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on Experimental Economics |
| By: | Andersson, Ola (Uppsala University, Department of Economics); Castillo, Geoffrey (Nottingham Trent University); Wengström, Erik (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | We propose the Virtual Bingo Blower (VBB) as a way to generate credible risk and ambiguity in computerized experiments. Using a physics engine—a computer simulation of a physical system—the VBB simulates a conventional bingo blower. Different aspects of the VBB, such as the number of balls, their color, and their speed, can be easily modified. In an online experiment, we measure ambiguity attitudes and vary the source of ambiguity, using either the VBB or natural events. We find that the VBB and natural events result in a similar degree of ambiguity aversion. Further, we find that, by manipulating the number of balls, the VBB can be used to manipulate the perceived level of ambiguity. |
| Keywords: | ambiguity; risk; bingo blower; online experiment; experimental tools; randomization |
| JEL: | C91 D81 |
| Date: | 2024–09–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2024_008 |
| By: | Antoinette Schoar; Yang Sun |
| Abstract: | Using a randomized controlled trial we test how retail investors assess and update their priors based on different types of financial advice, which either aligns with their priors or goes against it. We compare advice that emphasizes either the benefits of passive investment strategies (such as diversification and low fees) or active strategies (such as stock picking and market timing). We find that participants rate advice significantly higher when it aligns with their priors rather than contradicts them. But people update their beliefs about investment strategies in the direction of the advice they receive, independent of their priors. At the same time, there is significant heterogeneity based on the subjects’ financial literacy. Financially more literate subjects positively update in response to seeing passive advice, but most do not update (and rate the advice negatively) when exposed to active advice. In contrast, financially less literate subjects are strongly influenced by both types of advice. Finally, subjects rate the advice lower if the advisor is perceived to have misaligned incentives compared to when they are more aligned. |
| JEL: | G5 G53 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33001 |
| By: | Guillermo Cruces (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP & CONICET & U. of Nottingham); Dario Tortarolo (DECRG World Bank); Gonzalo Vazquez-Bare (UC Santa Barbara) |
| Abstract: | We develop a framework to analyze partial population experiments, a generalization of the cluster experimental design where clusters are assigned to different treatment intensities. Our framework allows for heterogeneity in cluster sizes and outcome distributions. We study the large-sample behavior of OLS estimators and cluster-robust variance estimators and show that (i) ignoring cluster heterogeneity may result in severely underpowered experiments and (ii) the cluster-robust variance estimator may be upward-biased when clusters are heterogeneous. We derive formulas for power, minimum detectable effects, and optimal cluster assignment probabilities. All our results apply to cluster experiments, a particular case of our framework. We set up a potential outcomes framework to interpret the OLS estimands as causal effects. We implement our methods in a large-scale experiment to estimate the direct and spillover effects of a communication campaign on property tax compliance. We find an increase in tax compliance among individuals directly targeted with our mailing, as well as compliance spillovers on untreated individuals in clusters with a high proportion of treated taxpayers. |
| JEL: | C01 C93 H71 H26 H21 O23 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0337 |
| By: | Agata Farina; Guillaume Fréchette; Alessandro Ispano; Alessandro Lizzeri; Jacopo Perego |
| Abstract: | We conduct an experimental analysis of selective disclosure in communication. In our model, an informed sender aims to influence a receiver by disclosing verifiable evidence that is selected from a larger pool of available evidence. Our experimental design leverages the rich comparative statics predictions of this model, enabling a systematic test of the relative importance of evidence selection versus evidence concealment in communication. Our findings confirm the key qualitative predictions of the theory, suggesting that selection, rather than concealment, is often the dominant distortion in communication. We also identify deviations from the theory: A minority of senders overcommunicate relative to predictions, while some receivers partially neglect the selective nature of the evidence they observe. |
| JEL: | C92 D83 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32975 |
| By: | Khan, Nuzaina (University of Oxford); Rand, David (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Shurchkov, Olga (Wellesley College) |
| Abstract: | We design an online experiment that mimics a Twitter/X "feed" to test whether (perceived) poster gender influences users' propensity to doubt the veracity of a given post. On average, posts by women are less likely to be flagged as concerning than identical posts by men. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that men are more likely to flag female-authored posts as the post's topic domain becomes more male-stereotyped. Female users do not exhibit the same bias. Actual post veracity, user ideology, and user familiarity with Twitter do not explain the findings. Flagging behavior on Twitter's crowdsourced fact-checking program is consistent with these findings. |
| Keywords: | gender differences, misinformation, economic experiments |
| JEL: | C90 D9 J16 L86 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17282 |
| By: | Silvio Sticher; Hannes Wallimann; Noah Balthasar |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of a gamified experiment designed to promote sustainable mobility among students and staff members of a Swiss higher-education institution. Despite transportation being a major contributor to domestic CO2 emissions, achieving behavioral change remains challenging. In our two-month mobility competition, structured as a randomized controlled trial with a 3x3 factorial design, neither monetary incentives nor norm-based nudging significantly influences mobility behavior. Our (null) results suggest that there is no "gamified quick fix" for making mobility substantially more sustainable. Also, we provide some lessons learned on how not to incentivize sustainable mobility by addressing potential shortcomings of our mobility competition. |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2409.11142 |
| By: | Ellis, Andrew; Freeman, David J. |
| Abstract: | Experiments suggest that people fail to take into account interdependencies between their choices—they do not broadly bracket. Researchers often instead assume people narrowly bracket, but existing designs do not test it. We design a novel experiment and revealed preference tests for how someone brackets their choices. In portfolio allocation under risk, social allocation, and induced-value shopping experiments, 40–43 percent of subjects are consistent with narrow bracketing, and 0–16 percent with broad bracketing. Adjusting for each model's predictive precision, 74 percent of subjects are best described by narrow bracketing, 13 percent by broad bracketing, and 6 percent by intermediate cases. |
