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on Experimental Economics |
| By: | Timmons, Shane; Robertson, Deirdre; Lunn, Pete |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp722&r= |
| By: | Evans, Alecia; Sesmero, Juan |
| Keywords: | Institutional and Behavioral Economics |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea21:322804&r= |
| By: | Kramer, Berber; Mollerstrom, Johanna; Seymour, Greg |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Research Methods/Statistical Methods, International Development |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea22:322298&r= |
| By: | Fehérová, Martina; Heger, Stephanie; Péliová, Jana; Servátka, Maroš; Slonim, Robert |
| Abstract: | In many contexts people can choose how many charities to help. This paper presents results from a laboratory experiment that varies whether the subjects have a choice in the number of charities to donate to and whether they are given an option to opt out. We find that the choice increases donation frequency but does not influence donation amounts. If the choice also includes the opt-out option, there is no increase in the donation frequency or amount. |
| Keywords: | Altruism, Choice, Charitable Giving, Choice Architecture, Opt-out |
| JEL: | C91 D64 |
| Date: | 2022–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:113631&r= |
| By: | Schütt, Christoph; Pipke, David; Detlefsen, Lena; Grimalda, Gianluca |
| Abstract: | Ethnic discrimination is ubiquitous, and it has been shown to exert adverse effects on income redistribution. The reason is that a country's ethnic majority, if richer than the average, may be unwilling to transfer resources to the country's ethnic minorities if poorer than the average. A yet untested mechanism is that a country's ethnic majority may reduce their work effort knowing that their income will finance redistribution to ethnic minorities. We test for this mechanism experimentally in triadic interactions. A German citizen acting as a worker is randomly matched with a recipient who can be another German, an economic migrant, or an asylum seeker in Germany. Workers know that another German citizen may transfer part of their earnings to the recipient. The recipient does not exert any work effort. Even if the recipient's identity does not affect effort in the aggregate, social identity strongly moderates this relationship. Participants with a strong German identity, i.e., who report feeling close to other Germans, exert significantly less effort than other participants if the recipient is an asylum seeker. They also exert more effort when matched with a German recipient than an asylum seeker, while participants with a less strong German identity do the opposite. Moreover, participants with a strong German identity exert slightly more effort when matched with economic migrants than with asylum seekers, while others tend to do the opposite, albeit statistically insignificantly. Workers' beliefs over the third party's redistribution rate do not mediate such results and are generally inaccurate. |
| Keywords: | Redistribution,Discrimination,Taxes,Beliefs,Real effort,Experiment |
| JEL: | C91 H23 I31 J15 J30 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:2228&r= |
| By: | Del Boca, Daniela (University of Turin); Pronzato, Chiara D. (University of Turin); Schiavon, Lucia (University of Torino) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of parenting courses on families' time use with their children in urban areas in Italy. Courses aimed at raising parental awareness of the importance of educational activities were offered in four cities (Naples, Reggio Emilia, Teramo and Palermo) within the framework of the social program "FA.C.E. Farsi Comunità Educanti". In order to conduct the impact evaluation, we designed a randomized controlled trial involving random assignment of the families (mostly mothers). At the end of the intervention, we administered an assessment questionnaire both to the treatment group, which took the course, and to the control group, which did not. Comparing the outcomes, we find that attending the course increased families' awareness of the importance of educational activities for children, reading often to the children and spending more time with them. |
| Keywords: | parenting, use of time, educational activities, randomized controlled trial |
| JEL: | J13 D1 I26 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15405&r= |
| By: | James C. Cox; Vjollca Sadiraj; Susan Xu Tang |
| Abstract: | Consequentialist rational choice theory, including models of (unconditional) social preferences, is challenged by decades of robust data from payoff-equivalent public good games with provision or appropriation as well as by robust data showing contributions to public goods, funded by lump-sum taxation, do not crowd out voluntary contributions on a one-for-one basis. This paper offers an extension of rational choice theory that incorporates observable moral reference points. This morally monotonic choice theory is consistent with robust data in the literature and has idiosyncratic features that motivate new experimental designs that introduce nonbinding quotas on appropriations or floors on provisions. Data, from three previous experiments and our new experiment, favor moral monotonicity over alternative theoretical models including rational choice theory, prominent belief-based models of kindness, and popular reference-dependent models with loss aversion. |
| Keywords: | choice theory, public goods, experiment, payoff equivalence, non-binding contractions, moral reference points, belief-based psychological models, reference-dependent choices |
| JEL: | C91 D03 H41 |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exc:wpaper:2022-01&r= |
| By: | Bruns, Selina JK; Hermann, Daniel; Musshoff, Oliver |
