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on Experimental Economics |
| By: | Sund, Oda Kristine Storstad (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | Parents play a pivotal role in shaping the opportunities and outcomes of their children. This paper provides unique evidence on parents’ willingness to give their child an advantage. I report from a large-scale lab-in-the-field experiment with 921 pairs of parents and their adolescent children, which is linked to high quality administrative data. In a situation with equal opportunities, parents are given the opportunity to increase the likelihood of their child winning in a competition. I find that a significant share of parents prioritizes their own child’s success at the expense of another child’s opportunity to succeed. A considerable share of parents helps their own child because they believe that the other parent also does so, in which case helping ensures a level playing field. However, I also find evidence suggestive of parents holding self-serving beliefs about the helping decision of other parents, which they use to justify helping their own child. Finally, I provide evidence of the helping decision in the experimental situation being strongly associated with children doing particularly well at school in situations where parents can directly influence their grade. Taken together, the paper provides the first set of systematic evidence on parents’ willingness to give their own children an advantage, and the findings provide new insights on parents’ role in human capital accumulation. |
| Keywords: | Behavior; Fairness; preferences; inequality; experiment; beliefs; meritocracy; selfserving; beliefs; cognitive dissonance |
| JEL: | C91 C93 D01 D63 I24 |
| Date: | 2023–12–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2023_021&r=exp |
| By: | Tobias Cagala (Deutsche Bundesbank); Ulrich Glogowsky (University of Linz); Johannes Rincke (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg); Simeon Schudy (Ulm University) |
| Abstract: | Using a standard cheating game, we investigate whether the request to sign a no-cheating declaration affects truth-telling. Our design varies the content of a no-cheating declaration (reference to ethical behavior vs. reference to possible sanctions) and the type of experiment (online vs. offline). Irrespective of the declaration's content, commitment requests do not affect truth-telling, neither in the laboratory nor online. The inefficacy of commitment requests appears robust across different samples and does not depend on psychological measures of reactance. |
| Keywords: | cheating; lying; truth-telling; compliance; commitment; no-cheating rule; no-cheating declaration; commitment request; |
| JEL: | C91 C93 D03 |
| Date: | 2023–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:466&r=exp |
| By: | Hönow, Nils Christian; Pourviseh, Adrian |
| Abstract: | Communication is well known to increase cooperation rates in social dilemma situations, but the exact mechanisms behind this have been questioned and discussed. This study examines the impact of communication on public good provisioning in an artefactual field experiment conducted with 216 villagers from small, rural communities in northern Namibia. In line with previous experimental findings, we observe a strong increase in cooperation when face-to-face communication is allowed before decision making. We additionally introduce a condition in which participants cannot discuss the dilemma but talk to their group members about an unrelated topic prior to learning about the public good game. It turns out that this condition already leads to higher cooperation rates, albeit not as high as in the condition in which discussions about the social dilemma are possible. The setting in small communities also allows investigating the effect of pre-existing social relationships between group members and their interaction with communication. We find that both types of communication are primarily effective among socially more distant group members, which suggests that communication and social ties work as substitutes in increasing cooperation. Further analyses rule out better comprehension of the game and increased mutual expectations of one's group members' contributions as drivers for the communication effect. Finally, we discuss the role of personal and injunctive norms to keep commitments made during discussions. |
| Abstract: | Es ist bekannt, dass direkte, persönliche Kommunikation zwischen involvierten Personen die Kooperationsbereitschaft in sozialen Dilemmata merklich erhöht, jedoch sind die genauen Mechanismen dahinter noch nicht vollständig geklärt. Diese Studie untersucht die Auswirkungen von Kommunikation auf die Bereitstellung öffentlicher Güter ('Public Good Game') in einem Feldexperiment, das mit 216 Dorfbewohnerinnen und Dorfbewohnern aus kleinen, ländlichen Gemeinschaften im Norden Namibias durchgeführt wurde. In Übereinstimmung mit bestehenden Erkenntnissen beobachten wir einen starken Anstieg der Kooperation, wenn Gruppenmitglieder vor ihrer Entscheidung miteinander reden können. Darüber hinaus testen wir eine Bedingung, in der die Teilnehmenden nicht über das Dilemma reden können, sondern mit ihren Gruppenmitgliedern über ein anderes Thema ohne Bezug zum Public Good Game sprechen, bevor sie das Spiel kennenlernen. Es zeigt sich, dass diese Bedingung bereits zu mehr Kooperation führt, wenn auch nicht so stark wie in der Bedingung, in der Diskussionen über das soziale Dilemma möglich sind. Der Studienkontext in kleinen Gemeinschaften erlaubt es auch, die Auswirkungen bereits bestehender sozialer Beziehungen zwischen den Gruppenmitgliedern und deren Interaktion mit Kommunikation zu untersuchen. Wir stellen fest, dass beide Arten der Kommunikation vor allem bei sich weniger nahestehenden Gruppenmitgliedern wirksam sind, was darauf hindeutet, dass Kommunikation und soziale Bindungen als Substitute für die Steigerung von Kooperation wirken. Weitere Analysen schließen ein besseres Verständnis des Spiels und erhöhte gegenseitige Erwartungen an die Beiträge der Gruppenmitglieder als Erklärungen für den Effekt von Kommunikation aus. Schließlich erörtern wir die Rolle persönlicher und injunktiver Normen zur Einhaltung getroffener Absprachen. |
| Keywords: | Communication, cooperation, field experiment, public good, social ties |
| JEL: | C71 C93 D8 D9 H41 Q5 Z1 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:280402&r=exp |
| By: | Xinru WANG; Nina DELIU; NARITA Yusuke; Bibhas CHAKRABORTY |
| Abstract: | Dynamic Treatment Regimes (DTRs) are sequences of decision rules that recommend treatments based on patients’ time-varying clinical conditions. The Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial (SMART) is an experimental design that can provide high-quality evidence for constructing optimal DTRs. In a conventional SMART, participants are randomized to available treatments at multiple stages with balanced randomization probabilities. Despite its relative simplicity of implementation and desirable performance in comparing embedded DTRs, the conventional SMART faces inevitable ethical issues including assigning many participants to the empirically inferior treatment or the treatment they dislike, which might slow down the recruitment procedure and lead to higher attrition rates, ultimately leading to poor internal and external validities of the trial results. In this context, we propose a SMART under the Experiment-as-Market framework (SMART-EXAM), a novel SMART design that holds the potential to improve participants’ welfare by incorporating their preferences and predicted treatment effects into the randomization procedure. We describe the steps of conducting a SMART-EXAM and evaluate its performance compared to the conventional SMART. The results indicate that the SMART-EXAM can improve the welfare of the participants enrolled in the trial, while also achieving a desirable ability to construct an optimal DTR when the experimental parameters are suitably specified. We finally illustrate the practical potential of the SMART-EXAM design using data from a SMART for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:23081&r=exp |
| By: | Yulia Evsyukova; Felix Rusche; Wladislaw Mill |
| Abstract: | We assess the impact of discrimination on Black individuals’ job networks in the U.S. using a two-stage field experiment with 400+ fictitious LinkedIn profiles. Varying race via A.I.-generated images only, we find that Black profiles’ connection requests are accepted at significantly lower rates (Stage I) and their networks provide less information (Stage II). Leveraging our experimental design to eliminate first-stage endogeneity, we identify gatekeeping as the key driver of Black-White disparities. Examining users’ CVs reveals widespread discrimination across different social groups and – contrary to expert predictions – less discrimination among men and older users. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination, Job Networks, Labor Markets, Field Experiment |
| JEL: | J71 J15 C93 J46 D85 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2023_482&r=exp |
| By: | Jacopo Bonan; Sergiu Burlacu; Arianna Galliera |
| Abstract: | We investigate the consistency of prosocial behaviors in response to changes in the in- stitutional setting of a lab-in-the-field experiment involving primary school students in El Salvador. Students play variants of the dictator game allowing the option to take and with relative unequal initial endowments. We exploit within-subject variation and find that children are sensitive to the enlargement of the choice-set, with a significant drop in the offers when the take option becomes available. Higher cognitive skills are systematically associated with higher levels of prosociality and lower sensitivity to changes in the choice set. However they do not correlate with responses to relative unequal initial endowments. Children, irrespective of their cognitive skills levels, care about equality and converge to a similar split of the final payoff, regardless of the initial inequality in the endowment, consistent with inequality aver- sion. The relationship between individual traits in childhood and the degree of consistency of prosocial behaviors appears to vary depending on the type of institutional change in the dictator game. |
