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on Experimental Economics |
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Issue of 2020‒04‒27
23 papers chosen by |
| By: | Guillaume HOLLARD (CREST Ecole polytechnique CNRS); Fabien PEREZ (CREST, INSEE) |
| Abstract: | Self-selection is common in naturally-occurring situations, including those where players can choose to engage in strategic interactions, but is absent from most lab experiments. A better understanding of the effect of self-selection will therefore enhance the external validity of behavioral game theory. We here gauge the impact of self-selection on strategic interactions in one-shot games by adding an explicit self-selection stage to a lab experiment so as to address our two main questions: (1) What are the determinants of self-selection? and (2) What are the consequences of self-selection on the composition of the pool of subjects and, in turn, on the strategies played? We consider three potential drivers of self-selection: risk aversion, past strategies and a new (in this context) measure of confidence. One side-product of the present study is thus the first assessment of the relevance of confidence judgments in experimental games. We find that risk-aversion and confidence explain a large part of the individual heterogeneity in self-selection. We also find a substantial change in the strategies used under self-selection (as compared to no self-selection), with the main effect coming from the filtering out of ”poor” strategies (i.e. dominated strategies or strategies leading to low payoffs). As a result, we can predict that self-selected subjects in the field act morein accordance with Nash-equilibrium predictions, although there are still large deviations from equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | Experiments; Self-selection; non-cooperative games; External Validity. |
| JEL: | C72 C9 |
| Date: | 2020–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crs:wpaper:2020-10&r=all |
| By: | Shinichi Hirota (School of Commerce, Waseda University); Juergen Huber (Dept. of Finance, University of Innsbruck); Thomas Stock (Dept. of Banking and Finance, University of Innsbruck); Shyam Sunder (School of Management and Cowles Foundation, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | To explore how speculative trading influences prices in financial markets, we conduct a laboratory market experiment with speculating investors (who do not collect dividends and trade only for capital gains) and dividend- collecting investors. Moreover, we operate markets at two di?erent levels of money supply. We ?nd that in phases with only speculating investors present (i) price deviations from fundamentals are larger; (ii) prices are more volatile; (iii) mispricing increases with the number of transfers until maturity; and (iv) speculative trading pushes prices upward (downward) when the supply of money is high (low). These results suggest that controlling the money supply can help to stabilize asset prices. |
| Keywords: | Experimental finance, Speculation, Rational expectations, Price efficiency, Price bubbles, Overlapping generations, Backward and forward induction |
| JEL: | C91 G11 G12 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2134r&r=all |
| By: | Elvis Cheng Xu |
| Abstract: | We conduct a field trust game under a natural experiment context to test the impacts of urbanisation on trust. We conjecture that urbanisation, defined in this context as the process of state-led rural-urban migration, contributes to a transformation of trust levels among co-villagers and towards outsiders. We test this conjecture in an experimental approach and more generally, examine whether the urbanisation will produce significant impacts on in-group trust and out-group trust. The research finds that urbanisation does not decrease significantly the trust towards co-villagers, meaning the in-group trust did not change statistically significantly. However, the trust towards outsiders does increase as a result of the state-led urbanisation. We also run a regression on the trust exhibited towards participants in the experiment and found the partial effect of whether they are co-villagers or outsiders weakens as a result of the urbanisation, and therefore conclude urbanisation decreases out-group discrimination in trust. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feb:artefa:00676&r=all |
| By: | Marie-Laure ALLAIN (CREST, CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Palaiseau, France); Claire CHAMBOLLE (Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, UR ALISS, 94205, Ivry-sur-Seine, France; CREST, Institut Polytechnique de Paris); Patrick REY (Toulouse School of Economics, University Toulouse Capitole, Toulouse, France); Sabrina TEYSSIER (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, INRA, CNRS, Grenoble INP, GAEL, 38000 Grenoble, France) |
| Abstract: | In a vertical chain in which two rivals invest before contracting with one of two competing suppliers, partial vertical integration may create hold-up problems for the rival. We develop an experiment to test this theoretical prediction in two setups, in which suppliers can either pre-commit ex ante to appropriating part of the joint profit, or degrade ex post the support they provide to their customer. Our experimental results confirm that vertical integration creates hold-up problems in both setups. However, we observe more departures from theory in the second one. Bounded rationality and social preferences provide a rationale for these departures. |
| Keywords: | Vertical Integration, Hold-up, Experimental Economics, Bounded Rationality, Social Preferences. |
| JEL: | C91 D90 L13 L41 L42 |
| Date: | 2020–03–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crs:wpaper:2020-09&r=all |
