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on Experimental Economics |
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Issue of 2023‒01‒09
48 papers chosen by |
| By: | Tim Kaiser; Lukas Menkhoff; Luis Oberrauch; Manuel Menkhoff |
| Abstract: | We study the malleability of patience via educational interventions by aggregating evidence from earlier experiments in a meta-analysis and by conducting a field experiment. We find that the average effect of interventions on patience is positive but uncertain. The age of students explains a large share of between-study heterogeneity in treatment effects. Thus, we conduct a field experiment covering both youths and adults in Uganda. We find heterogenous effects by age: adults’ patience measured in incentivized tasks is unaffected by the intervention after 15 months follow-up, but we observe large effects on patience and estimated discount factors for youth. |
| Keywords: | patience, time preferences, malleability, field experiment, educational intervention |
| JEL: | C93 D15 I21 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10080&r=exp |
| By: | Andrea Albertazzi (Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Siena); Matteo Ploner (Department of Economics and Management, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Lab, CEEL, University of Trento); Federico Vaccari (Laboratory for the Analysis of Complex Economic Systems, IMT School of Advanced Studies) |
| Abstract: | We perform a controlled experiment to study the welfare effects of competition in a strategic communication environment. Two equally informed senders with conflicting interests can misreport information at a cost. We compare a treatment where only one sender communicates to a treatment where both senders privately communicate with a decision-maker. Data show that competition between senders does not increase the amount of information decision-makers obtain. We find evidence of under-communication, as the information transmitted is lower than what theory predicts in the most informative equilibrium. Senders are worse off under competition because their relative gains from persuasion are more than offset by their expenditures in misreporting costs. As a result, competition between senders reduces the total welfare. |
| Keywords: | Experiment, Welfare, Multiple senders, Competition, Sender-receiver games |
| JEL: | C72 C92 D60 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2022.41&r=exp |
| By: | Hermes, Henning; Krauß, Marina; Lergetporer, Philipp; Peter, Frauke; Wiederhold, Simon |
| Abstract: | We present experimental evidence that enabling access to universal early child care for families with lower socioeconomic status (SES) increases maternal labor supply. Our intervention provides families with customized help for child care applications, resulting in a large increase in enrollment among lower-SES families. The treatment increases lower-SES mothers' full-time employment rates by 9 percentage points (+160%), household income by 10%, and mothers' earnings by 22%. The effect on full-time employment is largely driven by increased care hours provided by child care centers and fathers. Overall, the treatment substantially improves intra-household gender equality in terms of child care duties and earnings. |
| Keywords: | child care, maternal employment, gender equality, randomized controlled trial |
| JEL: | D90 J13 J18 J22 C93 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:394&r=exp |
| By: | Rodríguez Chatruc, Marisol; Rozo, Sandra |
| Abstract: | Can taking the perspective of an out-group reduce prejudice and promote prosociality? Building on insights from social psychology, we study the case of Colombian natives and Venezuelan immigrants. We conducted an online experiment in which we randomly assigned natives to either play an online game that immersed them in the life of a Venezuelan migrant or to watch a documentary about Venezuelans crossing the border on foot. Relative to a control group, both treatments increased altruism towards Venezuelans and improved some attitudes, but only the game significantly increased self-reported trust. |
| Keywords: | prejudice;perspective taking |
| JEL: | C91 D91 J15 |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:11599&r=exp |
| By: | Sylvain Chassang; Rong Feng |
| Abstract: | Clinical trials following the “gold standard” of random assignment frequently use independent lotteries to allocate patients to treatment and control arms. However, independent assignment can generate treatment and control arms that are unbalanced (i.e. treatment and control populations with significantly different demographics), which reduces power. Other assignment methods such as matched pair designs ensure balance across arms while maintaining randomization and permitting inference. This paper seeks to measure the cost of imbalance with respect to gender in a sample of roughly 2000 clinical studies. We document significant imbalance: 25% of experiments have at least 26% more men in one treatment arm than in the other. In addition, clinical trials with greater imbalance have more dispersed treatment effects, indicating that imbalance reduces the informativeness of experiments. A simple structural model suggests that for a typical experiment, using a balanced random design could deliver informativeness gains equivalent to increasing the sample size by 18%. |
| JEL: | C90 C93 I18 I19 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30745&r=exp |
| By: | Alt, Marius; Gallier, Carlo; Kesternich, Martin; Sturm, Bodo |
| Abstract: | We experimentally test a theoretically promising amendment to the ratchet-up mechanism of the Paris Agreement. The ratchet-up mechanism prescribes that parties' commitments to the global response to climate change cannot decrease over time and our results confirm that its effect is detrimental. We design a public goods game to study whether an amendment to the mechanism that stipulates all agents to contribute at least a collective minimum to the public good which is based on the principle of the lowest common denominator promotes cooperation. We find that binding collective minimum contributions improve the effectiveness of the ratchet-up mechanism. Non-binding minimum contributions, in contrast, do not foster cooperation. Our data reveal conditional cooperative dynamics to explain the difference. If other participants contribute less than the collective minimum contributions, even initially cooperative participants start to negatively reciprocate such a form of non-compliance by contributing less. |
| Keywords: | global public goods,climate change,institutions,ratchet-up mechanism,minimum contributions,laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | C72 C92 H41 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:22053&r=exp |
| By: | Itzhak Rasooly (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Roberto Rozzi (Unipd - Università degli Studi di Padova = University of Padua, Université de Venise Ca’ Foscari | Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia) |
