood, and that removing these barriers is a cost-effective way to reduce these inequalities. |
| Keywords: | Early Childhood; field experiment; Language Skills; parental reading |
| JEL: | C93 I21 I24 J13 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14006&r=all |
| By: | Molla, Hemrin (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Rhawi, Caroline (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Lampi, Elina (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | Both immigration and a troubling housing deficit have increased rapidly in Sweden over the past 20 years. Today, up to 33 percent of the people living in the largest Swedish cities are immigrants. In this Internet-based field experiment, we investigated whether there exists discrimination in the Swedish private rental housing market based on the names of apartment seekers. We used a correspondent test by randomly sending out equivalent applications from four fictitious, highly educated, and seemingly “well-behaved” male applicants in response to a number of randomly selected private housing ads. Each advertiser received applications from two applicants with names signalling Swedish, Arab/Muslim, Eastern European, or East Asian ethnicity. Our results clearly confirm previous findings that persons with a name traditionally associated with the majority group in the respective community receive more call backs than others. When comparing our results with previous discrimination research focusing on Swedish housing market, we find that a man with an Arab/Muslim-sounding name needs to apply for clearly more rental objects in order to get a call back compared with just 10 years ago. Our results strongly indicate that the name of a person matters a great deal when applying for a rental object. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination; housing market; field experiment; correspondent test |
| JEL: | J71 R21 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0777&r=all |
| By: | Masayuki Sawada |
| Abstract: | In the context of a randomized experiment with non-compliance, I identify treatment effects without exclusion restrictions. Instead of relying on specific experimental designs, I exploit a baseline survey which is commonly available in randomized control trials. I show the identification of the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) as well as the local average treatment effect (LATE) assuming that a baseline variable maintains similar rank orders as the control outcome. I then apply this strategy to a microcredit experiment with one-sided non-compliance to identify the ATT. In microcredit studies, a direct effect of the treatment assignment has been a threat to identification of the ATT based on an IV strategy. I find the IV estimate of log revenue for the ATT is 2.3 times larger than my preferred estimate of log revenue. R package ptse is available for this analysis. |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1910.03204&r=all |
| By: | Gallier, Carlo; Goeschl, Timo; Kesternich, Martin; Lohse, Johannes; Reif, Christiane; Römer, Daniel |
| Abstract: | We study spatially differentiated competition between charities by partnering with two foodbanks in two neighboring cities to conduct a field experiment with roughly 350 donation appeals. We induce spatial differentiation by varying the observability of charities' location such that each donor faces a socially close 'home' and a distant 'away' charity. We find that spatially differentiated competition is characterized by sorting, crowding-in, and an absence of spillovers: Donors sort themselves by distance; fundraising (through matching) for one charity raises checkbook giving to that charity, irrespective of distance; but checkbook giving to the unmatched charity is not affected. For lead donors, this implies that the social distance between donors and charities is of limited strategic important. For spatially differentiated charities, matching 'home' donations maximizes overall charitable income. Across both charities, however, the additional funds raised fail to cover the cost of the match, despite harnessing social identity for giving. |
| Keywords: | altruism,public goods,charitable giving,social distance,field experiment,competition |
| JEL: | C9 D7 H4 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:19039&r=all |
| By: | Norman Gemmell (School of Social and Cultural Studies, Victoria University, Wellington - School of Social and Cultural Studies, Victoria University, Wellington); Marisa Ratto (LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - Université Paris-Dauphine) |
| Abstract: | The ‘standard' Allingham-Sandmo-Yitzhaki (ASY) model of tax evasion predicts effects oncompliance which depend on the perceived probability of detection, tax rate and penalty forevasion. Compliance effects of detection probabilities and tax rates have been extensively testedempirically, but penalty effects are rarely tested explicitly. This paper examines the effects of latepayment penalties on tax compliance based on an experiment involving New Zealand goods andservice tax (GST) ‘late payers'. Firstly, based on an ASY-type model of tax late payments in whichthe probability of enforcement, rather than detection, is central, we develop a number of testablehypotheses. Secondly, based on a field experiment involving a specific compliance intervention, weexamine how taxpayers respond when given different penalty information. The experiment alsoallows us to consider differences between taxpayers' stated intentions to comply and subsequentlyobserved compliance. Results suggest that differences in penalty information given to taxpayersand reductions in penalty rates both affect taxpayers stated intentions to comply (pay overdue taxand penalties) as predicted. However, subsequently observed responses generally appearunresponsive to penalties. Nevertheless, various individual taxpayer characteristics are identifiablethat affect both compliance intentions and actual behaviour. |