| Keywords: | prosocial behavior, preference consistency, choice-set, cognitive skills, inequality aversion, El Salvador |
| JEL: | D91 C91 |
| Date: | 2022–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:478&r=exp |
| By: | Benedict Guttman-Kenney; Paul D. Adams; Stefan Hunt; David Laibson; Neil Stewart; Jesse Leary |
| Abstract: | We run a field experiment and a survey experiment to study an active choice nudge. Our nudge is designed to reduce the anchoring of credit card payments to the minimum payment. In our field experiment, the nudge reduces enrollment in Autopaying the minimum from 36.9% to 9.6%. However, the nudge does not reduce credit card debt after seven payment cycles. Nudged cardholders tend to choose Autopay amounts that are only slightly higher than the minimum payment. The nudge lowers Autopay enrollment resulting in increasing missed payments. Finally, the nudge reduces manual payments by cardholders enrolled in Autopay. |
| JEL: | G5 H0 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31926&r=exp |
| By: | Yves Breitmoser; Justin Valasek; Justin Mattias Valasek |
| Abstract: | We report on the results of an experiment designed to disentangle behavioral biases in information aggregation of committees. Subjects get private signals about the state of world, send binary messages, and finally vote under either majority or unanimity rules. Committee decisions are significantly more efficient than predicted by Bayesian equilibrium even with lying aversion. Messages are truthful, subjects correctly anticipate the truthfulness (contradicting limited depth of reasoning), but strikingly overestimate their pivotality when voting (contradicting plain lying aversion). That is, committees are efficient because members message truthfully and vote non-strategically. We show that all facets of behavior are predicted by overreaction, subjects overshooting in Bayesian updating, which implies that subjects exaggerate the importance of truthful messages and sincere voting. A simple one-parameteric generalization of quantal response equilibrium capturing overreaction covers 87 percent of observed noise. |
| Keywords: | committees, incomplete information, cheap talk, information aggregation, laboratory experiment, Bayesian updating, lying aversion, limited depth of reasoning |
| JEL: | D71 D72 C90 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10800&r=exp |
| By: | Eugenio Levi (Department of Public Economics, Masaryk University, Brno, 602 00, Czech Republic, Faculty of Economics and Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, 39100, Italy); Abhijit Ramalingam (Department of Economics, Walker College of Business, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, United States) |
| Abstract: | While inequality in resource endowments has been shown to affect cooperation levels in groups, much of this evidence comes from studies of within-group inequality. In an online public goods experiment, we instead examine the effects of payoff-irrelevant inequality in resources between groups on cooperation within equal groups. When all groups are poor or rich, their contribution behaviour is very similar. Relative inequality, when poor and rich groups coexist, leads to lower contributions in rich groups. Our results suggest that this is related to a combination of within- and between-group inequality aversion and to stereotypes about the rich contributing less than the poor. |
| Keywords: | between-group, resource inequality, cooperation, public goods, online experiment, beliefs |
| JEL: | C72 C91 C92 D63 H41 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mub:wpaper:2023-09&r=exp |
| By: | J. Bonan; C. Cattaneo; G. d’Adda; A. Galliera; M. Tavoni |
| Abstract: | We study the introduction of a social information program on waste disposal in a setting characterized by varying economic incentives. Households pay for unsorted waste a fixed amount if their yearly disposal is below a pre-defined cap, and pay per disposal after exceeding the cap. We randomise the receipt of a report informing customers of their disposal relative to that of similar neighbours. An additional treatment couples the social comparison with information on the customer’s disposal cap. We find that the report containing the social norm alone leads to a 7% reduction in the volume of unsorted waste, while making the cap salient reduces the effectiveness of the social norm. Both types of treatments have the same effect on the likelihood of exceeding the disposal cap. The reduction in unsorted waste is partly achieved through an increase in waste sorting, and is not accompanied by any increase in illegal disposals or a decrease in the quality of sorted waste. Our results confirm the effectiveness of descriptive norms in coordinating behaviour in a novel decision domain and in the absence of economic benefits resulting from changing behaviour. They indicate that their effectiveness as focal points is undermined by the provision of alternative reference points. |
| Keywords: | Field experiments, household waste, social norm, norm-based feedback |
| JEL: | C93 D90 Q53 |
| Date: | 2023–12–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:490&r=exp |
| By: | Felix Holzmeister; Magnus Johannesson; Robert Böhm; Anna Dreber; Jürgen Huber; Michael Kirchler |
| Abstract: | A typical empirical study involves choosing a sample, a research design, and an analysis path. Variation in such choices across studies leads to heterogeneity in results that introduce an additional layer of uncertainty not accounted for in reported standard errors and confidence intervals. We provide a framework for studying heterogeneity in the social sciences and divide heterogeneity into population heterogeneity, design heterogeneity, and analytical heterogeneity. We estimate each type's heterogeneity from multi-lab replication studies, prospective meta-analyses of studies varying experimental designs, and multi-analyst studies. Our results suggest that population heterogeneity tends to be relatively small, whereas design and analytical heterogeneity are large. A conservative interpretation of the estimates suggests that incorporating the uncertainty due to heterogeneity would approximately double sample standard errors and confidence intervals. We illustrate that heterogeneity of this magnitude — unless properly accounted for —has severe implications for statistical inference with strongly increased rates of false scientific claims. |
| Keywords: | Conflict, contest, conflict resolution, group decision-making, group identity, alliance, experiment |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2023-17&r=exp |
| By: | J. Bonan; C. Cattaneo; G. d’Adda; A. Galliera; M. Tavoni |
| Abstract: | Policymakers and firms use behavioral interventions to promote sustainable development in various domains. Correctly evaluating the impacts of a nudge on behavior and satisfaction requires looking beyond the targeted domain and assessing its interactions with other similar interventions. Existing evidence on these aspects is limited, leading to potential misestimation of the cost-effectiveness of this type of intervention and poor guidance on how to design them best. Through a large-scale randomized controlled trial implemented with a multi-resource utility company, we test the impact of a social information campaign to nudge water conservation over two years. We find that the water nudge significantly decreases water and electricity usage, but not gas. The effect is driven by customers who do not receive nudges targeting the other resources. Customers receiving the water report are also significantly less likely to deactivate their gas and electricity contracts, regardless of whether they receive other reports. Our results suggest that multiple nudges strain users’ limited attention and ability to enact conservation efforts. Users’ constraints in attending to multiple stimuli pose important challenges for designing policy interventions to foster sustainable practices. |
| Keywords: | Social information, spillover effects, resource conservation |
| JEL: | Q5 Q25 D9 |
| Date: | 2023–12–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:491&r=exp |
| By: | Riccardo Bruni; Alessandro Gioffré; Maria Marino |
| Abstract: | Using a new survey and experimental data, we investigate how information on inequality and immigration affects preferences for redistribution in Italy. Our randomized treatments show that preferences for redistribution are generally inelastic to information. However, we find that provision of information on poverty statistics related to the native-immigrant composition of poverty reduces economic in-group bias by affecting exclusionary redistributive preferences. Respondents are less likely to support policies that exclude immigrants from access to the welfare state once they learn that immigrants are less represented among the poor and natives are not as poor as believed. We also find evidence of cultural in-group bias by investigating heterogeneous treatment effects on policy preferences across socio-demographic groups. |
| Keywords: | inequality, immigration redistribution, perception, survey experiment |
| JEL: | D91 D72 H23 H24 C83 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10785&r=exp |
| By: | Bonan, Jacopo; Cattaneo, Cristina; D'Adda, Giovanna; Galliera, Arianna; Tavoni, Massimo |
| Abstract: | Policymakers and firms use behavioral interventions to promote sustainable development in various domains. Correctly evaluating the impacts of a nudge on behavior and satisfaction requires looking beyond the targeted domain and assessing its interactions with similar interventions. Existing evidence on these aspects is limited, leading to potential misestimation of the cost-effectiveness of this type of intervention and poor guidance on how to design them best. Through a large-scale randomized controlled trial implemented with a multi-resource utility company, we test the impact of a social information campaign to nudge water conservation over two years. We find that the water nudge significantly decreases water and electricity usage but not gas. The effect is driven by customers who do not receive nudges targeting the other resources. Customers receiving the water report are also significantly less likely to deactivate their gas and electricity contracts, regardless of whether they receive other reports. Our results suggest that multiple nudges strain users’ limited attention and ability to enact conservation efforts. Users’ constraints in attending to multiple stimuli pose important challenges for designing policy interventions to foster sustainable practices. |