| Keywords: | Research Methods/Statistical Methods, Risk and Uncertainty, Community/Rural/Urban Development |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea22:322263&r= |
| By: | Nasim, Sanval (LUMS); Stegmann, Andreas (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a field experiment to study whether concerns to preserve an anti-liberal self-image affect low cost, private school owners' willingness to explore a collaboration with a liberal Pakistani NGO. While explicitly revealing the NGO's liberal motivation to school owners has a significant impact on beliefs about the NGO's objectives, on average, we find only limited evidence that treated school owners are less willing to explore a collaboration with our partner NGO. However, heterogeneous treatment effects suggest that differences in political identity cause negative reactions among the minority of school owners expressing conservative beliefs during a seemingly unrelated follow-up survey. |
| Keywords: | Aid efficacy ; political identity JEL Classification: O20 ; P16 ; D03. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:wqapec:14&r= |
| By: | Gabriel Montes-Rojas (Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política de Buenos Aires - UBA - CONICET); Luciano de Castro (University of Iowa); Antonio F. Galvao (Michigan State University); Jeong Yeol Kim (University of Arizona); José Olmo (Universidad de Zaragoza; University of Southampton) |
| Abstract: | This paper conducts a laboratory experiment to assess the optimal allocation under quantile preferences (QP) and compares the model predictions with those of a meanvariance (MV) utility function. We estimate the aversion coefficients associated to the individuals’ empirical portfolio under the QP and MV theories, and evaluate the relative predictive of each theory. The experiment assesses individuals’ preferences through a portfolio choice experiment constructed from two assets that may include a risk-free asset. The results of the experiment con rm the suitability of both to predict individuals’ optimal choices. Furthermore, the aggregation of results by individual choices o ers support to the MV theory. However, the aggregation of results by task, which is more informative, provides more support to the QP theory. The overall message that emerges from this experiment is that individuals’ behavior is better predicted by the MV model when it is di cult to assess the differences in the lotteries’ payoff distributions but better described as QP maximizers, otherwise. |
| Keywords: | Optimal asset allocation, Quantile preferences, Portfolio theory, Risk attitude, Predictive ability test |
| JEL: | D81 G11 |
| Date: | 2021–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ake:iiepdt:202168&r= |
| By: | Lunn, Pete; Julienne, Hannah; Belton, Cameron; Timmons, Shane |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp726&r= |
| By: | Donna Harris; Oana Borcan; Danila Serra; Henry Telli; Bruno Schettini; Stefan Dercon |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether ethics and integrity training can improve values, attitudes and behavior of police officers. We conducted a field experiment in Ghana, where we randomly selected traffic police officers to participate in a training program informed by theoretical work on the role of identity and motivation in organizations. The training was designed to re-activate intrinsic motivations to serve the public, and to create a new shared identity of “Agent of Change,” aimed at inducing a collective shift in attitudes and behaviors. Data generated by a survey and an incentivized cheating game conducted 20 months later, show that the program positively affected officers’ values and beliefs regarding on-the-job unethical behavior and improved their attitudes toward citizens. Moreover, the program significantly lowered officers’ propensity to behave unethically, as measured by their willingness to cheat in the incentivized game. |
| Keywords: | Ethics training, police, experiment |
| JEL: | H76 K42 M53 D73 |
| Date: | 2022–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2022-05&r= |
| By: | Moritz, Laura; Kuhn, Lena; Bobojonov, Ihtiyor |
| Keywords: | Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Risk and Uncertainty, Agricultural Finance |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea22:322096&r= |
| By: | Giurge, Laura M.; Van Dijke, Marius; Zheng, Michelle Xue; De Cremer, David |
| Abstract: | We test whether leaders' power shapes their reasoning about moral issues and whether such moral reasoning subsequently influences leaders' display of self-interested behavior. We use an incentivized experiment to manipulate two components of leader power: power over more versus fewer followers and power to enforce one's will by having discretion over more versus fewer payout options to allocate between oneself and one's followers. We find that having power over more followers decreased leaders' principled moral reasoning, whereas having higher power to enforce one's will enabled leaders to engage in self-interested behavior. We also find suggestive evidence that power over increases self-interested behavior by decreasing principled moral reasoning; the effect of power to was not mediated by moral reasoning. These results illustrate that power activates self-interest within and outside the context in which power is held. They also show that moral reasoning is not a stable cognitive process, but that it might represent an additional path via which power affects self-interested behavior. |
| Keywords: | power; moral reasoning; moral development; self-interested behavior |
| JEL: | J50 |
| Date: | 2021–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:115322&r= |