| Abstract: | In contrast to classical social norm experiments, we conduct experiments that semicontinuously randomise the share of individuals who are taking a particular action in a given environment. Using our experimental results, we are able to estimate the distributions of individual tipping points across our settings. We find that tipping points are very heterogenous, and that a substantial share choose to do the action (or not) regardless of what others are doing. We also show that, once embedded in dynamic models, our estimates predict that individuals will end up doing very different things despite engaging in copying-like behaviour. |
| Keywords: | Social norms, Field experiment, Dynamic models |
| Date: | 2022–12–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpspec:hal-03892947&r=exp |
| By: | Albertazzi, Andrea; Ploner, Matteo; Vaccari, Federico |
| Abstract: | We perform a controlled experiment to study the welfare effects of competition in a strategic communication environment. Two equally informed senders with conflicting interests can misreport information at a cost. We compare a treatment where only one sender communicates to a treatment where both senders privately communicate with a decision-maker. Data show that competition between senders does not increase the amount of information decision-makers obtain. We find evidence of under-communication, as the information transmitted is lower than what theory predicts in the most informative equilibrium. Senders are worse off under competition because their relative gains from persuasion are more than offset by their expenditures in misreporting costs. As a result, competition between senders reduces the total welfare. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2022–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemwp:329585&r=exp |
| By: | Riehm, Tobias |
| Abstract: | In auctions bidders are usually assumed to have rational expectations with regards to their winning probability. However, experimental and empirical evidence suggests that agent's expectations depend on direct utility stemming from expectations, resulting in optimism or pessimism. Optimism increases ex ante savoring, while pessimism leads to less disappointment ex post. Hence, optimal expectations depend on the time left until the uncertainty is resolved, i.e. the time one can savor ex ante by being (too) optimistic. Applying the decision theory model of Gollier and Muermann (2010) to first price auctions, I show that by decreasing the time between bids and revelation of results, the auctioneer can induce bidders to forego optimism, leading to more aggressive bids and thereby higher revenues for the auctioneer. Finally I test these predictions experimentally, finding no evidence for my theoretical predictions. |
| Keywords: | Auctions,Experiment,Motivated Beliefs |
| JEL: | D44 C91 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:22062&r=exp |
| By: | Clément de Chaisemartin (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Jaime Ramirez-Cuellar (Microsoft - Microsoft Research [Cambridge] - Microsoft Research) |
| Abstract: | In clustered and paired experiments, to estimate treatment effects, researchers often regress their outcome on the treatment and pair fixed effects, clustering standard errors at the unit-ofrandomization level. We show that even if the treatment has no effect, a 5%-level t-test based on this regression will wrongly conclude that the treatment has an effect up to 16.5% of the time, an error rate much larger than the researcher's 5% target. To achieve their targeted error rate, researchers should instead cluster standard errors at the pair level. Using simulations, we show that similar results apply to clustered experiments with small strata. |
| Keywords: | clustered standard errors, clustering, paired experiments, stratified experiments, randomized experiments, RCT |
| Date: | 2022–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03873897&r=exp |
| By: | Henning Hermes (HHU Düsseldorf, DICE); Marina Krauß (University of Augsburg); Philipp Lergetporer (Technical University of Munich, TUM School of Management, ifo Institute Munich); Frauke Peter (German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW), DIW Berlin); Simon Wiederhold (KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Ingolstadt School of Management, ifo Institute Munich) |
| Keywords: | Child care, maternal employment, gender equality, randomized controlled trial |
| JEL: | D90 J13 J18 J22 C93 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aiw:wpaper:25&r=exp |
| By: | Tom Lane (University of Nottingham); Minghai Zhou |
| Abstract: | Classic ‘unravelling’ theory holds that buyers should treat with maximal scepticism sellers who withhold verifiable information relating to their quality, as buyers infer from such non-disclosure that the seller possesses the lowest possible quality. This study is the first to use a natural field experiment to test this proposition, and the first to test it in a labour market context. We sent out 12, 301 job applications, varying the information on degree classification – a signal of academic quality – that the applicant presented to the employer. Our results do not support unravelling theory. Applications which left degree classification undisclosed were significantly more likely to receive positive responses from employers than those disclosing the lowest possible degree classification. Employers treated non-disclosing applicants similarly to those disclosing mid-scale classifications, suggesting the extent to which adverse inference is drawn from missing information is limited. Evidence is presented against the alternative interpretation that non-disclosure success is driven by recruiters’ usage of software tools. |
| Keywords: | Voluntary Disclosure; Unravelling; Labour Market; Field Experiment |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2022-17&r=exp |
| By: | Andrea Mattozzi; Samuel Nocito; Francesco Sobbrio |
| Abstract: | We investigate the reaction of Italian Members of Parliament to a rigorous fact-checking of their public statements. Our research design relies on a novel randomized field experiment in collaboration with the leading Italian fact-checking company. Our results show that politicians are responsive to negative fact-checking. Specifically, we observe a significative reduction in the number of incorrect statements made by politicians after being treated. This effect persists for at least two months. We also observe a reduction in the probability of politicians making verifiable statements, suggesting that fact-checking may also increase the ambiguity of politicians’ statements. |
| Keywords: | fact-checking, politicians, accountability, verifiability, ambiguity, RCR |
| JEL: | D72 D78 D80 D91 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10122&r=exp |
| By: | Aruguete, Natalia; Calvo, Ernesto; Scartascini, Carlos; Ventura, Tiago |