| Date: | 2023–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-23-46&r=exp |
| By: | Kettlewell, Nathan (University of Technology, Sydney); Tymula, Agnieszka (University of Sydney); Yoo, Hong Il (Loughborough University) |
| Abstract: | We study the heritability of risk, uncertainty, and time preferences using a field experiment with a large sample of adult twins. We also offer a meta-analysis of existing findings. Our field study introduces a novel empirical approach that marries behavioral genetics with structural econometrics. This allows us to, for the first time, quantify the heritability of economic preference parameters directly without employing proxy measures. Our incentive-compatible experiment is the first twin study to elicit all three types of preferences for the same individual. Compared to previous studies, we find a greater role of genes in explaining risk and uncertainty preferences, and of the shared familial environment in explaining time preferences. Time preferences appear more important from policy and parenting perspectives since they exhibit limited genetic variation and are more than twice as sensitive to the familial environment as risk and uncertainty preferences. |
| Keywords: | risk preferences, ambiguity aversion, time preferences, twin study, genetics |
| JEL: | C93 D15 D81 D91 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16633&r=exp |
| By: | Eko Arief Yogama (Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 4DT, UK.); Daniel J. Gray (Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 4DT, UK.); Matthew D. Rablen (Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 4DT, UK.) |
| Abstract: | We conducted a randomised controlled trial in Indonesia to evaluate the effect of three intervention letters on tax penalty compliance behaviour. Over 10, 000 individual taxpayers are randomly assigned to receive either a deterrence, information, or simplification letter, or no letter. Our results indicate that simplification, which makes paying a penalty less burdensome administratively by providing billing codes to pay the penalties, yields the highest probability of timely settlement, increasing compliance by 32 per cent compared to the control group. Deterrence also positively impacts penalty compliance, increasing timely settlement rates by 27 per cent. The least effective intervention is the information letter. Although associated with a 12 per cent increase in tax compliance, this effect is only statistically significant at the 10 per cent confidence level. Our results suggest that strategic messaging by tax authorities in developing countries can be a cost-effective tool for improving tax penalty payment compliance. |
| Keywords: | Tax penalties; Tax compliance; RCT; Simplification; Deterrence; Information; Indonesia |
| JEL: | C93 D91 H26 Z18 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2023023&r=exp |
| By: | Cotofan, Maria |
| Abstract: | Financial incentive programs for teachers are increasingly common, but little is known about the effectiveness of non-monetary incentives in improving educational outcomes. This field experiment measures how repeated public praise for the best teachers impacts student performance. In treated schools, the students of praised teachers perform better on standardized exams undertaken six months after the intervention. Praised teachers also assign higher marks to their students two months after the intervention. The students of teachers who are not praised in treated schools are assigned lower marks two months after the intervention, but they do not perform any worse on final exams. Compared to costly interventions where teachers receive financial incentives, the effects of public praise for praised teachers are remarkably large. |
| Keywords: | field experiment; non-monetary incentives; public praise; teacher performance |
| JEL: | C39 I21 J30 J45 J53 M52 |
| Date: | 2021–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:112772&r=exp |
| By: | Abigail Barr (University of Nottingham); Anna Hochleitner (NHH Bergen); Silvia Sonderegger (University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the relationship between inequality and social instability. While the argument that inequality can be damaging for the cohesion of a society is old, the empirical evidence is mixed. We use a novel approach to isolate the causal relationship running from inequality to instability. Specifically, we conduct a laboratory experiment. In the experiment, two groups are interacting with each other repeatedly and have an incentive to cooperate even though cooperation comes at the cost of inter-group inequality. In the second half of the experiment, we vary the extent of the inequality implied by cooperation. Our results show that increasing such inequality has a destabilising effect; the disadvantaged group attacks the status quo. We show that this behaviour is consistent with a simple theoretical framework incorporating disadvantageous inequality aversion and myopic best response. Moreover, we find that a worsening of the absolute situation of the disadvantaged group or a sudden rather than gradual increase in inequality exacerbates the destabilising effect of inequality. Finally, we show that history matters, with people responding differently to the same level of inequality now depending on their past experiences. |
| Keywords: | Collective decision making; Conflict and Revolutions;Inequality |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2023-13&r=exp |
| By: | Margarita Machelett (Banco de España) |
| Abstract: | This paper describes a large-scale field experiment conducted in the US auto repair industry to study the existence and structure of gender-based price discrimination in service markets. Women receive price quotes that are 2% (over 10 dollars) higher than those received by men. These differences disappear when women signal low search costs, suggesting statistical rather than taste-based discrimination. Price requests that appear to come from high-income households raise quotes for men but not women, eliminating the gender gap. The price gap also falls with the number of nearby repair shops, suggesting that market competition alleviates gender-based price discrimination. |
| Keywords: | competition, discrimination, field experiment, gender |
| JEL: | C93 D4 J16 J18 J71 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:wpaper:2333&r=exp |
| By: | Roberto Brunetti (Université Lumière Lyon 2, GATE UMR 5824, F-69130 Ecully, France and Univ Rennes, CNRS, CREM-UMR6211, F-35000 Rennes, France); Matthieu Pourieux (Univ Rennes, CNRS, CREM-UMR6211, F-35000 Rennes, France) |
| Abstract: | This study leverages an online behavioral experiment to analyze political representation—whether politicians’ decisions align with citizens’ preferences over the same issue—and behavioral representation—whether politicians’ decisions align with citizens’ decisions within the same decision environment. We recruited 760 local politicians and 655 non-politicians in France to participate as policy-makers in a taxation-redistribution game. In the game, two policy-makers compete to choose a flat tax rate for a group of citizens, who are selected from the French general population and state their preferred tax rate. We exogenously manipulate (i) the information provided to policy-makers about citizens’ preferred tax rates and (ii) the degree of competition between policy-makers. Finally, we measure policy-makers’ beliefs regarding both citizens’ preferences and their competitor’s choice. We observe that policy-makers positively react to the information, but they often deviate from it, which can be mostly explained by their beliefs about both citizens’ preferences and their competitor’s choices. Varying the degree of political competition has no impact on these results. Finally, we find that politicians believe citizens want lower tax rates and are more confident in their beliefs than non-politicians. Once beliefs are accounted for, we observe little differences between the two groups within the game. Our findings suggest that policy-makers act as pro-social agents who implement citizens’ preferences based on their beliefs when they lack information about these preferences. |
| Keywords: | Representation, Politicians’ Behavior, Online Experiment, Taxation-Redistribution |
| JEL: | D31 P19 H24 H79 C90 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:2319&r=exp |
| By: | Kwabena Donkor (Stanford GSB); Lorenz Goette (National University of Singapore); Maximilian Müller (Toulouse School of Economics); Eugen Dimant (University of Pennsylvania); Michael Kurschilgen (Uni Distance Suisse) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how beliefs and preferences drive identity-conforming consumption or investments. We introduce a theory that explains how identity distorts individuals' beliefs about potential outcomes and imposes psychic costs on benefiting from identity-incongruent sources. We substantiate our theoretical foundation through two lab-in-field experiments on soccer betting in Kenya and the UK, where participants either had established affiliations with the teams involved or assumed a neutral stance. The results indicate that soccer fans have overoptimistic beliefs about match outcomes that align with their identity and bet significantly higher amounts on those than on outcomes of comparable games where they are neutral. After accounting for individuals' beliefs and risk preferences, our structural estimates reveal that participants undervalue gains from identity-incongruent assets by 9% to 27%. Our counterfactual simulations imply that identity-specific beliefs account for 30% to 44% of the investment differences between neutral observers and supporters, with the remainder being due to identity preferences. |
| Keywords: | Identity, Experiment, Structural Analysis |
| JEL: | D91 G41 Z10 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:269&r=exp |
| By: | Omar Al-Ubaydli; Alecia W. Cassidy; Anomitro Chatterjee; Ahmed Khalifa; Michael K. Price |