| By: | Cappelen, Alexander W. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Falch, Ranveig (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Huang, Zhongjing (East China Normal University); Tungodden, Bertil (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | In a novel experimental design with nearly 10,000 adults and children, we study how adults in two societies characterized by very different levels of income inequality, Shanghai (China) and Norway, make real distributive choices involving children. We document a large cross-societal difference in the acceptance of inequality between children: adults in Shanghai implement twice as much inequality between children as do adults in Norway. This finding is robust to varying the age of the children and key features of the economic environment. Finally, we show that the willingness to accept inequality between children is predictive of attitudes to child policies. |
| Keywords: | Childhood inequality; fairness; social preferences; moral development |
| JEL: | D63 |
| Date: | 2022–07–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2022_010&r= |
| By: | Lilith Burgstaller; Lars P. Feld; Katharina Pfeil |
| Abstract: | Little is known about the size and determinants of undeclared work. While approaches to measure the shadow economy have been extensively discussed, conventional surveys dominate research on undeclared work. We review and extend this literature by first referring to the most recent survey data on undeclared work in Germany and, second, by discussing four experimental survey techniques as well as their few applications to questions of undeclared work. We argue that the randomized response technique and list experiments would validate and improve prevalence estimates of undeclared work, whereas careful design of information provision experiments and discrete choice experiments would fill the gap on determinants that causally affect decisions to supply and demand undeclared work. |
| Keywords: | undeclared work, experimental survey, survey data |
| JEL: | H26 E26 O17 D91 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9810&r= |
| By: | Lisa Bruttel (Universität Potsdam, Department for Economics and Social Sciences, Chair for Economics Markets, Competition, and Institutions - August-Bebel-Str. 89 - 14482 Potsdam, Germany); Muhammed Bulutay (Technische Universität Berlin, Chair of Macroeconomics, H 52 - Straße des 17. Juni 135 - 10 623 Berlin, Germany); Camille Cornand (Univ Lyon, CNRS, GATE UMR 5824, F-69130 Ecully, France); Frank Heinemann (Technische Universität Berlin, Chair of Macroeconomics, H 52 - Straße des 17. Juni 135 - 10 623 Berlin, Germany); Adam Zylbersztejn (Univ Lyon, Université Lumière Lyon 2, GATE UMR 5824, F-69130 Ecully, France; research fellow at Vistula University Warsaw (AFiBV), Warsaw, Poland) |
| Abstract: | Strategic uncertainty is the uncertainty that players face with respect to the purposeful behavior of other players in an interactive decision situation. Our paper develops a new method for measuring strategic-uncertainty attitudes and distinguishing them from risk and ambiguity attitudes. We vary the source of uncertainty (whether strategic or not) across conditions in a ceteris paribus manner. We elicit certainty equivalents of participating in two strategic 2x2 games (a stag-hunt and a market-entry game) as well as certainty equivalents of related lotteries that yield the same possible payoffs with exogenously given probabilities (risk) and lotteries with unknown probabilities (ambiguity). We provide a structural model of uncertainty attitudes that allows us to measure a preference for or an aversion against the source of uncertainty, as well as optimism or pessimism regarding the desired outcome. We document systematic attitudes towards strategic uncertainty that vary across contexts. Under strategic complementarity [substitutability], the majority of participants tend to be pessimistic [optimistic] regarding the desired outcome. However, preferences for the source of uncertainty are distributed around zero. |
| Keywords: | risk attitudes, ambiguity attitudes, strategic-uncertainty attitudes, stag-hunt game, market-entry game |
| JEL: | C72 C91 C92 D81 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:2211&r= |
| By: | Rutledge, Robert (University of Sydney); Alladi, Vinayak (University of Sydney); Cheung, Stephen L. (University of Sydney) |
| Abstract: | We experimentally test Kőszegi and Rabin's (2006, 2007) theory of reference-dependent preferences in the context of price expectations. In an incentivised valuation task, participants are endowed with a mug and provide their willingness to accept (WTA) to sell it. We manipulate the sale price in a separate, exogenous forced sale scenario, which is predicted to produce a 'comparison effect', moving WTA in the opposite direction to the forced sale price. Consistent with the theory, we observe a treatment effect of between AUD $0.79 and $2.06 in the hypothesised direction; however, it is statistically insignificant. We also elicit participants' loss aversion to account for heterogeneity in the theorised effect; however, controlling for the interaction between our treatment and loss aversion does not consistently strengthen our result. |
| Keywords: | reference dependence, price expectations, comparison effect, loss aversion |
| JEL: | C91 D90 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15375&r= |
| By: | Dickinson, David L. (Appalachian State University) |