| By: | Werbeck, Anna (RWI); Wübker, Ansgar (RWI); Ziebarth, Nicolas R. (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | Using a randomized field experiment, we show that health care specialists cream-skim patients by their expected profitability. In the German two-tier system, outpatient reimbursement rates for both public and private insurance are centrally determined but are more than twice as high for the privately insured. In our field experiment, following a standardized protocol, the same hypothetical patient called 991 private practices in 36 German counties to schedule appointments for allergy tests, hearing tests and gastroscopies. Practices were 7% more likely to offer an appointment to the privately insured. Conditional on being offered an appointment, wait times for the publicly insured were twice as long than for the privately insured. Our findings show that structural differences in reimbursement rates lead to structural differences in health care access. |
| Keywords: | health care inequality, reimbursement rates, health care access, discrimination, cherry picking, gastroscopy, audiometry, allergy test, allergists, otorhinolaryngologist, gastroenterologist |
| JEL: | I14 I11 I18 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13100&r=all |
| By: | Dautović, Ernest; Cusolito, Ana Paula; McKenzie, David |
| Abstract: | Innovative firms with good ideas may still struggle to fine-tune them to the stage where they can attract outside funding. We conduct a five-country randomized experiment that tests the impact of an investment readiness program. Firms then pitched their ideas to independent judges. The program resulted in a 0.3 standard deviation increase in the investment readiness score. Two years later, the average impacts on firm investment outcomes are positive, but small in magnitude, and not statistically significant. Larger and statistically significant impacts on receiving outside funding occur for smaller firms, and for firms with lower likelihoods of otherwise being funded. JEL Classification: L26, M2, M13, O1 |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, equity investment, innovation, randomized controlled trial, start-ups |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20202391&r=all |
| By: | Christian König-Kersting; Johannes Lohse; Anna Louisa Merkel |
| Abstract: | Does risk-taking depend on whether risks result from an action (active risk-taking) or from not taking action (passive risk-taking)? Economic studies of risk mostly focus on active risk-taking, even though in many everyday decisions, risks result from remaining passive. It is unclear whether studying active risk-taking is informative for situations where risks result from passivity, considering theoretical arguments that suggest otherwise. We develop a new experimental risk-elicitation procedure, which we call the Lottery Adjustment Task (LAT) and employ it in two separate experiments to study the size and direction of potential mode-of-choice effects (i.e. differences in risk-taking between active and passive decision modes). While our tightly controlled lab study provides little evidence for the existence of mode-of-choice effects when attention costs are absent, we find substantial evidence for mode-of-choice-effects in an online setting where decisions are spread out over 10 days and attention costs are thus a key feature of the decision. |
| Keywords: | risk-taking, mode-of-choice, status quo effect, omission bias |
| JEL: | D81 D91 C91 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2020-04&r=all |
| By: | Bruno Carvalho; Claudia Custodio; Benny Geys; Diogo Mendes; Susana Peralta |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of information about central government on voters’ perception of government performance and subsequent voting behavior. We randomly expose voters to media articles with positive, neutral or negative information about government policy actions prior to the 2017 Portuguese local elections. We find that treated voters update their perceptions about the incumbent. This update is more pronounced among voters exposed to negative news (negativity bias), first-time voters, and individuals who report a lower interest in politics. We do not find evidence of an average treatment effect on voting behaviour. However, we find that, when exposed to negative information, initially undecided voters are more likely to cast a blank vote, to abstain or to vote for opposition parties. Overall, our findings suggest that voters’ sensitivity to information is heterogeneous and depends on the level of education and political awareness. |
| Keywords: | Media, Information; Negativity Bias; Performance Perception; Local Elections |
| JEL: | D72 D83 H11 H70 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/304574&r=all |
| By: | Michal Krawczyk; Joanna Rachubik |
| Abstract: | The representativeness heuristic (RH) has been proposed to be at the root of several types of biases in judgment. In this project, we ask whether the RH is relevant in two kinds of choices in the context of gambling. Specifically, in a field experiment with naturalistic stimuli and a potentially extremely high monetary pay-out, we give each of our subjects a choice between a lottery ticket with a random-looking number sequence and a ticket with a patterned sequence; we subsequently offer them a small cash bonus if they switch to the other ticket. In the second task, we investigate the gambler's fallacy, asking subjects what they believe the outcome of a fourth coin toss after a sequence of three identical outcomes will be. We find that most subjects prefer "random" sequences, and that approximately half believe in dependence between subsequent coin tosses. There is no correlation, though, between the initial choice of the lottery ticket and the prediction of the coin toss. Nonetheless, subjects who have a strong preference for certain number combinations (i.e., subjects who are willing to forgo the cash bonus and remain with their initial choice) also tend to predict a specific outcome (in particular a reversal, corresponding to the gambler's fallacy) in the coin task. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feb:natura:00693&r=all |