| Abstract: | High resource users often have the strongest response to behavioral interventions promoting conservation. Yet, litlle is known about how to motivate them. We implement a field experiment in Qatar, where residential customers have some of the highest energy use per capita in the world. Our dataset consists of 207, 325 monthly electricity meter readings from a panel of 6, 096 customers. We employ two normative treatments priming identity - a religious message quoting the Qur’an, and a national message reminding households that Qatar prioritizes energy conservation. The treatments reduce electricity use by 3.8% and both messages are equally effective. Using machine learning methods on supplemental survey data, we elucidate how agency, motivation, and responsibility activate conservation responses to our identity primes. |
| JEL: | C93 D90 Q4 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31931&r=exp |
| By: | Frohnweiler, Sarah; Beber, Bernd; Ebert, Cara |
| Abstract: | We report experimental results from Ghana, where treated subjects received information on regional income differentials. We do not see an effect on migration intentions directly after the intervention, but the effect of the treatment unfolds over time. Eighteen months later, subjects assigned to receive income information are on average significantly less likely to express enthusiasm for moving to another region, because individuals that had inaccurately high expectations about incomes elsewhere compared to their current place of residence are now more likely to want to forgo relocation. Contrary to common claims that effects observed in light-touch information experiments are likely to dissipate quickly, we suggest that some types of content in high-stakes domains such as migration can take time to reverberate and be incorporated into individuals' decision calculus. We also discuss that delayed effects may be uncommonly observed because long-term follow-ups are rare in the absence of short-term effects. |
| Abstract: | Wir berichten Ergebnisse eines Experiments in Ghana, bei dem behandelte Personen Informationen über regionale Einkommensunterschiede erhielten. Unmittelbar nach der Intervention lässt sich keine Auswirkung auf Migrationsabsichten feststellen, aber eine Wirkung entfaltet sich im Laufe der Zeit. Achtzehn Monate später ist die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass die Teilnehmenden, die Informationen über Einkommensunterschiede erhalten haben, in eine andere Region umziehen wollen im Durchschnitt deutlich geringer. Dies liegt daran, dass Personen, die im Vergleich zu ihrem derzeitigen Wohnort unzutreffend hohe Einkommenserwartungen hatten, nun eher auf einen Umzug verzichten wollen. Entgegen der weit verbreiteten Annahme, dass sich Effekte in Experimenten dieser Art schnell verflüchtigen, zeigen wir, dass Inhalte in Themenfeldern wie der Migration eventuell eine gewisse Zeit brauchen, bis sie nachhallen und in das Entscheidungskalkül der Menschen einfließen. Wir erörtern auch, dass verzögerte Effekte nur selten beobachtet werden, weil langfristige Folgeuntersuchungen selten sind, wenn es keine kurzfristigen Effekte gibt. |
| Keywords: | Delayed effects, information provision, migration intentions |
| JEL: | J31 O15 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:280422&r=exp |
| By: | Ahmed, Ali (Linköping University); Hammarstedt, Mats (Linnaeus University) |
| Abstract: | This study evaluated discrimination against children with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) in Swedish sports clubs through a field experiment. Two fictitious fathers sent emails to 193 top-division clubs in football, floorball, ice hockey, and handball, one disclosing his son’s T1DM condition. The investigation focused on disparities in clubs’ responses and information provided. Results indicated no significant difference in positive or comprehensive responses between emails mentioning T1DM and those that did not, suggesting minimal bias at initial contact and an inclusive approach by the clubs towards children with T1DM. |
| Keywords: | Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus; Discrimination; Sports clubs; Field experiment |
| JEL: | J14 J71 |
| Date: | 2023–12–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1480&r=exp |
| By: | Dieter Verhaest; Stijn Baert (-) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of participation in physical and mental exercise activities on hirability. Besides by comparing both forms of exercising, we innovate against the existing literature by comparing their impact between different types of jobs, where other effects could be expected. To this end, an audit experiment is conducted in which we send 2184 fictitious applications of young job seekers to real job vacancies. On average, the estimated effect of both physical and mental exercise activities is small and statistically insignificant. However, the effect of participation in any exercise activity is significantly positive for jobs combining low cognitive with low physical demands. These findings are not consistent with the common consideration of physical exercise activities being used by employers as signals of physical fitness and appearance. |
| Keywords: | sports, mental fitness, skills, employment, field experiments |
| JEL: | J24 J63 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:23/1080&r=exp |
| By: | Florian Englmaier (LMU Munich, CEPR, CESifo); Stefan Grimm (LMU Munich); Dominik Grothe (LMU Munich); David Schindler (Tilburg University, CESifo); Simeon Schudy (Ulm University, CESifo) |
| Abstract: | Despite the prevalence of non-routine analytical team tasks in modern economies, little is understood regarding how incentives influence performance in these tasks. In a series of field experiments involving more than 5, 000 participants, we investigate how incentives alter behavior in teams working on such a task. We document a positive effect of bonus incentives on performance, even among teams with strong intrinsic motivation. Bonuses also transform team organization by enhancing the demand for leadership. Exogenously increasing teams' demand for leadership results in performance improvements comparable to those seen with bonus incentives, rendering it as a likely mediator of incentive effects. |
| Keywords: | team work; bonus; incentives; leadership; non-routine; exploration; |
| JEL: | C92 C93 J33 D03 M52 |
| Date: | 2023–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:468&r=exp |
| By: | Valeria Burdea (LMU Munich); Jonathan Woon (University of Pittsburgh) |
| Abstract: | We conduct an experiment in which groups are tasked with evaluating the truth of a set of politically relevant facts and statements, and we investigate whether communication improves information aggregation and the accuracy of group decisions. Our findings suggest that the effect of communication depends on the underlying accuracy of individual judgments. Communication improves accuracy when individuals tend to be incorrect, but diminishes it when individuals are likely to be correct ex ante. We also find that when groups vote independently without communicating, subjects update their beliefs in a manner consistent with interpreting others' votes as mildly informative signals, but not when they communicate beforehand. The chat analysis suggests that group members use communication to present their knowledge of related facts and to engage in interactive reasoning. Moreover, the volume of both types of communication increases with item difficulty. |
| Keywords: | collective decisions; voting; communication; |
| JEL: | D70 D72 D83 |
| Date: | 2023–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:443&r=exp |
| By: | Christa Brunnschweiler; Ishmael Edjekumhene; Päivi Lujala; Sabrina Scherzer; Christa N. Brunnschweiler |
| Abstract: | How can citizens be motivated to demand accountability in the management of public revenues? We carry out a video survey experiment among 2300 Ghanaian respondents to study the impact of information provision and encouragement messages by a politician and civil society leader on attitudes and demand for accountability in the management of petroleum revenues. We find that providing information significantly increases knowledge about current revenue management, satisfaction with the way revenues are handled and spent, and the intention to demand more accountability. The encouragement messages have an additional effect: they increase the sense that an individual can influence how petroleum revenues are used, and the intention to contact media and to vote differently to ensure better accountability. However, a follow-up survey two years later shows that these impacts do not last. The experiment suggests that providing relevant information affects attitudes and intended behavior in the short term and that role models can give valuable encouragement for behavioral change. |
| Keywords: | accountability, survey experiment, video, Ghana, petroleum revenues, information treatment |
| JEL: | Q35 Q38 H41 H23 D80 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10819&r=exp |
| By: | Helmers, Viola; Frondel, Manuel; Sommer, Stephan |
| JEL: | R48 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc23:277706&r=exp |
| By: | Can Celebi (University of Mannheim); Stefan Pencyznski (School of Economics and Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science, University of East Anglia) |
| Abstract: | Theoretical work by Feddersen and Pesendorfer (1998) has shown how strategic voting undermines the intuition that unanimous voting eliminates convictions of innocent defendants. We set up a level-k model of jury voting and experimentally investigate strategic thinking with an experimental design that uses intra-team communication. Looking at juries using the unanimity rule, we show that the jury performance depends on the strategic sophistication of jury members, which in turn depends on the complexity of the task at hand. |
| Keywords: | Jury voting, levels of reasoning, strategic voting |
| JEL: | D72 D83 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uea:wcbess:23-01&r=exp |