| Abstract: | The confirmation bias is a well-known form of motivated reasoning that serves to protect an individual from cognitive discomfort. Hearing rival viewpoints or belief-opposing information creates cognitive dissonance, and so avoiding exposure to, or discounting the validity of, dissonant information are rational strategies that may help avoid or mitigate negative emotion. Because there is often systematic thought involved in generating the confirmation bias, deliberation tends to promote this behavioral bias. Nevertheless, the importance of negative emotion in triggering the need for this bias is underappreciated. This paper addresses a gap in the literature by examining mood and the confirmation bias in the political domain. Using results from two studies and three distinct decision tasks, we present data on over 1100 participants documenting the confirmation bias in different settings. All methods (recruitment and sample size, hypotheses, variables, analysis plans, etc.) were preregistered on the Open Science Framework. Our data show evidence of a confirmation bias across distinct dimensions of belief and preference formation. As hypothesized, the data show a strong increase in self-reported negative mood states after viewing political statements or information that are dissonant with one's political ideology. Finally, while not as robust across tasks, we report evidence that supports our hypothesis that negative mood will moderate the strength of the confirmation bias. Together, these results highlight the importance of mood response in understanding the confirmation bias, which helps further our understanding of how this bias may be particularly difficult to combat. |
| Keywords: | confirmation bias, sleep, deliberation, cognitive reflection, motivated reasoning |
| JEL: | C91 D91 D89 |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15428&r= |
| By: | Tran, Lan T.; McCann, Laura M.; Su, Ye |
| Keywords: | Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Research Methods/Statistical Methods, Marketing |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea22:322139&r= |
| By: | Darya Korlyakova |
| Abstract: | There is a long-standing concern that expected discrimination discourages minorities from exercising effort to succeed. Effort withdrawal could contribute to confirming negative stereotypes about minorities’ productivity and enduring disparities. This paper extends the findings of correlational research by exogenously manipulating individuals’ beliefs about discrimination against their group and exploring a causal link between perceived discrimination and individuals’ labor market behavior. For this purpose, we conduct an online experiment in the US with a diverse sample of 2,000 African Americans. We randomly assign individuals to two groups and inform one group about the frequency of discrimination against African Americans in a previous survey. To study the information effects on effort, we subsequently measure participants’ results on a math task. We document that most individuals initially overestimate discrimination against African Americans. The overestimation decreases strongly and significantly as a result of information provision. At the same time, treated individuals, males in particular, attempt and solve correctly fewer math problems compared to untreated individuals. Hence, our findings do not support the common concern that minorities’ inflated expectations about discrimination induce them to underperform. |
| Keywords: | perceived discrimination; racial minorities; effort; |
| JEL: | C99 D83 J15 |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp731&r= |
| By: | Emma Riley |
| Abstract: | Intra-household sharing pressure has been shown to be a key constraint on female enterprise growth in developing countries. However, the growth of digital financial services offers a new way to reduce this sharing pressure. In this paper, I examine whether changing the form that a microfinance loan is disbursed in, from cash to directly onto a digital account, enables female microfinance borrowers to grow their businesses. Using a field experiment of 3,000 female borrowers in Uganda, I compare the disbursement of a loan as cash to the disbursement of a loan onto a mobile money account. After 8 months, women who received their microfinance loan on the mobile money account had 11% higher levels of business capital and 15% higher business profits compared to a control group who received their loan as cash. Total household income and consumption were also higher. Impacts were greatest for women who experienced pressure to share money with others in the household at baseline, suggesting that providing the loan in a digital account reduces sharing of the loan with others, to the benefit of both the woman's business and household. This indicates that widespread mobile money services can be utilised to counteract the negative impact of sharing pressure on the performance of female-owned enterprises. |
| JEL: | O12 O16 D13 D14 C93 J16 |
| Date: | 2022–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2022-04&r= |
| By: | Jules Gazeaud; Nausheen Khan; Eric Mvukiyehe; Olivier Sterck |
| Abstract: | Is it possible to stimulate women’s employment by relaxing their financial and human capital constraints? Does involving husbands help or hinder the effort? To examine these questions, we randomly allocated cash grants and financial training to 1,000 poor women in Tunisia. To encourage gender dialogue, a random subset of women could invite their male partner to the training. The cash grants and financial training positively impacted women’s income generating activities, but only for women who had to attend the training alone, suggesting that gender dialogue backfired. The program also reinforced traditional gender roles: it stimulated employment of other household members as well as investments in small-scale agriculture and livestock farming—two activities traditionally undertaken by women at home. Impacts on household living standards are overwhelmingly positive. |
| Keywords: | Cash Transfers, Financial Training, Gender Roles, Employment |
| JEL: | J16 L25 L26 O12 |