| Abstract: | Recent increases in political polarization in social media raise questions about the relationship between negative online messages and the decline in political trust around the world. To evaluate this claim causally, we implement a variant of the well-known trust game in a survey experiment with 4,800 respondents in Brazil and Mexico. Our design allows to test the effect of social media on trust and trustworthiness. Survey respondents alternate as agents (politicians) and principals (voters). Players can cast votes, trust others with their votes, and cast entrusted votes. The players rewards are contingent on their preferred “candidate” winning the election. We measure the extent to which voters place their trust in others and are themselves trustworthy, that is, willing to honor requests that may not benefit them. Treated respondents are exposed to messages from in-group or out-group politicians, and with positive or negative tone. Results provide robust support for a negative effect of uncivil partisan discourse on trust behavior and null results on trustworthiness. The negative effect on trust is considerably greater among randomly treated respondents who engage with social media messages. These results show that engaging with messages on social media can have a deleterious effect on trust, even when those messages are not relevant to the task at hand or not representative of the actions of the individuals involved in the game. |
| Keywords: | Trust;Social media;Trustworthiness;Political polarization |
| JEL: | D72 D83 D91 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:11385&r=exp |
| By: | Stefano Carattini; Kenneth Gillingham; Xiangyu Meng; Erez Yoeli |
| Abstract: | Observability has been demonstrated to influence the adoption of pro-social behavior in a variety of contexts. This study implements a field experiment to examine the influence of observability in the context of a novel pro-social behavior: peer-to-peer solar. Peer-to-peer solar offers an opportunity to households who cannot have solar on their homes to access solar energy from their neighbors. However, unlike solar installations, peer-to-peer solar is an invisible form of pro-environmental behavior. We implemented a set of randomized campaigns using Facebook ads in the Massachusetts cities of Cambridge and Somerville, in partnership with a peer-to-peer company. In the campaigns, treated customers were informed that they could share "green reports" online, providing information to others about their greenness. We find that interest in peer-to-peer solar increases by up to 30% when "green reports," which would make otherwise invisible behavior visible, are mentioned in the ads. |
| Keywords: | Peer to peer solar; pro-environmental behavior; social rewards; visibility; Facebook |
| JEL: | C93 D91 Q20 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exc:wpaper:2022-02&r=exp |
| By: | Frisancho, Verónica; Herrera, Alejandro; Prina, Silvia |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of a mobile app to record daily financial transactions, coupled with enumerator monitoring visits every two weeks, on youths' investment in financial literacy and financial behavior. The treatment led to a positive and statistically significant effect on financial literacy scores and greater awareness of market prices. Youth in the treatment group experienced significant improvements in access to credit. These effects persist eight months after the intervention is over. |
| Keywords: | Financial diaries;Financial literacy |
| JEL: | C93 D90 G41 G53 O12 O16 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:11661&r=exp |
| By: | Prada-Medina, Laura; Mantilla, Cesar; Cortes, Darwin |
| Abstract: | We document how the procedure of allocating barely identical tasks among team members affects productivity and the willingness to pay for repeating the job alone rather than in teams. We find a complementarity relation between the assignment procedure (by-choice, imposed by a third party with a higher hierarchy, or random) and the preferences about the task to perform. For participants in the Imposed mechanism, being assigned to a preferred task increases performance, while being imposed on a non-preferred task negatively affects performance. Moreover, we find that the participants who were more interested in paying for autonomy were those randomly assigned to be autonomous (by-choice) at the beginning of the experiment. Hence, these results suggest that people care about factors beyond payoffs, such as autonomy. Among self-employed workers, the effect on the productivity of being imposed on a non-preferred task is exacerbated, and we did not find any statistical impact on the willingness to pay for playing alone. |
| Date: | 2022–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:s7tcb&r=exp |
| By: | Sébastien Duchêne (Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School); Adrien Nguyen-Huu (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier); Dimitri Dubois (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier); Marc Willinger (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | We assess the impact of environmental externalities on port folio decisions in a lab-in-the-field experiment on finance professionals and students. Participants are prone to accept lower returns for positive environmental impact but will not bear increased risk. They show a symmetric pro-environmental preferences depending on the sign of the externality. Finance professionals are more pro-environment than students, particularly regarding positive externalities, and less influenced by a ranking signal about environmental performance. Control tasks show that experimental measures of pro-social and environmental preferences have less influence on port folios than market practices for professionals but are significant predictors for students. |
| Date: | 2022–12–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03883121&r=exp |
| By: | Hernández Agramonte, Juan Manuel; Namen, Olga; Näslund-Hadley, Emma; Biehl, María Loreto |
| Abstract: | This paper presents novel evidence of an intervention to foster preschool students cognitive skills during COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a policy experiment that provided preschool student parents with a SMS text message program to support student learning at home. Taking advantage of existing parent networks, we study the direct effect of being selected to receive the SMS text messages, and the spillovers of being part of a parent network. We show that after 15 weeks of intervention, SMS text messages increase student cognitive skills by 0.11 to 0.12 standard deviations. The effect is driven by an increase of parental involvement through the proposed activities. We find no evidence that information is transferred within parent networks. |
| Keywords: | Education |
| JEL: | C93 I21 J13 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:11888&r=exp |
| By: | Diederich, Johannes; Epperson, Raphael; Goeschl, Timo |
| Abstract: | Unit donations are an alternative fundraising scheme in which potential donors choose how many units of a charitable good to fund, rather than just giving money. Based on evidence from an online experiment with 8, 673 participants, we demonstrate that well-designed unit donation schemes can significantly boost giving above and beyond the standard money donation scheme. A decomposition of the underlying mechanisms shows patterns consistent with the conjecture that unit donations increase impact salience and leverage donors’ cognitive biases by changing the metric of the donation space. The potential increase in donations likely outweighs the complications of designing a unit scheme, but requires expert handling of the choice of unit sizes. |
| Keywords: | aid effectiveness; charitable giving; framing; restricted choice; unit donation |
| Date: | 2022–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awi:wpaper:0721&r=exp |