| By: | Yvonne Jie Chen; Deniz Dutz; Li Li; Sarah Moon; Edward J. Vytlacil; Songfa Zhong |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a partial-identification methodology for analyzing self-selection into alternative compensation schemes in a laboratory environment. We formulate a model of self-selection in which individuals select the compensation scheme with the largest expected valuation, which depends on individual- and scheme-specific beliefs and non-monetary preferences. We characterize the resulting sharp identified sets for individual-specific willingness-to-pay, subjective beliefs, and preferences, and develop conditions on the experimental design under which these identified sets are informative. We apply our methods to examine gender differences in preference for winner-take-all compensation schemes. We find that what has commonly been attributed to a gender difference in preference for performing in a competition is instead explained by men being more confident than women in their probability of winning a future (though not necessarily a past) competition. |
| JEL: | C25 C91 J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31930&r=exp |
| By: | Luise Goerges (Leuphana University Lüneburg); Tom Lane (Newcastle University); Daniele Nosenzo (Aarhus University); Silvia Sonderegger (University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | Building on findings showing that laws exert a causal effect on social norms, this paper investigates whether this “expressive power of law” differs by gender or race. We develop a model to show that such differences are theoretically plausible. We then use an incentivized vignette experiment to test whether these differences are empirically relevant. Results from an online sample of around 4000 subjects confirm that laws causally influence social norms. However, we find little evidence of a differential effect across gender or race, suggesting that gender and race biases in the legal system are driven by other mechanisms than differences in the expressive power of law. |
| Keywords: | Social Norms; Law; Expressive Function of Law; Gender Gap; Racial Bias |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2023-12&r=exp |
| By: | Kosse, Fabian (University of Würzburg); Rajan, Ranjita (The Karta Initiative); Tincani, Michela M. (University College London) |
| Abstract: | We present the first causal evidence on the persistent impact of enduring competition on prosociality. Inspired by the literature on tournaments within firms, which shows that competitive compensation schemes reduce cooperation in the short-run, we explore if enduring exposure to a competitive environment persistently attenuates prosociality. Based on a large-scale randomized intervention in the education context, we find lower levels of prosociality for students who just experienced a 2-year competition period. 4-year follow-up data indicate that the effect persists and generalizes, suggesting a change in traits and not only in behavior. |
| Keywords: | prosociality, competition, cooperation, social skills, socio-emotional skills, tournaments, comparative pay, incentive schemes |
| JEL: | D64 C93 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16595&r=exp |
| By: | Nisvan Erkal (Department of Economics, University of Melbourne); Lata Gangadharan (Department of Economics, Monash University); Boon Han Koh (Department of Economics, University of Exeter) |
| Abstract: | Using incentivized experiments, we investigate whether different criteria are used in evaluating male and female leaders when outcomes are determined by unobservable choices and luck. Evaluators form beliefs about leaders' choices and make discretionary payments. We find that while payments to male leaders are determined by both outcomes and evaluators' beliefs, those to female leaders are determined by outcomes only. We label this new source of gender bias as the gender criteria gap. Our findings imply that high outcomes are necessary for women to get bonuses, but men can receive bonuses for low outcomes as long as evaluators hold them in high regard. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, discrimination, evaluation criteria, biases in beliefs, outcome bias, social preferences, laboratory experiments |
| JEL: | C92 D91 J71 |
| Date: | 2023–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exe:wpaper:2316&r=exp |
| By: | Emanuele Colonnelli; Timothy McQuade; Gabriel Ramos; Thomas Rauter; Olivia Xiong |
| Abstract: | We conduct a field experiment in partnership with the largest job platform in Brazil to study how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices of firms affect talent allocation. We find both an average job-seeker's preference for ESG and a large degree of heterogeneity across socioeconomic groups, with the strongest preference displayed by highly educated, white, and politically liberal individuals. We combine our experimental estimates with administrative matched employer-employee microdata and estimate an equilibrium model of the labor market. Counterfactual analyses suggest ESG practices increase total economic output and worker welfare, while increasing the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers. |
| JEL: | D2 G0 G3 G4 J0 O10 P0 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31913&r=exp |
| By: | Ximeng Fang (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford); Sven Heuser (FraunhoferInstitute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS); Lasse S. Stötzer (Institute on Behavior and Inequality (briq)) |
| Abstract: | Growing political polarization is often attributed to “echo chambers” among likeminded individuals and a lack of social interactions among contrary-minded individuals. We provide quasi-experimental evidence on the effects of in-person conversations on individual-level polarization outcomes, studying a large-scale intervention in Germany that matched pairs of strangers for private face-to-face meetings to discuss divisive political issues. We find asymmetric effects: conversations with like-minded individuals caused political views to become more extreme (ideological polarization); by contrast, conversations with contrary-minded individuals did not lead to a convergence of political views, but significantly reduced negative beliefs and attitudes toward ideological out-group members (affective polarization), while also improving perceived social cohesion more generally. These effects of contrary-minded conversations seem to be driven mostly by positive experiences of interpersonal contact. |
| Keywords: | polarization, intergroup contact, behavioral political economy |
| JEL: | D90 Z13 C99 J15 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:270&r=exp |
| By: | Axana Dalle; Louis Lippens; Stijn Baert (-) |
| Abstract: | As age discrimination hampers the OECD’s ambition to extend the working population, an efficient antidiscrimination policy targeted at the right employers is critical. Therefore, the context in which age discrimination is most prevalent must be identified. In this study, we thoroughly review the current theoretical arguments and empirical findings regarding moderators of age discrimination in different demand-side domains (i.e. decision-maker, vacancy, occupation, organisation, and sector). Our review demonstrates that the current literature is highly fragmented and often lacks field-experimental evidence, raising concerns about itsinternal and external validity.To addressthis gap, we conducted a correspondence experiment and systematically linked the resulting data to external data sources. In so doing, we were able to study the priorly determined demand-side moderators within a single multi-level analysis and simultaneously control multiple correlations between potential moderators and discrimination estimates. Having done so, we found no empirical support for any of these moderators. |
| Keywords: | Ageism; Hiring discrimination; Heterogeneity;Literature review;Field experiment; Administrative data |
| JEL: | J71 J23 J14 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:23/1081&r=exp |
| By: | Herzog, Sabrina (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf); Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf); Trieu, Chi (Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)); Willrodt, Jana (Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)) |
| Abstract: | Although affirmative action remains controversial, little is known about who supports or opposes it and why. This paper investigates preferences for affirmative action by combining causal evidence from an experiment on the role of self-serving motives and in-group favoritism with survey data on three different affirmative action policies. Our results rely on a population-representative sample from the US. We find that support for affirmative action is based both on self-serving motives and principled grounds (e.g., related to an individual's altruism, fairness perceptions, concerns for efficiency, and political views). By contrast, in-group favoritism and socio-demographic characteristics play a much smaller role. |
| Keywords: | support for affirmative action, self-serving motives, in-group favoritism, altruism, efficiency, fairness, discrimination |
| JEL: | C99 D01 D63 J78 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16640&r=exp |
| By: | Eric Schniter (Chapman University) |
| Abstract: | "Experimental research in the realm of human-robot interactions has focused on the behavioral and psychological influences affecting human interaction and cooperation with robots. A robot is loosely defined as a device designed to perform agentic tasks autonomously or under remote control, often replicating or assisting human actions. Robots can vary widely in form, ranging from simple assembly line machines performing repetitive actions to advanced systems with no moving parts but with artificial intelligence (AI) capable of learning, problem-solving, communicating, and adapting to diverse environments and human interactions. Applications of experimental human-robot interaction research include the design, development, and implementation of robotic technologies that better align with human preferences, behaviors, and societal needs. As such, a central goal of experimental research on human-robot interactions is to better understand how trust is developed and maintained. A number of studies suggest that humans trust and act toward robots as they do towards humans, applying social norms and inferring agentic intent (Rai and Diermeier, 2015). While many robots are harmless and even helpful, some robots may reduce their human partner’s wages, security, or welfare and should not be trusted (Taddeo, McCutcheon and Floridi, 2019; Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2020; Alekseev, 2020). For example, more than half of all internet traffic is generated by bots, the majority of which are 'bad bots' (Imperva, 2016). Despite the hazards, robotic technologies are already transforming our everyday lives and finding their way into important domains such as healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, customer service, education, and disaster relief (Meyerson et al., 2023)." |