| Keywords: | Tax evasion,late payment penalties,tax experiment,goods and service tax |
| Date: | 2019–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02302534&r=all |
| By: | Mariana Khapko; Marius Zoican |
| Abstract: | Exchanges implement intentional trade delays to limit the harmful impact of low-latency trading. Do such "speed bumps" curb investment in fast trading technology? Data is scarce since trading technologies are proprietary. We build an experimental trading platform where participants face speed bumps and can invest in fast trading technology. We find that asymmetric speed bumps, on average, reduce investment in speed by only 20%. Increasing the magnitude of the speed bump by one standard deviation further reduces low-latency investment by 8.33%. Finally, introducing a symmetric speed bump leads to the same investment level as no speed bump at all. |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1910.03068&r=all |
| By: | Neszveda, G. (Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management) |
| Abstract: | Despite the fact that almost everyone faces risk in their lives and it is a crucial ingredient in economic models including asset pricing models, it is still an open debate how decision-makers or even investors evaluate risk. Experimental and empirical evidence shows that the standard expected utility theory falls short of explaining many economic and asset pricing phenomena. Behavioral finance provides alternative conceptual frameworks to explain these phenomena. This dissertation consists of 3 chapters investigating the impacts of some of the conceptual frameworks in behavioral finance. Chapter 1 investigates the potential impact of the expected utility theory with an aspiration level on stock returns. Chapter 2 investigates the impact of the law of small numbers on stock returns. Chapter 3 investigates the relation between time discounting and risk taking in an experiment. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiutis:05059039-5236-42a3-be1b-3c1be952551b&r=all |
| By: | Banerjee, Abhijit; Duflo, Esther; Keniston, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Should police activity should be narrowly focused and high force, or widely dispersed but of moderate intensity? Critics of intense "hot spot" policing argue it primarily displaces, not reduces, crime. But if learning about enforcement takes time, the police may take advantage of this period to intervene intensively in the most productive location. We propose a multi-armed bandit model of criminal learning and structurally estimate its parameters using data from a randomized controlled experiment on an anti-drunken driving campaign in Rajasthan, India. In each police station, sobriety checkpoints were either rotated among 3 locations or fixed in the best location, and the intensity of the crackdown was cross-randomized. Rotating checkpoints reduced night accidents by 17%, and night deaths by 25%, while fixed checkpoints had no significant effects. In structural estimation, we show clear evidence of driver learning and strategic responses. We use these parameters to simulate environment-specific optimal enforcement policies. |
| Keywords: | Choice Modeling; Crime Prevention; Illegal behavior; Information Acquisition; law enforcement; Learning Models |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13981&r=all |
| By: | Christine L. Exley; Judd B. Kessler |
| Abstract: | In job applications, job interviews, performance reviews, and a wide range of other environments, individuals are explicitly asked or implicitly invited to assess their own performance. In a series of experiments, we find that women rate their performance less favorably than equally performing men. This gender gap in self-promotion is notably persistent. It stays just as strong when we eliminate gender differences in confidence about performance and when we eliminate strategic incentives to engage in self-promotion. Because of the prevalence of self-promotion opportunities, this self-promotion gap may contribute to the persistent gender gap in education and labor market outcomes. |
| JEL: | C91 D90 J16 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26345&r=all |
| By: | Chengetai Dare; Ada Jansen; Sophia du Plessis |
| Abstract: | South Africa, like any other country, strives towards greater tax revenue mobilisation. One possible explanation to low revenue levels is non-compliance by taxpayers. Given its implications for the provision of public goods and services, the government has instituted various enforcement measures, including (among others) reprieves (amnesties and voluntary disclosure programmes) to delinquents who voluntarily disclose their previously unreported income. However, evidence on the efficacy of these measures show mixed responses in developed countries, making it imperative to analyse these policy measures in more depth for developing countries. Against this background, we examined taxpayers’ behavioural responses to once-off and permanent voluntary disclosure programmes. Using laboratory experiments, we found that both once-off and permanent voluntary disclosure programmes are effective in increasing compliance in the short-term, and only when they are accompanied by increased enforcement measures. The results also show that both once-off and permanent voluntary disclosure programmes (with or without increased enforcement) have insignificant long-term effects on compliance. Furthermore, a once-off voluntary disclosure programme is more effective than a permanent voluntary disclosure programme in stimulating compliance. As such, it is recommended that authorities avoid permanent voluntary disclosure programmes. |
| Keywords: | Voluntary Disclosure Programme, tax reprieve, compliance, tax evasion, laboratory experiment, taxpayers |