| By: | Yuehao Bai; Jizhou Liu; Azeem M. Shaikh; Max Tabord-Meehan |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the problem of inference in cluster randomized trials where treatment status is determined according to a "matched pairs" design. Here, by a cluster randomized experiment, we mean one in which treatment is assigned at the level of the cluster; by a "matched pairs" design we mean that a sample of clusters is paired according to baseline, cluster-level covariates and, within each pair, one cluster is selected at random for treatment. We study the large sample behavior of a weighted difference-in-means estimator and derive two distinct sets of results depending on if the matching procedure does or does not match on cluster size. We then propose a variance estimator which is consistent in either case. We also study the behavior of a randomization test which permutes the treatment status for clusters within pairs, and establish its finite sample and asymptotic validity for testing specific null hypotheses. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.14903&r=exp |
| By: | Dohmen, Thomas (University of Bonn and IZA); Quercia, Simone (University of Verona); Willrodt, Jana (Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we provide an explanation for why risk taking is related to optimism. Using a laboratory experiment, we show that the degree of optimism predicts whether people tend to focus on the positive or negative outcomes of risky decisions. While optimists tend to focus on the good outcomes, pessimists focus on the bad outcomes of risk. The tendency to focus on good or bad outcomes of risk in turn affects both the self-reported willingness to take risk and actual risktaking behavior. This suggests that dispositional optimism may affect risk taking mainly by shifting attention to specific outcomes rather than causing misperception of probabilities. In line with this, in a second study we find evidence that dispositional optimism is related to elicited parameters of rank dependent utility theory suggesting that focusing may be among the psychological determinants of decision weights. Finally, we corroborate our findings with process data related to focusing showing that optimists tend to remember more and attend more to good outcomes and this in turn affects their risk taking. |
| Keywords: | risk taking behavior, optimism, preference measure |
| JEL: | D91 C91 D81 D01 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15763&r=exp |
| By: | Charles Efferson; Helen Bernhard; Urs Fischbacher; Ernst Fehr |
| Abstract: | Repeated interactions provide a prominent but paradoxical hypothesis for human cooperation in one-shot interactions. Intergroup competitions provide a different hypothesis that is intuitively appealing but heterodox. We show that neither mechanism reliably supports the evolution of cooperation when actions vary continuously. Ambiguous reciprocity, a strategy generally ruled out in models of reciprocal altruism, completely undermines cooperation under repeated interactions, which challenges repeated interactions as a stand-alone explanation for cooperation in both repeated and one-shot settings. Intergroup competitions do not reliably support cooperation because groups tend to be similar under relevant conditions. Moreover, even if groups vary, cooperative groups may lose competitions for several reasons. Although repeated interactions and group competitions do not support cooperation by themselves, combining them often triggers powerful synergies because group competitions can stabilise cooperative strategies against the corrosive effect of ambiguous reciprocity. Evolved strategies often consist of cooperative reciprocity with ingroup partners and uncooperative reciprocity with outgroup partners. Results from a one-shot behavioural experiment in Papua New Guinea fit exactly this pattern. They thus indicate neither an evolutionary history of repeated interactions without group competition nor a history of group competition without repeated interactions. Our results are only consistent with social motives that evolved under the joint influence of both mechanisms together. |
| Keywords: | evolution of cooperation, reciprocity, intergroup competition, social dilemma |
| JEL: | C60 C70 C90 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10133&r=exp |
| By: | Yiping Lu; Jiajin Li; Lexing Ying; Jose Blanchet |
| Abstract: | The optimal design of experiments typically involves solving an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem. In this paper, we aim to develop a globally convergent and practically efficient optimization algorithm. Specifically, we consider a setting where the pre-treatment outcome data is available and the synthetic control estimator is invoked. The average treatment effect is estimated via the difference between the weighted average outcomes of the treated and control units, where the weights are learned from the observed data. {Under this setting, we surprisingly observed that the optimal experimental design problem could be reduced to a so-called \textit{phase synchronization} problem.} We solve this problem via a normalized variant of the generalized power method with spectral initialization. On the theoretical side, we establish the first global optimality guarantee for experiment design when pre-treatment data is sampled from certain data-generating processes. Empirically, we conduct extensive experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on both the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Abadie-Diemond-Hainmueller California Smoking Data. In terms of the root mean square error, our algorithm surpasses the random design by a large margin. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.15241&r=exp |
| By: | Scartascini, Carlos; Zamora, Paula |
| Abstract: | Introducing financial incentives to increase productivity in the public sector tends to be politically and bureaucratically cumbersome, particularly in developing countries. Behavioral interventions could be a low-cost alternative, both politically and financially, although evidence of their effectiveness remains scarce. We evaluate the effect of redesigning the notice requiring civil servants in Buenos Aires to comply with citizens requests under Argentina's freedom of information act. The new notice, sent to the treatment group, attempts to exploit salience, deterrence, clarity, and social norms to increase adherence to deadlines. The results show an increase in the share of requests fulfilled by the second deadline, possibly because of a strong anchoring effect. These findings indicate that behavioral interventions can affect civil servants' actions. The fact that the intervention occurred at the same time as a civil service training program with sessions attended by members of both the control and treatment groups allows us to evaluate spillover effects. The evidence suggests that the time it takes a members of the treatment group to respond to a request increases with her interactions with members of the control group at the workshops. These findings have implications for policy design. First, they indicate that behavioral interventions could affect task compliance and productivity in the public sector. Second, they provide evidence that workshops may not always have the intended consequences, particularly when they increase interactions among employees with high and low incentives for task compliance. |