| Keywords: | Trust, Robots, AI, Experiments, Evolution |
| JEL: | B52 C72 C90 D63 D64 L5 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:23-14&r=exp |
| By: | Nese, Annamaria (University of Salerno); O'Higgins, Niall (ILO International Labour Organization); Sbriglia, Patrizia (University of Campania-Luigi Vanvitelli) |
| Abstract: | One disputed topic in Organization and Management economics is how leadership and collusive agreements are set and maintained in industries where firms are characterised by similar technological opportunities and structures. This topic is particularly important to analyse online and digital markets, which can be regarded as networks where managers share information and where there are no structural differences among firms. In this paper we claim that strategic advantages may be the outcome of repeated interaction among managers and can be driven by two (in some cases) competing forces, information and reciprocity. In fact, on one side, full information on all firms' strategies, help agents to coordinate their decisions and drive the final outcomes towards more profitable solutions. On the other side, when information is limited only to their direct opponents, competitive advantages are maintained when each competitor views the individuals' share of profits as a "fair" allocation. Thus, pricing behaviour is affected both by the willingness to reciprocate the opponent behaviour and the willingness to imitate best strategies observed in other markets. Both pricing behaviours lead to different profit outcomes. We test our hypotheses with a lab experiment on a sequential pricing game. We find a striking difference in pricing behaviour across treatments, and a significant difference also in the ability of the second movers to establish and keep their leadership. Specifically, individuals are highly competitive when information on other players' prices is limited, and only in few markets we observe second movers' advantages. When information on prices on all markets is provided, the picture is entirely different, and prices are very close to the sub-game equilibrium level. Overall, reciprocity can explain the results, however, full information reduces negative reciprocity and competition. |
| Keywords: | price competition, learning direction theory, trust and reciprocity |
| JEL: | C90 C91 L1 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16637&r=exp |
| By: | Bergeron-Boutin, Olivier; Ciobanu, Costin; Cohen, Guila; Erlich, Aaron |
| Abstract: | Cheeseman and Peiffer (2022) field a survey experiment in Nigeria to test the effect of five different anti-corruption messages on participants' willingness to bribe public officials. They find that these messages generally fail to reduce bribes and could, in fact, increase bribes. They further show that these counterproductive effects of anti-corruption messages are especially pernicious for participants who believe corruption is widespread, whom they call "Pessimistic Perceivers." We find that Cheeseman and Peiffer's findings are computationally reproducible: using the same data and estimation procedures, we arrive at the same output reported in the original article. Furthermore, we find that following Cheeseman and Peiffer's strategy to dichotomize a three-item scale used as a moderating variable, their results are robust to different estimation strategies. However, we draw attention to several shortcomings of the original analysis. First, the distribution of the moderating variable is highly skewed: on a 0-1 scale, the mean value is 0.81. Cheeseman and Peiffer's dichotomization procedure is also sensitive to the cutoff threshold and produces unstable results. Similarly, when we employ more flexible estimation strategies for heterogeneous treatment effects when the moderator is measured on a continuous scale, the results appear less robust. |
| Keywords: | Replication study, Corruption, Nigeria |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:94&r=exp |
| By: | Belot, Michèle (Cornell University); Kurmangaliyeva, Madina (Université Libre de Bruxelles); Reuter, Johanna (Johannes Kepler University Linz) |
| Abstract: | Diversity in employee representation is often advocated for its potential to promote the diversity of ideas, and thereby innovation. In this study, we shed light on the phenomenon of 'idea homophily', which is a tendency to be more interested in ideas closer to one's own. We first document recent trends in the Economics Academic junior hiring showing that women specializing in traditionally male-dominated fields are faring significantly better than their counterparts in female-dominated fields and even outperform their male peers. We then examine the demand for ideas in a college educated population with an Online experiment involving 500 participants. We find substantial gender differences in which ideas people are choosing to engage with. Also, when decision-makers are predominantly male, incentives encouraging engagement with female ideas increase substantially their demand, but disproportionately in male-dominated fields. In contrast, incentives encouraging ideas in female-fields in general increase exposure to female ideas but do not lead to an over-representation of either gender conditional on field. |
| Keywords: | gender diversity, innovation, homophily, hiring, academia |
| JEL: | J16 O30 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16631&r=exp |
| By: | Isa Hafalir (University of Technology Sydney); Onur Kesten (University of Sydney); Katerina Sherstyuk (University of Hawaii at Manoa); Cong Tao (University of Technology Sydney) |
| Abstract: | We study a remarkable auction used in several fish markets around the world, notably in Honolulu and Sydney, whereby high-quality fish are sold fast through a hybrid auction that combines the Dutch and the English formats in one auction. Speedy sales are of essence for these perishable goods. Our theoretical model incorporating Òtime costsÓ demonstrates that such Honolulu-Sydney auction is preferred by the auctioneer over the Dutch auction when there are few bidders or when bidders have high time costs. Our laboratory experiments confirm that with a small number of bidders, Honolulu-Sydney auctions are significantly faster than Dutch auctions. Bidders overbid in Dutch, benefiting the auctioneer, but bidding approaches risk-neutral predictions as time costs increase. Bidders fare better in the Honolulu-Sydney format compared to Dutch across all treatments. We further observe bidder attempts to tacitly lower prices in Honolulu- Sydney auctions, substantiating existing concerns about pricing in some fish markets. |
| Keywords: | auction theory, time costs, laboratory experiments |
| JEL: | C7 C92 D02 D44 L0 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:202310&r=exp |
| By: | Michela Boldrini; Pierluigi Conzo; Willem Sas; Roberto Zotti |
| Abstract: | In times of hardship, politicians often leverage citizens’ discontent and scapegoat minorities to obtain political support. This paper tests whether political campaigns scapegoating migrants for a health crisis affect social, political, and economic attitudes and behaviors. Through an online nationally-representative survey experiment in Italy, we analyze the effects of such narratives through information-provision treatments, which include facts also emphasizing the alleged health consequences of ongoing immigration. Results show that narratives associating immigration with health threats do not generate sizeable add-on effects compared to those based on immigration only. If anything, they increase disappointment towards co-nationals, reduce institutional trust, and undermine partisanship among extreme-right supporters. Results are consistent with a theoretical framework where party credibility and support, and institutional trust are influenced by political discourse. Our experiment underpins the prediction that political campaigns based on extreme narratives can be ineffective or socially and politically counterproductive, providing an example of how populism can backfire. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Pandemic crisis, Survey experiment, Socio-political attitudes, Institutional trust, Anti-immigrant narratives, Informational treatments, Political messaging, Populism |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:700&r=exp |
| By: | Karpowitz, Christopher F. (Brigham Young University); O'Connell, Stephen D. (Emory University); Preece, Jessica (Brigham Young University); Stoddard, Olga B. (Brigham Young University) |
| Abstract: | Policies that increase women's representation often intend to provide women with influence over processes and decisions of the organization in which they are implemented. This paper studies the effect of gender composition and leadership on women's influence in two field experiments. Our first study finds that male-majority teams accord disproportionately less influence to women and are less likely to choose women to represent the team externally. We then replicate this finding in a new context and with a larger sample. To investigate the relationship between formal leadership and women's influence and authority, the second study also varied the gender of an assigned team leader. We find that a female leader substantially increases women's influence, even in male-majority teams. With a model of discriminatory voting, we show that either increasing the share of women or assigning a female leader reduces the rate at which individual teammates discriminate against women by more than 50%. These conditions both increase the influence of women and improve women's experience in work teams by creating an institutional environment that reduces the expression of discriminatory behavior at the individual level. |
| Keywords: | gender, field experiment |
| JEL: | J16 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16625&r=exp |