| By: | Schnedler, Wendelin (University of Paderborn); Stephan, Nina Lucia (University of Paderborn) |
| Abstract: | Previous experiments observe a chain of unkindness: unkindly treated people treat an innocent third party unkindly. As a remedy, it has been proposed that the unkindly treated person engages in emotional regulation by writing a letter to the unkind person. Indeed, subjects who received little money were willing to leave more to a third person when they were writing a letter rather than waiting. Here, we examine whether emotional regulation is indeed behind this observation. In line with emotional regulation, we find that letter writing also leads to more giving if the person is treated unkindly by being assigned to a frustrating rather than a pleasant job. Being able to write, however, does not affect self-reported happiness differently from having to wait. Even more strikingly, subjects assigned to pleasant jobs also give more when writing rather than waiting. This is not consistent with emotional regulation. |
| Keywords: | experimental economics, chain of unkindness, emotional closure, cooling down |
| JEL: | D91 C91 D03 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13135&r=all |
| By: | Michael Razen; Jürgen Huber; Laura Hueber; Michael Kirchler; Matthias Stefan |
| Abstract: | Financial literacy and economic preferences are considered to be important drivers of health, income, and general well-being. In this paper we bridge the gap between studies on financial literacy and research on economic preferences by how they interplay with each other and the field behavior of adolescents. First, we report that financial literacy scores are positively associated with patience, male gender, and educational level of the father. Second, we observe that risky field behavior like smoking and gambling is positively associated with various measures of risk-tolerance, and negatively associated with patience. Finally, we discuss implications for financial education programs. |
| Keywords: | Experimental finance, financial literacy, time preferences, risk preferences, adolescents |
| JEL: | C93 D91 D81 J13 |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2020-05&r=all |
| By: | Belzil, Christian (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris); Maurel, Arnaud (Duke University); Sidibé, Modibo (Duke University) |
| Abstract: | Using data from a Canadian field experiment on the financial barriers to higher education, we estimate the distribution of the value of financial aid for prospective students. Our results point out that a considerable share of prospective students are affected by credit constraints. We find that most of the individuals are willing to pay a sizable interest premium above the prevailing market rate for the option to take up a loan, with a median interest rate wedge equal to 6.8 percentage points for a $1,000 loan. The willingness-to-pay for financial aid is highly heterogeneous across students, with preferences and in particular discount factors, playing a key role in accounting for this variation. |
| Keywords: | higher education financing, time and risk preferences, field experiment |
| JEL: | I22 I23 J24 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13096&r=all |
| By: | Schnedler, Wendelin; Stephan, Nina |
| Abstract: | Previous experiments observe a chain of unkindness: unkindly treated people treat an innocent third party unkindly. As a remedy, it has been proposed that the unkindly treated person engages in emotional regulation by writing a letter to the unkind person. Indeed, subjects who received little money were willing to leave more to a third person when they were writing a letter rather than waiting. Here, we examine whether emotional regulation is indeed behind this observation. In line with emotional regulation, we find that letter writing also leads to more giving if the person is treated unkindly by being assigned to a frustrating rather than a pleasant job. Being able to write, however, does not affect self-reported happiness differently from having to wait. Even more strikingly, subjects assigned to pleasant jobs also give more when writing rather than waiting. This is not consistent with emotional regulation. |
| Keywords: | experimental economics,chain of unkindness,emotional closure,cooling down |
| JEL: | D91 C91 D03 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:215708&r=all |
| By: | Viola S. Ackfeld |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I study an aversion to monetary incentives to make other people change their behavior. Particularly, I provide evidence that monetary incentives are disliked because they are powerful in changing what people do but not why they do it besides for money. In an experiment, one group of participants decides about interventions which try to change others' behavior. Between treatments, I vary whether the intervention consists of convincing information or monetary incentives. I find that participants consider monetary incentives as more effective in changing behavior than informative interventions. Nonetheless, they are less willing to intervene by monetary incentives compared to informative interventions to foster their preferred outcome. A comprehensive set of elicited beliefs supports the idea that this aversion to incentives stems from incentives' lack of changing one's reason to act. |