| Keywords: | Freedom of Information Act;Civil Servants;Performance of Government |
| JEL: | C93 D91 H11 H83 |
| Date: | 2021–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:11756&r=exp |
| By: | Linas Nasvytis |
| Abstract: | Large amounts of evidence suggest that trust levels in a country are an important determinant of its macroeconomic growth. In this paper, we investigate one channel through which trust might support economic performance: through the levels of patience, also known as time preference in the economics literature. Following Gabaix and Laibson (2017), we first argue that time preference can be modelled as optimal Bayesian inference based on noisy signals about the future, so that it is affected by the perceived certainty of future outcomes. Drawing on neuroscience literature, we argue that the mechanism linking trust and patience could be facilitated by the neurotransmitter oxytocin. On the one hand, it is a neural correlate of trusting behavior. On the other, it has an impact on the brain's encoding of prediction error, and could therefore increase the perceived certainty of a neural representation of a future event. The relationship between trust and time preference is tested experimentally using the Trust Game. While the paper does not find a significant effect of trust on time preference or the levels of certainty, it proposes an experimental design that can successfully manipulate people's short-term levels of trust for experimental purposes. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.17080&r=exp |
| By: | Browne, Oliver R. (University of California, Berkeley); Gazze, Ludovica (University of Warwick, Department of Economics & CAGE); Greenstone, Michael (University of Chicago); Rostapshova, Olga (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | New technologies allow perfect detection of environmental violations at near-zero marginal cost, but take-up is low. We conducted a field experiment to evaluate enforcement of water conservation rules with smart meters in Fresno, CA. Households were randomly assigned combinations of enforcement method (automated or in-person inspections) and fines. Automated enforcement increased households’ punishment rates from 0.1 to 14%, decreased water use by 3%, and reduced violations by 17%, while higher fine levels had little effect. However, automated enforcement also increased customer complaints by 1,102%, ultimately causing its cancellation and highlighting that political considerations limit technological solutions to enforcement challenges. |
| Keywords: | Field Experiment ; Automated Enforcement ; Remote Sensing ; Water Conservation JEL Codes: Q25 ; K42 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:646&r=exp |
| By: | Segovia, Michelle; Palma, Marco; Lusk, Jayson L.; Drichoutis, Andreas |
| Abstract: | We explore the effect of different presentation formats on elicitation of risk preferences using a popular probability-varying task (Holt and Laury, 2002} and a payoff-varying task (Drichoutis and Lusk, 2016). The presentation formats use horizontal bars that vary either the width or height of the bars (or both at the same time) to potentially help subjects in judging how large or small probabilities and monetary amounts are in a given choice task. These graphical formats are compared to a text only format. We complement our data collection with eye-tracking data that enriches our structural models with additional information regarding how visual attention and engagement vary with the presented information. While we find no statistically significant effects of presentation formats on elicited parameters for risk preferences, we find that eye-tracking information not only is associated with preference parameters, but it also changes the inferences with respect to which decision theory better fits our data. |
| Keywords: | Risk; Individual decision making; Visual attention; Eye tracking |
| JEL: | C91 D81 D83 |
| Date: | 2022–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115572&r=exp |
| By: | Lea Cassar; Mira Fischer; Vanessa Valero |
| Abstract: | Mindfulness-based meditation practices are becoming increasingly popular in Western societies, including in the business world and in education. While the scientific literature has largely documented the benefits of mindfulness meditation for mental health, little is still known about potential spillovers of these practices on other important life outcomes, such as performance. We address this question through a field experiment in an educational setting. We study the causal impact of mindfulness meditation on academic performance through a randomized evaluation of a well-known 8-week mindfulness meditation training delivered to university students on campus. As expected, the intervention improves students' mental health and non-cognitive skills. However, it takes time before students' performance can benefit from mindfulness meditation: we find that, if anything, the intervention marginally decreases average grades in the short run, i.e., during the exam period right after the end of the intervention, whereas it significantly increases academic performance, by about 0.4 standard deviations, in the long run (ca. 6 months after the end of intervention). We investigate the underlying mechanisms and discuss the implications of our results. |
| Keywords: | performance, mental health, education, meditation, field experiment |
| JEL: | I21 C93 I12 I31 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10099&r=exp |
| By: | Browne, Oliver R. (The Brattle Group); Gazze, Ludovica (University of Warwick); Greenstone, Michael (University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy); Olga Rostapshova (The University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | New technologies allow perfect detection of environmental violations at near-zero marginal cost, but take-up is low. We conducted a field experiment to evaluate enforcement of water conservation rules with smart meters in Fresno, CA. Households were randomly assigned combinations of enforcement method (automated or in-person inspections) and fines. Automated enforcement increased households’ punishment rates from 0.1 to 14%, decreased water use by 3%, and reduced violations by 17%, while higher fine levels had little effect. However, automated enforcement also increased customer complaints by 1,102%, ultimately causing its cancellation and highlighting that political considerations limit technological solutions to enforcement challenges. |
| Keywords: | Field Experiment ; Automated Enforcement ; Remote Sensing ; Water Conservation JEL Codes: Q25 ; K42 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1440&r=exp |
| By: | Blackman, Allen; Hoffmann, Bridget |
| Abstract: | Ambient air pollution is a leading cause of death in developing countries. In theory, using smartphone apps, text messages, and other personal information and communication technologies to disseminate real-time information about such pollution can boost avoidance behavior like wearing face masks and closing windows. Yet evidence on their effectiveness is limited. We conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of training university students in Bogotá, Colombia to use a newly available municipal government smartphone app that displays real-time information on air quality. The training increased participants acquisition of information about air quality, their knowledge about avoidance behavior, and their actual avoidance behavior. It also enhanced their concern about other environmental issues. These effects were moderated by participants characteristics. For example, the training was generally less effective among job holders. |