| By: | Roberto Alvarez; Alvaro Miranda; Jaime Ruiz-Tagle |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of a simplified financial counseling service provided by text messages, that includes images and videos, to low-income clients of a public bank in Chile. Using a randomized experiment and administrative data, we study the delinquency rates of individuals that received a set of messages about how to prevent and face shocks, and how to face present bias and social comparison. We also randomized the provision of an additional set of messages about concrete and practical options offered by the bank that individuals could take when they are at risk of defaulting. The estimated effect for addition of both types of financial counseling is a reduction in the loan delinquency rates of between 20% and 26%. The intervention also proved to be highly cost-effective allowing for large bank savings. We also find heterogeneous impacts, obtaining larger effects for young individuals, for men, for those with ex-ante higher probability to default, and for low-income individuals. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udc:wpaper:wp552&r=exp |
| By: | Yuzhakov, Vladimir (Южаков, Владимир) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration); Dobrolyubova, Elena (Добролюбова, Елена) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration); Efremov, Alexey (Ефремов, Алексей) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration) |
| Abstract: | The relevance of the study relates to the context of increasing use of government-regulated, initiated, conducted or supported by government experiments, there is a need to evaluate their effectiveness and efficiency to ensure the quality of government. The objective of the paper is assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of experiments, including experimental legal regimes, in the public administration of the Russian Federation and developing proposals for improving the application of this public administration tool in order to ensure its effectiveness and efficiency. The subject of this research is legal regulation and experimentation in the practice of public administration in the Russian Federation. Research methods include analytical methods (comparative legal, structural and functional analysis, content analysis, synthesis), statistical methods, and legal and technical methods. The results of the study include an analysis of data on legal regulation and the practice of conducting experiments in the public administration of the Russian Federation for 2021-2022; assessment of their effectiveness and efficiency, as well as proposals for improving the use of this public administration tool in order to ensure the achievement of the national development goals of the Russian Federation. The research allows us to draw the following conclusions. In the Russian practice of applying experiments in public administration, there is no systematic assessment of their effectiveness and efficiency, both at the stage of their development and at the stage of their implementation. In the absence of such an assessment, it is impossible to make informed decisions about the appropriateness of both conducting experiments and scaling the results obtained; their contribution to the achievement of the national development goals of the country is not obvious either. The scientific novelty of the research lies in assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of experiments in the public administration of the Russian Federation for 2021-2022. Recommendations based on the results of the study are related to the need exclude the adoption of programs for conducting experiments and regulations on their conduct that do not contain performance and efficiency indicators, their basic and target values; legislatively establish the procedure for publishing reports on the results of experiments in the field of public administration, including an assessment of their effectiveness and efficiency (with the exception of cases where the subject of the experiments is information constituting a state secret); legally distinguish between the concepts of effectiveness and success of experiments; establish the expediency of replicating the results of only those experiments, the success of which - including for the implementation of national development goals - has been proven based on the results of their implementation. |
| Keywords: | Public administration, experiments, experimental legal regimes |
| JEL: | H11 K40 |
| Date: | 2022–10–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rnp:wpaper:w20220282&r=exp |
| By: | Spycher, Sarah |
| JEL: | H41 C91 Q50 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc23:277590&r=exp |
| By: | Daniel Ting; Kenneth Hung |
| Abstract: | Regression adjustment, sometimes known as Controlled-experiment Using Pre-Experiment Data (CUPED), is an important technique in internet experimentation. It decreases the variance of effect size estimates, often cutting confidence interval widths in half or more while never making them worse. It does so by carefully regressing the goal metric against pre-experiment features to reduce the variance. The tremendous gains of regression adjustment begs the question: How much better can we do by engineering better features from pre-experiment data, for example by using machine learning techniques or synthetic controls? Could we even reduce the variance in our effect sizes arbitrarily close to zero with the right predictors? Unfortunately, our answer is negative. A simple form of regression adjustment, which uses just the pre-experiment values of the goal metric, captures most of the benefit. Specifically, under a mild assumption that observations closer in time are easier to predict that ones further away in time, we upper bound the potential gains of more sophisticated feature engineering, with respect to the gains of this simple form of regression adjustment. The maximum reduction in variance is $50\%$ in Theorem 1, or equivalently, the confidence interval width can be reduced by at most an additional $29\%$. |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2311.17858&r=exp |
| By: | Yixin Tang (Nicole); Yicong (Nicole); Lin; Navdeep S. Sahni |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates an approach to both speed up business decision-making and lower the cost of learning through experimentation by factorizing business policies and employing fractional factorial experimental designs for their evaluation. We illustrate how this method integrates with advances in the estimation of heterogeneous treatment effects, elaborating on its advantages and foundational assumptions. We empirically demonstrate the implementation and benefits of our approach and assess its validity in evaluating consumer promotion policies at DoorDash, which is one of the largest delivery platforms in the US. Our approach discovers a policy with 5% incremental profit at 67% lower implementation cost. |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2311.14698&r=exp |
| By: | Yves Breitmoser (Department of Economics, Bielefeld University.); Lian Xue (Economics and Management School, Wuhan University.); Jiwei Zheng (Department of Economics, Lancaster University Management School); Daniel John Zizzo (School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the impact of incentives on employee performance in chain-type organizations, where workers’ efforts are interdependent on each other while the goals of all workers are aligned. Using a novel information chain game, we examine the role of incentive schemes and the procurement of costly additional information in promoting individual efforts that align with organizational goals. Our results indicate that incentivizing workers based on their own performance, and allowing them to verify information at low costs, leads to the best outcomes in chain-type organizations. This way, the firm’s profit and agents’ incomes can all be improved compared to incentivization based on the organizational goal. Additionally, we find that there is no close correlation between an individual’s own effort level and their elicited beliefs about the accuracy of the input coming from upstream agents. Our study provides valuable insights into the design of effective incentive schemes and error prevention strategies in chain-type organizations.. |
| Keywords: | information chains, errors, incentives, welfare, adaptive coding. |
| JEL: | C72 C91 D83 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uq2004:666&r=exp |
| By: | Peez, Anton (Goethe University Frankfurt); Bethke, Felix S. |
| Abstract: | Does US public opinion on international affairs affect political elites’ policy preferences? Most research assumes that political elites do indeed consider public opinion in their decision-making process. However, this key assumption is difficult to test empirically given limited research access to political elites. We examine elite responsiveness to public opinion on sanctioning Russia during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. We fielded a pre-registered experiment within the 2022/23 TRIP survey of US foreign policy practitioners, offering a rare opportunity for a fairly large elite survey experiment (n = 253) with important policy actors who have not been studied in this context. We used current public polling highly supportive of increasing sanctions as an information treatment. Our research design, involving a highly salient real-world issue and treatment, substantially expands on previous work. Exposure to the treatment raises elite support for increasing sanctions from 68.0% to 76.3% (+8.3 percentage points). While sizable, this effect is smaller than those identified elsewhere. We argue that this difference is driven by pre-treatment dynamics, ceiling effects, and issue salience, and is therefore all the more notable. While our results support previous research, they also highlight issues of external validity and the context dependence of elite responsiveness. |
| Date: | 2023–11–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:qzrj2&r=exp |
| By: | Despoina Alempaki (Warwick Business School); Valeria Burdea (LMU Munich); Daniel Read (Warwick Business School) |