| Date: | 2020–04–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kls:series:0100&r=all |
| By: | Timo Ehrig (Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig); Monica Jaison Manjaly (Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar); Aditya Singh (Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar); Shyam Sunder (School of Management and Cowles Foundation, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | Forming beliefs or expectations about others’ behavior is fundamental to strategy, as it co-determines the outcomes of interactions in and across organizations. In the game theoretic conception of rationality, agents reason iteratively about each other to form expectations about behavior. According to prior scholarship, actual strategists fall short of this ideal, and attempts to understand the underlying cognitive processes of forming expectations about others are in their infancy. We propose that emotions help regulate iterative reasoning, that is, their tendency to not only reflect on what others think, but also on what others think about their thinking. Drawing on a controlled experiment, we ï¬ nd that a negative emotion (fear) deepens the tendency to engage in iterative reasoning, compared to a positive emotion (amusement). Moreover, neutral emotions yield even deeper levels of reasoning. We tentatively interpret these early ï¬ ndings and speculate about the broader link of emotions and expectations in the context of strategic management. Extending the view of emotional regulation as a capability, emotions may be building blocks of rational heuristics for strategic interaction and enable interactive decision-making when strategists have little experience with the environment. |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2227&r=all |
| By: | Gallier, Carlo; Sturm, Bodo |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate whether dynamic incentive schemes lead to a ratchet effect in a social dilemma. We test whether subjects strategically restrict their contribution levels at the beginning of a cumulative public goods game in order to avoid high obligations in the future and how this affects efficiency. The incentive schemes prescribe that individual contributions have to be at least as high as, or strictly higher than, contributions in the previous period. We observe a substantial and statistically significant ratchet effect. Participants reduce their public good contribution levels at the beginning of the game, anticipating that higher contributions imply higher minimum contribution levels in the future, which increases the risk of being exploited by freeriders. While the dynamic incentive schemes lead to increasing contribution levels over the course of the game, this increase is not strong enough to compensate the efficiency losses at the beginning. |
| Keywords: | Public goods,dynamic incentives,minimum contribution rules,ratchet effect |
| JEL: | C72 C92 H41 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:20015&r=all |
| By: | Yue Ma; Robert W. Fairlie; Prashant Loyalka; Scott Rozelle |
| Abstract: | EdTech which includes online education, computer assisted learning (CAL), and remote instruction was expanding rapidly even before the current full-scale substitution for in-person learning at all levels of education around the world because of the coronavirus pandemic. Studies of CAL interventions have consistently found large positive effects, bolstering arguments for the widespread use of EdTech. However CAL programs, often held after school, provide not only computer-based instruction, but often additional non-technology based inputs such as more time on learning and instructional support by facilitators. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model to carefully explore the possible channels by which CAL programs might affect academic outcomes among schoolchildren. We isolate and test the technology-based effects of CAL and additional parameters from the theoretical model, by designing a novel multi-treatment field experiment with more than four thousand schoolchildren in rural China. Although we find evidence of positive overall CAL program effects on academic outcomes, when we isolate the technology-based effect of CAL (over and above traditional pencil-and-paper learning) we generally find small to null effects. Our empirical results suggest that, at times, the “Tech” in EdTech may have relatively small effects on academic outcomes, which has important implications for the continued, rapid expansion of technologies such as CAL throughout the world. |
| JEL: | I21 I25 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26953&r=all |
| By: | Marta Angelici; Paola Profeta |
| Abstract: | Does removing the constraints of time and place of work increase the utility of workers and firms? We design a randomized experiment on a sample of workers in a large Italian company: workers are randomly divided into a treated group that engages in flexible space and time job (which we call “smart-working†) one day per week for 9 months and a control group that continues to work traditionally. By comparing the treated and control workers, we find causal evidence that the flexibility of smart-working increases the productivity of workers and improves their well-being and work-life balance. We also observe that the effects are stronger for women and that there are no significant spillover effects within workers of a team. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wchild:77&r=all |
| By: | Briscese, Guglielmo (University of Chicago); Lacetera, Nicola (University of Toronto); Macis, Mario (Johns Hopkins University); Tonin, Mirco (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano) |