| Keywords: | air pollution; Colombia; information; randomized controlled trial; experiment; smartphone application |
| JEL: | Q53 Q56 Q58 I15 |
| Date: | 2021–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:11727&r=exp |
| By: | Carranza, Eliana (World Bank); Donald, Aletheia (World Bank); Grosset, Florian (Columbia University); Kaur, Supreet (University of California, Berkeley) |
| Abstract: | In low-income communities in both rich and poor countries, redistributive transfers within kin and social networks are frequent. Such arrangements may distort labor supply—acting as a "social tax" that dampens the incentive to work. We document that across countries, from Cote d'Ivoire to the United States, social groups that undertake more interpersonal transfers work fewer hours. Using a field experiment, we enable piece-rate factory workers in Côte d'Ivoire to shield income using blocked savings accounts over 3-9 months. Workers may only deposit earnings increases, relative to baseline, mitigating income effects on labor supply. We vary whether the offered account is private or known to the worker's network, altering the likelihood of transfer requests against saved income. When accounts are private, take-up is substantively higher (60% vs. 14%). Offering private accounts sharply increases labor supply— raising work attendance by 10% and earnings by 11%. Outgoing transfers do not decline, indicating no loss in redistribution. Our estimates imply a 9-14% social tax rate. The welfare benefits of informal redistribution may come at a cost, depressing labor supply and productivity. |
| Keywords: | kin tax, informal insurance, illiquid savings, transfers, labor supply |
| JEL: | J22 J24 H24 D61 O12 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15743&r=exp |
| By: | Gopi Shah Goda; Matthew R. Levy; Colleen Flaherty Manchester; Aaron Sojourner; Joshua Tasoff; Jiusi Xiao |
| Abstract: | We conduct a randomized controlled trial to understand how a web-based retirement saving calculator affects workers' retirement-savings decisions. In both conditions, the calculator projects workers' retirement income goal. In the treatment condition, it also projects retirement income based on defined-contribution savings, prominently displays the gap between projected goal and actual retirement income, and allows users to interactively explore how alternative, future contribution choices would affect the gap. The treatment increased average annual retirement contributions by $174 (2.3 percent). However, effects were larger for those with greater financial knowledge, suggesting this type of tool complements, rather than substitutes for, underlying financial capability. |
| JEL: | D14 G53 J32 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30723&r=exp |
| By: | Andrej Woerner; Sander Onderstal; Arthur Schram |
| Abstract: | For reward-based crowdfunding, we introduce the strategy-proof Generalized Moulin-Shenker mechanism (GMS) and compare its performance to the prevailing All-Or-Nothing mechanism (AON). Theoretically, GMS outperforms AON in equilibrium profit and funding success. We test these predictions experimentally, distinguishing between a sealed-bid and a dynamic version of GMS. We find that the dynamic GMS outperforms the sealed-bid GMS. It performs better than AON when the producer aims at maximizing funding success. For crowdfunding in practice, this implies that the current standard of financing projects could be improved upon by implementing a crowdfunding mechanism that is similar to the dynamic GMS. |
| Keywords: | crowdfunding, market design, strategy-proofness, laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | C92 D82 G29 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10081&r=exp |
| By: | Afridi, Farzana (Indian Statistical Institute); Dhillon, Amrita (King's College London); Roy, Sanchari (King's College London); Sangwan, Nikita (Indian Statistical Institute) |
| Abstract: | Using a cluster randomized control trial, we study the role of women's social networks in improving female labor force participation. In the first treatment arm, a hyper-local digital job search platform service was offered to a randomly selected group of married couples (non-network treatment) in low-income neighborhoods of Delhi, India. In the second treatment arm, the service was offered to married couples and the wife's social network (network treatment), to disentangle the network effect. Neither couples nor their networks were offered the service in the control group. Approximately one year after the intervention, we find no increase in the wife's likelihood of working in either treatment group relative to the control group. Instead, there is a significant improvement in their husbands' labor market outcomes, including the likelihood of working, work hours, and monthly earnings, while in contrast home-based self-employment increased among wives – both in the network treatment group. We argue that our findings can be explained by the gendered structure of social networks in our setting, which reinforces (conservative) social norms about women's (outside) work. |
| Keywords: | social networks, social norms, gender, job-matching platforms, employment |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15767&r=exp |
| By: | Goda, Gopi Shah (Stanford University); Levy, Matthew R. (London School of Economics); Flaherty Manchester, Colleen (University of Minnesota); Sojourner, Aaron (Upjohn Institute for Employment Research); Tasoff, Joshua (Claremont Graduate University); Xiao, Jiusi (Claremont Graduate University) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a randomized controlled trial to understand how a web-based retirement saving calculator affects workers' retirement-savings decisions. In both conditions, the calculator projects workers' retirement income goal. In the treatment condition, it also projects retirement income based on defined-contribution savings, prominently displays the gap between projected goal and actual retirement income, and allows users to interactively explore how alternative, future contribution choices would affect the gap. The treatment increased average annual retirement contributions by $174 (2.3 percent). However, effects were larger for those with greater financial knowledge, suggesting this type of tool complements, rather than substitutes for, underlying financial capability. |
| Keywords: | retirement planning, retirement saving, exponential-growth bias, present bias, financial literacy, financial capability |
| JEL: | D14 G53 J32 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15758&r=exp |