| Abstract: | In cases of conflict of interest, people can lie directly or evade the truth. We analyse this situation theoretically and test the key behavioural predictions in a novel sender-receiver game. We find senders prefer to deceive through evasion rather than direct lying, more so when evasion is a partial-truth. This is because they do not want to deceive others nor be seen as deceptive. Receivers are sensitive to the deceptive language and more likely to act in senders’ favour when these lie directly. Our findings suggest dishonesty is more prevalent and costlier than previous best estimates focusing on direct lies. |
| JEL: | C91 D82 D91 |
| Date: | 2023–11–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:444&r=exp |
| By: | Hospido, Laura (Bank of Spain); Iriberri, Nagore (University of the Basque Country); Machelett, Margarita (Banco de España) |
| Abstract: | Gender gaps in financial literacy are pervasive and persistent. They are partly explained because women choose "I do not know" more frequently. We test for the effectiveness of three interventions to shift this behavior. The control survey includes the possibility of "I do not know". The three treatments either exclude this possibility, offer incentives for correct answers, or inform survey takers of the existing gender gap in choosing this answer option. While all interventions are very effective in reducing this answer option, only the information significantly reduces the gender gap in "I do not know" and in financial literacy. |
| Keywords: | financial literacy, gender gaps, survey methods |
| JEL: | C8 C9 D14 D91 G53 I22 J16 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16628&r=exp |
| By: | Marianne Lefebvre (GRANEM - Groupe de Recherche Angevin en Economie et Management - UA - Université d'Angers - Institut Agro Rennes Angers - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement); Yann Raineau; Cécile Aubert; Niklas Möhring (WUR - Wageningen University and Research [Wageningen]); Pauline Pedehour (GRANEM - Groupe de Recherche Angevin en Economie et Management - UA - Université d'Angers - Institut Agro Rennes Angers - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement); Marc Raynal (IFVV) |
| Abstract: | Green insurance is an innovative tool to help producers manage (perceived) risks of transitioning to more environmentally-friendly crop management strategies. It is is not yet part of the agricultural policy toolbox nor is it marketed privately on a large scale. We here investigated the best design, uptake determinants and potential pesticide reduction from green insurance for a decision support system (DSS) for pesticide reduction in grape-vine production. This is an important example, as pesticide use reduction is high on the agricultural policy agenda and grape-vine production is a major contributor to global pesticide use. For our analysis, we conducted a Discrete Choice Experiment with 412 French vine growers. We find that 48% to 60% of growers are likely to subscribe to green insurance, with differences across contract types and prices. Producers transitioning to organic production are the most interested in the contract. All types of producers exhibit on average lower interest for group contracts and index-based insurance than for the traditional individual loss-based contract. Using data from field experiments on DSS performance in reducing fungicide use, we estimate that adopters could reduce their fungicide use by 45% on average. Our results suggest that green insurance could be a cost-effective tool to advance ambitious EU Green Deal pesticide policy goals, and more broadly, support the transformation to more environmentally-friendly farming practices. |
| Keywords: | Choice experiment, Pesticides, Viticulture, Insurance, Index, Mutual fund, Integrated Pest Management |
| Date: | 2023–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04154920&r=exp |
| By: | Dollbaum, Jan Fabian; Borbáth, Endre; Dollbaum, Jan Matti |
| Abstract: | Manekin and Mitts (2022) investigate the success chances of minority ethnic groups when engaging in non-violent protests demanding political change. First, using observational data, the authors find that the success rate for nonviolent campaign tactics is lower for excluded/minority ethnic groups than for non-excluded/majority ethnic groups. Second, the authors use two original survey experiments to show that non-violent protest by ethnic minorities is perceived as more violent and requiring more policing than identical protest by majorities. This report reproduces the paper computationally and conducts several sensitivity analyses for both the observational and the experimental parts of the paper. We can confirm the general direction of the postulated effects, but evidence becomes less consistent (effect magnitudes and significance levels are not robust to some of the changes). |
| Keywords: | non-violence, group status, protest, social movement success, public opinion, discrimination, racism, minority groups |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:86&r=exp |
| By: | Avner Seror (Aix-Marseille Univ., CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I introduce a novel methodology to conduct surveys. The priced survey methodology (PSM). Like standard surveys, priced surveys are easy to implement, and measure social preferences on numerical scales. The PSM's design draws inspiration from consumption choice experiments, as respondents fill out the same survey several times under different choice sets. I extend Afriat's theorem and show that the Generalized Axiom of Revealed Preferences is necessary and sufficient for the existence of a concave, continuous, and single-peaked utility function rationalizing answers to the PSM. I apply the PSM to a sample of online participants and show that most respondents are rational when answering the PSM. I estimate respondents' single-peaked utility functions and draw several implications on their social preferences. |
| Keywords: | Decision Theory, revealed preference, Social Preferences, Behavioral Economics, survey |
| JEL: | C9 D91 C44 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2330&r=exp |
| By: | Sommervoll, Dag Einar (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences); Holden, Stein T. (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences); Tilahun, Mesfin (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences) |
| Abstract: | The experiments designed to estimate real-life discount rates in intertemporal choice often rely on ordered choice lists, where the list by design aims to capture a switch point between near- and far-future alternatives. Structural models like a Samuelson discounted utility model are often fitted to the model using maximal likelihood estimation. We show that dominated tasks, that is, choices that do not define the switch point, may bias ML estimates profoundly and predictably. More (less) dominated near future tasks give higher (lower) discount rates. Simulation analysis indicates estimates may remain largely unbiased using switch point-defining tasks only. |
| Keywords: | Choice lists; time discounting; maximal likelihood estimation |
| JEL: | C13 C81 C93 D91 |
| Date: | 2023–12–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nlsclt:2023_009&r=exp |
| By: | Ricardo Barahona (Banco de España); Stefano Cassella (Tilburg University); Kristy A. E. Jansen (USC Marshall School of Business and de Nederlandsche Bank) |
| Abstract: | We investigate how teams impact return extrapolation, a bias in belief formation which is pervasive at the individual level and crucial to behavioral asset-pricing models. Using a sample of US equity money managers and a within-subject design, we find that teams attenuate their own members’ extrapolation bias by 75%. This reduction is not due to learning or differences in compensation, workload, or investment objectives between solo-managed and team-managed funds. Rather, we provide supportive evidence that team members engaging in deeper cognitive reflection can explain the bias reduction. |
| Keywords: | expectation formation, extrapolation, heuristics, teams |
| JEL: | G23 G41 D91 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:wpaper:2335&r=exp |
| By: | Mélody Leplat (L@BISEN - Laboratoire ISEN - Institut supérieur de l'électronique et du numérique (ISEN) - YO - YNCREA OUEST); Youenn Loheac (CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ESC [Rennes] - ESC Rennes School of Business); Eric Teillet |
| Abstract: | People are interested by meat reduction or meat substitution for many arguments: health, environment, animal welfare. Firms explore new models and new supply (better meat or meat substitutes) to take, to keep or to increase market shares. What consumers really prefer and choose? In choice experiments… |
| Date: | 2023–08–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04297302&r=exp |
| By: | Rodríguez-Planas, Núria (Queens College, CUNY); Secor, Alan (City University of New York); De Balanzó Joue, Rafael (City University of New York) |
| Abstract: | We conducted a randomized evaluation of a universal primary prevention intervention whose main goal was to increase the resilience of students from a large broad-access Hispanic Serving Institution and commuter urban college. In a 90-minute workshop, students were: introduced to the resilient-thinking approach, which offers conceptual tools to cope with unexpected negative shocks; worked individually and in groups to identify challenges in their community; and brainstormed strategies to address them. We find that the intervention increased by 5 percent of a standard deviation the short-run resilience of the average student. Importantly, the intention-to-treat effects were larger for students with lower levels of baseline resilience. The intervention was most effective among students with weaker individual protective factors at baseline (the most vulnerable students, those with lower resilience, and with higher mental health problems), and for those with stronger community protective factors, suggesting that individual and community factors mediate differently within this intervention. The intervention effects on students' resilience persisted over time. These effects were mostly driven by an improvement in students' collaboration (i.e., maintenance and formation of support networks and personal relationships), and vision (i.e., sense of purpose and belief in an ability to define, clarify, and achieve goals). |
| Keywords: | resilience, randomized control trial, mental health, low-touch interventions, higher education, protective factors |
| JEL: | I10 I18 I3 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16627&r=exp |