| Abstract: | We study how intentions to comply with the self-isolation restrictions enacted in Italy in response to the COVID-19 crisis respond to the length of their possible extension. Based on a survey of a representative sample of Italian residents (N=894), we find that respondents who are positively surprised by a given hypothetical extension (i.e. the extension is shorter than what they expected) are more willing to increase their self-isolation. In contrast, negative surprises (extensions longer than expected) relate with a lower willingness to comply. In a context where individual compliance has collective benefits, but full enforcement is costly and controversial, communication and persuasion have a fundamental role. Our findings provide insights to public authorities on how to announce lockdown measures and manage people's expectations. |
| Keywords: | behavioural change, COVID-19, expectations, compliance, social distancing |
| JEL: | H12 I12 I18 D84 D91 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13092&r=all |
| By: | Alejandro Cid; José María Cabrera; Marianne Bernatzky; María Ramírez-Michelena; Magdalena Blanco |
| Abstract: | This is the first paper to identify, using a field experiment, the effects of intense one-on-one assistance by a professional social worker on the take-up of social benefits within a population of deeply disadvantaged informal workers. A municipal program exists that entails providing these disadvantaged informal workers with a formal permit to work on the streets and make contributions to the retirement pension system. We randomly assign one-on-one assistance to these informal workers, and within this treatment group, we randomly assign money to cover the cost of the documents required by the municipality. We find that a worker who receives one-on-one assistance is three times more likely to receive the municipal permit than a worker in the control group. We also find that a worker who receives both one-on-one assistance and cost coverage is four times more likely to obtain the municipal permit. Providing information alone does not have an impact. The program has no spillover effect on the take-up of other national support programs that are not targeted by the one-on-one assistance intervention. These findings identify possible strategies to remove barriers to increase the take-up of social benefits within deeply vulnerable populations |
| Keywords: | behavioral barriers; welfare take-up; social benefits; personal assistance; information; field experiment; labor regulation. |
| JEL: | C93 D04 J46 J62 I30 I38 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnt:wpaper:1908&r=all |
| By: | Leight, Jessica; Awonon, Josue; Pedehombga, Abdoulaye; Ganaba, Rasmané; Martinez, Elena M.; Heckert, Jessica; Gelli, Aulo |
| Abstract: | This article reports on a cluster-randomized controlled trial conducted in 120 villages in rural Burkina Faso evaluating a multifaceted intervention (SELEVER) that seeks to increase poultry production by delivering training in conjunction with the strengthening of village-level institutions providing veterinary and credit services to poultry farmers. The intervention is evaluated in a sample of 1,080 households surveyed following two years of program implementation. Households exposed to the intervention significantly increase their use of poultry inputs (veterinary services, enhanced feeds, and deworming), and report more poultry sold and higher revenue; however, there is no evidence of an increase in profits. This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that the return to inputs in the poultry market may not be sufficient to counterbalance the market costs of these inputs. |
| Keywords: | BURKINA FASO; WEST AFRICA; AFRICA SOUTH OF SAHARA; AFRICA; poultry; livestock production; empowerment; gender; women; nutrition; child nutrition; value chains; households; intervention; poultry feeding; diet; livestock; poultry production |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1919&r=all |
| By: | Del Boca, Daniela (University of Turin); Pronzato, Chiara D. (University of Turin); Sorrenti, Giuseppe (University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | Employment helps reduce the risk of poverty. Through a randomized controlled trial, we evaluate the impact of a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to low-income families with dependent children on household members' labor supply. Recipients are required to attend labor-market-oriented mentoring courses as a condition of the transfer. One year after admission to the program, fathers assigned to the CCT program are more likely to work (+14 percent) than fathers assigned to an unconditional cash transfer program or to a pure control group. No effect arises for mothers. Results seem to be explained by improved family networks and increased parental investments in activities that enhance labor market opportunities. |
| Keywords: | conditional cash transfers, poverty, household labor supply, mentoring courses |
| JEL: | I10 I20 J24 I31 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13102&r=all |
| By: | Ochieng, Dennis O. |
| Abstract: | While contract farming provides opportunities to link smallholder farmers to markets, its sustainability depends on how the interests of both farmers and buyers are addressed. Previous studies analyze farmers’ preferences for contracts, but buyers’ preferences for contracts and design attributes are hardly examined. The author contributes to the knowledge gap by analyzing farmers’ and buyers’ preferences for contracts and design attributes, and the similarities and differences in preferences using a discrete choice experiment with 505 cotton farmers and 512 tea farmers in southern Malawi. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:masspn:37&r=all |