| By: | Marco Fongoni (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a theoretical framework to think about employees' effort choices, and applies this framework to assess the ability of existing laboratory designs to identify the effect of pay inequality on worker effort. The analysis shows that failure to control for a number of confounds-such as reciprocity towards the employer in multilateral gift-exchange games (vertical fairness), or the incentive to increase effort when feeling underpaid under piece rates (income targeting)-may lead to inaccurate interpretation of evidence of treatment effects. In light of these findings, the paper provides a set of recommendations on how to improve identification in the design of laboratory experiments in the future. |
| Keywords: | pay inequality, effort, laboratory experiments, reference dependence, fairness |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03888315&r=exp |
| By: | Altmann, Steffen (IZA and University of Copenhagen); Cairo, Sofie (Harvard Business School); Mahlstedt, Robert (University of Copenhagen); Sebald, Alexander (University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | We study how job seekers' understanding of complex unemployment benefit rules affects their labor market performance. Combining data from a large-scale scale field experiment, detailed administrative records, and a survey of unemployed job seekers, we document three main results. First, job seekers exhibit pronounced knowledge gaps about the prevailing unemployment benefit rules and their personal benefit entitlements. Second, we show that a low-cost information strategy using a personalized online tool increases job seekers' understanding of the rules and their personal benefit situation. Finally, we document heterogeneous labor-market effects of the intervention depending on job seekers' baseline knowledge and beliefs, their personal employment prospects, and the timing of the intervention during the benefit spell. |
| Keywords: | unemployment benefits, field experiments, information frictions, labor market policy, job search |
| JEL: | J68 J64 D83 C93 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15747&r=exp |
| By: | Calderone, Margherita; Fiala, Nathan; Melyoki, Lemayon Lemilia; Schoofs, Annekathrin; Steinacher, Rachel |
| Abstract: | Improving youth labor market outcomes is a primary concern for countries around the world. We conduct a randomized controlled trial in Tanzania on an intense gender-sensitive skills training program that worked with over 53,000 youth in the region. After two years, we find the program increased women's economic outcomes, including income, savings, as well as engagement in the labor market, and quality of jobs for all participants. We find no significant effects on economic outcomes for male participants. We also find significant effects on hard skills for both women and men and soft skills for women in terms of self-awareness and confidence. In a cross experiment with micro-grants, we find smaller but economically significant effects on all outcomes for both genders. From a monetary perspective the training program is very cost-effective, paying for itself within 32 months when targeting both women and men. |
| Keywords: | Business training,soft skills,youth unemployment,microenterprises,Tanzania |
| JEL: | J24 J68 L26 M53 O12 C93 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:950&r=exp |
| By: | Hanna, Rema; Hoffmann, Bridget; Oliva, Paulina; Schneider, Jake |
| Abstract: | We conduct a randomized controlled trial in Mexico City to determine willingness to pay (WTP) for SMS air quality alerts and to study the effects of air quality alerts, reminders, and a reusable N95 mask on air pollution information and avoidance behavior. At baseline, we elicit WTP for the alerts service after revealing whether the household will receive an N95 mask and participant compensation, but before revealing whether they will receive alert or reminder services. While we observe no significant impact of mask provision on WTP, higher compensation increases WTP, suggesting a possible cash-on-hand constraint. The perception of high pollution days prior to the survey is positively correlated with WTP, but the presence of actual high pollution days is not correlated with WTP. Follow-up survey data demonstrate that the alerts treatment increases reporting of receiving air pollution information via SMS, a high pollution day in the past week, and staying indoors on the most recent perceived high pollution day. However, we observe no significant effect on the ability to correctly identify which specific days had high pollution. Similarly, households that received an N95 mask are more likely to report utilizing a mask with filter in the past two weeks, but we observe no effect on using a filter mask on the specific days with high particulate matter. Although we nd that air quality alerts increased the salience of air quality and avoidance behavior, these results illustrate the difficulty that information treatments face in overcoming perceptions to effectively reduce exposure to air pollution. |
| Keywords: | Mexico;Information;Randomized Control Trial;Air pollution;willingness to pay;Alerts;Avoidance behavior |
| JEL: | Q56 Q53 D83 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:11387&r=exp |
| By: | Kosec, Katrina; Mo, Cecilia Hyunjung |
| Abstract: | Could perceived relative economic standing affect citizens’ support for political leaders and insti tutions? We explore this question by examining Pakistan’s national unconditional cash transfer program, the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP). Leveraging a regression discontinuity approach using BISP’s administrative data and an original survey experiment, we find that perceptions of relative deprivation color citizen reactions to social protection. When citizens do not feel relatively deprived, receiving cash transfers has little sustained effect on individuals’ reported level of support for their political system and its leaders. However, when citizens feel relatively worse off, those receiving cash transfers become more politically satisfied, while those denied transfers become more politically disgruntled. Moreover, the magnitude of the reduction in political support among non-beneficiaries is larger than the magnitude of the increase in po litical support among beneficiaries. This has important implications for our understanding of the political ramifications of rising perceived inequality. |
| Keywords: | TANZANIA, EAST AFRICA, AFRICA SOUTH OF SAHARA, AFRICA, social protection, cash transfers, social safety nets, trust, households, gender, political participation, inequality, economics, social protection, egression discontinuity design, cash transfer, government trust, political psychology, Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1842v2&r=exp |
| By: | Engel, Julia F.; Huber, Christoph; Nüß, Patrick |
| Abstract: | We conduct a replication of Settele (2022), a online survey experiment designed to find out how individual's beliefs about the gender wage gap affect their policy preferences. We reproduce Results 1 and 2 of the study: how prior beliefs around the wage gap are distributed among individuals and how a information treatment causally affects the policy demand. Our re-coded replication shows that the reported results are robust. |
| Keywords: | Replication, Gender Wage Gap, Beliefs, Perception |
| JEL: | C26 C90 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:12&r=exp |