| JEL: | C91 H26 |
| Date: | 2018–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:771&r=all |
| By: | Johannes Johnen (CORE and LIDAM, Universite catholique de Louvain, Voie du Roman Pays 34, 1348 Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium); Robert Somogyi (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Department of Finance and Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Magyar tudosok korutja 2, 1117 Budapest, Hungary) |
| Abstract: | On many online platforms, sellers offer products with additional fees and features. Platforms often deliberately shroud these fees from consumers. Examples are shipping fees, luggage fees on flight-aggregator websites, or resort fees and upgrades on hotel booking platforms. We explore the incentives of two-sided platforms to disclose additional fees and design a transparent marketplace when consumers might naively ignore shrouded additional fees. First, we find that platforms have stronger incentives to shroud additional fees than sellers in the absence of platforms. This result holds for monopoly platforms and in some competitive settings. Second, competition might induce platforms to regulate additional fees, which benefits consumers. We discuss connections to frequent practices like drip pricing, and platforms like Amazon or eBay regulating shipping fees. |
| Keywords: | Two-sided markets; Deceptive products; Platform competition; Consumer mistakes; Shrouded attributes |
| JEL: | D18 D42 D90 L13 L86 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:1913&r=all |
| By: | Flip Klijn; Joana Pais; Marc Vorsatz |
| Abstract: | In the context of school choice, we experimentally study the student-optimal stable mechanism where subjects take the role of students and schools are passive. Specifically, we study if aschool can be better off when it unambiguously improves in the students’true preferences and its (theoretic) student-optimal stable match remains the same or gets worse. Using first-order stochastic dominance to evaluate the schools’ distributions over their actual matches,we find that schools’ welfare almost always changes in the same direction as the change of the student-optimal stable matching, i.e., incentives to improve school quality are nearly idle. |
| Keywords: | school choice, matching, deferred acceptance, school quality, stability |
| JEL: | C78 C91 C92 D78 I20 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:remwps:wp0982019&r=all |
| By: | Dan Levy (Center for International Development at Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | We assess the impact of a transparency and accountability program designed to improve maternal and newborn health (MNH) outcomes in Indonesia and Tanzania. Co-designed with local partner organizations to be community-led and non-prescriptive, the program sought to encourage community participation to address local barriers in access to high quality care for pregnant women and infants. We evaluate the impact of this program through randomized controlled trials (RCTs), involving 100 treatment and 100 control communities in each country. We find that on average, this program did not have a statistically significant impact on the use or content of maternal and newborn health services, nor the sense of civic efficacy or civic participation among recent mothers in the communities who were offered it. These findings hold in both countries and in a set of prespecified subgroups. To identify reasons for the lack of impacts, we use a mixed-method approach combining interviews, observations, surveys, focus groups, and ethnographic studies that together provide an in-depth assessment of the complex causal paths linking participation in the program to improvements in MNH outcomes. Although participation in program meetings was substantial and sustained in most communities, and most attempted at least some of what they had planned, only a minority achieved tangible improvements and fewer still saw more than one such success. Our assessment is that the main explanation for the lack of impact is that few communities were able to traverse the complex causal paths from planning actions to accomplishing tangible improvements in their access to quality health care. |
| Keywords: | Health Outcomes |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cid:wpfacu:352&r=all |
| By: | Raphaël Soubeyran (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - FRE2010 - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - UM - Université de Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I study the design of least cost technology adoption subsidy schemes when the individuals' decisions are affected by peer effects and pro-social motivations. I show that pro-social preferences lead to lower individual subsidies whether peer effects are positive or negative. However, the form of the optimal scheme strongly depends on the type of peer effects. When peer effects are positive pro-social preferences lead to an increase in objective inequality -the difference between individual material payoffs- while they lead to a decrease in subjective inequality -the difference between individual utility levels. When peer effects are negative, the optimal subsidy scheme is uniform, that is all the individuals receive the same subsidy. The model delivers insights for the design of a large range of intervention programs supporting the adoption of new technologies, both in contexts where peer effects are positive (as has been shown in the case of malaria prevention technologies and modern agricultural inputs) and in contexts where peer effects are negative (as has been shown in the case of deworming pills). |
| Keywords: | pro-social preferences.,incentives,inequality,externality,principal,agents |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpceem:halshs-02291905&r=all |