| Date: | 2022–01–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2022-02&r= |
| By: | Deka, Anubrata; Yiannaka, Amalia; Banerjee, Simanti |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Research Methods/Statistical Methods, Marketing |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea22:322401&r= |
| By: | Samantha Horn; Sabina J. Sloman |
| Abstract: | We use a simulation study to compare three methods for adaptive experimentation: Thompson sampling, Tempered Thompson sampling, and Exploration sampling. We gauge the performance of each in terms of social welfare and estimation accuracy, and as a function of the number of experimental waves. We further construct a set of novel "hybrid" loss measures to identify which methods are optimal for researchers pursuing a combination of experimental aims. Our main results are: 1) the relative performance of Thompson sampling depends on the number of experimental waves, 2) Tempered Thompson sampling uniquely distributes losses across multiple experimental aims, and 3) in most cases, Exploration sampling performs similarly to random assignment. |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2207.00683&r= |
| By: | Jiang, Qi; Penn, Jerrod; Hu, Wuyang |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/Statistical Methods, Institutional and Behavioral Economics |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea22:322516&r= |
| By: | Gabriel Montes-Rojas (Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política de Buenos Aires - UBA - CONICET); Vera Chiodi (Universit e de la Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate how the impact of a mentoring program in French disadvantaged high schools varies with the intensity of the program. Given that, in general, the only significant effect was observed by full attendance to all meetings, we argue that the treatment dose matters. Thus, while the original evaluation program was designed as a randomized experiment to balance control and treated individuals (those who were offered the mentoring scheme, with diferent degree of program participation), we motivate the use of continuous and multi-valued treatment effects models to estimate the dose response function. The program shows that information about prospective labor market opportunities feeds back positively into academic performance. However, it has a negative effect on job self-esteem, suggesting that acquiring information on job market prospects updates students’ priors on their skills and possibilities and that the students might be updating rationally. |
| Keywords: | Mentoring, Treatment effects, Dropout |
| JEL: | C31 I22 I24 I26 I28 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ake:iiepdt:202165&r= |
| By: | Wei, Xuan; Khachatryan, Hayk; Rihn, Alicia |
| Keywords: | Research Methods/Statistical Methods, Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea22:322068&r= |
| By: | Christoph Aymanns (London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - London School of Economics; University of St. Gallen - School of Finance); Jakob Foerster (University of Oxford); Co-Pierre Georg (University of Cape Town; Deutsche Bundesbank); Matthias Weber (University of St. Gallen - School of Finance; Swiss Finance Institute) |
| Abstract: | We propose multi-agent reinforcement learning as a new method for modeling fake news in social networks. This method allows us to model human behavior in social networks both in unaccustomed populations and in populations that have adapted to the presence of fake news. In particular the latter is challenging for existing methods. We find that a fake-news attack is more effective if it targets highly connected people and people with weaker private information. Attacks are more effective when the disinformation is spread across several agents than when the disinformation is concentrated with more intensity on fewer agents. Furthermore, fake news spread less well in balanced networks than in clustered networks. We test a part of these findings in a human-subject experiment. The experimental evidence provides support for the predictions from the model. This suggests that our model is suitable to analyze the spread of fake news in social networks. |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp2258&r= |
| By: | Godlonton, Susie; Hernandez, Manuel A.; Paz, Cynthia |
| Keywords: | Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Research Methods/Statistical Methods, Consumer/Household Economics |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea22:322290&r= |
| By: | D'Acunto, Francesco; Ghosh, Pulak; Jain, Rajiv; Rossi, Alberto G. |
| Abstract: | We estimate the cost of cultural biases in high-stake economic decisions by comparing agents' peer-to-peer lending choices with those the same agents make under the assistance of an automated robo-advisor. We first confirm substantial in-group vs. out-group and stereotypical discrimination, which are stronger for lenders who reside where historical cultural biases are higher. We then exploit our unique setting to document that cultural biases are costly: agents face 8% higher default rates on favored-group borrowers when unassisted. The returns they earn on favored groups increase by 7.3 percentage points when assisted. The high riskiness of the marginal borrowers from favorite groups largely explains the bad performance of culturally-biased choices. Because varying economic incentives do not reduce agents' biases, inaccurate statistical discrimination-unconscious biased beliefs about borrowers' quality-can explain our results better than taste-based discrimination. |
| Keywords: | Trust,Social Capital,Discrimination,Cultural Norms,Robo-Advising,Biased Beliefs,Inter-ethnic Conflict,Social Conditioning,Religion,Caste |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:lawfin:34&r= |