| By: | Ajzenman, Nicolás; Elacqua, Gregory; Marotta, Luana; Westh Olsen, Anne Sofie |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we show that order effects operate in the context of high-stakes, real-world decisions: employment choices. We experimentally evaluate a nationwide program in Ecuador that changed the order of teaching vacancies on a job application platform in order to reduce teacher sorting (that is, lower-income students are more likely to attend schools with less qualified teachers). In the treatment arm, the platform showed hard-to-staff schools (institutions typically located in more vulnerable areas that normally have greater difficulty attracting teachers) first, while in the control group teaching vacancies were displayed in alphabetical order. In both arms, hard-to-staff schools were labeled with an icon and identical information was given to teachers. We find that a teacher in the treatment arm was more likely to apply to hard-to-staff schools, to rank them as their highest priority, and to be assigned to a job vacancy in one of these schools. The effects were not driven by inattentive, altruistic, or less-qualified teachers. The program has thus helped to reduce the unequal distribution of qualified teachers across schools of different socioeconomic backgrounds. |
| Keywords: | Order Effects;Teacher sorting;Satisficing |
| JEL: | I24 D91 I25 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:11541&r=exp |
| By: | Abel, Martin (Bowdoin College); Burger, Rulof (Stellenbosch University) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of monetary incentives on effort in a prosocial task: writing letters encouraging voter turnout. Volunteers are randomized to receive no incentive, unconditional upfront payment, payment conditional on completing the task, or to have a choice between the two payment schemes. The unconditional and conditional payment both increase task completion rates by about 18 percentage points (43%). Giving people a choice between the payment scheme doubles the effect on task completion (35 p.p., 84%). Unlike unconditional payments, a choice over contracts also increases time spent on the task and letter quality. Survey responses suggest that giving people a choice is effective because it increases task ownership rather than the desire to return a favor or avoid feelings of guilt. |
| Keywords: | self determination, gift exchange, guilt aversion, labor supply |
| JEL: | D86 D91 J22 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15769&r=exp |
| By: | Tamás Keller (Computational Social Science - Research Center for Educational and Network Studies, Centre for Social Sciences, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates direct peer influence in upper-secondary track choice in the stratified and selective Hungarian educational system and makes two contributions to the literature. First, it tests both peer-contrasting and peer-conforming influences by considering peers’ GPA and endogenous educational choices. Second, the paper investigates mechanisms behind peer-conforming educational choices (such as peers’ normative pressure and information potential), with a focus on two structurally different peer relationships: self-selected friends and randomly assigned deskmates. The study uses a unique dataset that merges administrative data with randomized field experiment data. The results show no evidence of peer influence, after accounting for unobserved classroom homogeneity. Within the classroom, peers’ ability did not decrease, and peers’ ambitious endogenous educational choices did not increase students’ own choice of the academic upper-secondary track. Concerning the mechanisms of peer-conforming educational choices, the results reveal that peers’ informational potential (but not their normative pressure) might be the mechanism that drives students to conform to peers’ choices. This paper interprets the absence of peer influence in upper-secondary track choices as evidence that peer influence cannot derail students’ socially determined educational choices. |
| Keywords: | upper-secondary track choice, peer influence, application behavior, social contrast and conformity, deskmates, educational choice |
| JEL: | C93 I21 Z13 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:2218&r=exp |
| By: | Reyes, Angela; Roseth, Benjamin; Vera-Cossio, Diego A. |
| Abstract: | Access to identification cards (IDs) is often required to claim government benefits. However, it is unclear which policies to increase ID ownership are more effective. We experimentally analyze the effect of two policy interventions to induce the timely renewal of identification cards on access to a government social program in Panama. Sending reminders about expiration dates increased the probability of on-time renewals and of accessing benefits from a social program by 12 and 4.3 percentage points, respectively, relative to a control group. In contrast, allowing individuals to renew their ID online only increased renewals and access to benefits by 8 and 2.9 percentage points, respectively. This result was driven by lower-income individuals. The results suggest that policies to increase ownership of valid identity documentation can reduce inclusion errors in government programs and that simply granting access to digital tools may not be enough to unlock important effects. |
| Keywords: | Nudges;Social protection |
| JEL: | D90 H53 I38 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:11535&r=exp |
| By: | Jeworrek, Sabrina; Brachert, Matthias |
| Abstract: | We conduct a discrete choice experiment to investigate how the location of a firm in a rural or urban region affects job attractiveness and contributes to the spatial sorting of university students and graduates. We characterize the attractiveness of a location based on several dimensions (social life, public infrastructure, connectivity) and combine this information with an urban or rural attribution. We also vary job design as well as contractual characteristics of the job. We find that job offers from companies in rural areas are generally considered less attractive. This is true regardless of the attractiveness of the region. The negative perception is particularly pronounced among persons with urban origin and singles. These persons rate job offers from rural regions significantly worse. In contrast, high-skilled individuals who originate from rural areas as well as individuals with partners and kids have no specific preference for jobs in urban or rural areas. |
| Keywords: | discrete choice experiment,job characteristics,locational preferences,rural-urban divide |
| JEL: | J61 R12 R23 R58 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwhdps:272022&r=exp |
| By: | Gandelman, Néstor; Lamé, Diego |
| Abstract: | Using a standard trust game, we elicit trust and reciprocity measures in a representative sample of adult players in Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay, a country that exhibits relatively better levels of tolerance towards migrants than other Latin American countries. We find no statistically significant differences in trust levels of Uruguayans towards countrymen versus migrants. In reciprocity, we find only marginally significant differences attributable to the nationality of the players. |
| Keywords: | Trust;Reciprocity;Experimental games;Migrations |
| JEL: | C9 J15 |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:11602&r=exp |