| Keywords: | AAM requested |
| JEL: | D12 D81 D91 |
| Date: | 2024–09–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125470 |
| By: | Ekström, Mathias (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Sjåstad, Hallgeir (Dept. of Strategy and Management, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Bjorvatn, Kjetil (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | To mitigate global warming, collective behavior change is needed. But which tools should policymakers prioritize: economic incentives, nudges, or a combination? Current evidence from social science provides little direct advice, as it either lacks credible identification of causality or objective long-term behavioral data. Addressing both limitations, we present causal evidence from a two-year field experiment, comparing how a small price incentive and a social norm-nudge affect the recycling behavior of more than 2, 000 households. The results show a large, immediate, and persistent positive effect of incentives on both the quantity and quality of recycling, but no effect of the norm-nudge. However, the price incentive reduced customer satisfaction, unless it was combined with the norm-nudge, suggesting that appealing to norms can make climate incentives more acceptable. |
| Keywords: | economic incentives; nudges; behavior change; norm-nudge |
| JEL: | J01 J12 |
| Date: | 2024–09–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2024_015 |
| By: | Dickinson, David L. (Appalachian State University); Masclet, David (University of Rennes) |
| Abstract: | Employers use applicant signals to help solve an asymmetric information problem in organizations. In this paper, we examine the impact of validated Dark versus Light personality traits on incentivized behaviors important to organizations: task effort, honesty, and reciprocity. A second study examined the behavioral impact of two weak signals: regular participation in religious activities (public and private) and a history of time in prison. Study 1 found that Dark relative to Light types were more likely to cheat and shirk in the honesty task, put forth less task effort (i.e., were less productive), but neither type showed evidence for negative cross-task reciprocity (i.e., a spillover from one task to another). In Study 2, ex-Prisoners were more productive than Religious participants in the effort task, and more likely to have shirked in the honesty task. Additionally, ex-Prisoners were more likely to exhibit negative cross-task reciprocity. These findings indicate that both Dark types and ex-Prisoners exhibited behaviors that would be considered undesirable or counterproductive in the workplace, which validates the effectiveness of such characteristics or traits as behavioral signals. |
| Keywords: | experiment, personality traits, honesty, personnel economics, screening, effort |
| JEL: | C9 D9 M5 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17280 |
| By: | Laura Castell (INSEE); Marc Gurgand (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, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - 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); Clément Imbert (Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris); Todor Tochev (IPP - Institut des politiques publiques) |
| Abstract: | We report on two nationwide experiments with job seekers in France. We first show that a meeting with social services to assess eligibility and help with application to social benefits increased new benefit take-up by 31 %. By contrast, an online simulator that gave personalized information on benefit eligibility did not increase take-up. Marginal treatment effects show that individuals who benefit the most from the meetings are the least likely to attend. Overall, without ruling out information frictions, our results suggest that transaction costs represent the main obstacle to applying for benefits or accessing government's assistance to help apply. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:ipppap:halshs-04720989 |
| By: | Miriam Gensowski (Rockwool Foundation Research Unit); Miriam Gensowski (Rockwool Foundation Research Unit); Philip Dale (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque); Anders Hojen (Aarhus University); Laura Justice (Ohio State University); Dorthe Bleses (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the interaction between parental and public inputs in children’s skill formation. We perform a longer-run follow-up study of a randomized controlled trial that increased preschool quality and initially improved skills significantly for children of all backgrounds. There is, however, complete fade-out for children with highly educated parents. Given positive long-run effects for children with low-educated parents, the treatment reduces child skill gaps across parents’ education by 46%. We show that the heterogeneous treatment effects are a result of differences in parents’ responses in terms of investments, reacting to school quality later in childhood. There is also evidence of cross-productivity between reading and math skills and socio-emotional development. |
| Keywords: | skill formation, parental time investments, public investments, school quality |
| JEL: | I24 I28 I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2411 |
| By: | Christopher Campos |
| Abstract: | This paper measures parents' beliefs about school and peer quality, how information about each affects school choices, and how social interactions mediate these effects. Parents underestimate school quality and overestimate peer quality. Cross-randomized school and peer quality information combined with a spillover design shows that when parents received information, they and their neighbors' preferences shifted toward higher value-added schools, underscoring stronger tastes for school quality and the role of social interactions. Increased enrollment in effective schools improved socio-emotional outcomes. The experimental evidence shows parents value school effectiveness even conditional on peer quality and that social interactions strongly influence school choice. |
| JEL: | D83 I20 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33010 |
| By: | Akinsete, Ebun; Velias, Alina; Koundouri, Phoebe |
| Abstract: | The ultimate goal of water resource management is the efficient allocation of increasingly scarce water resources. One of the most crucial and often obscure aspects of water resource management pertains to the behavioural particularities of the societal relationship with water; how people value the resource, how utility companies price the resource, and how policy makers derive financial instruments to address social dilemmas associated with common pool resources and public goods. This chapter explores the use of two complimentary approaches to derive both quantitative and qualitative data within an iterative process to provide evidence-based decision support in the sustainable management of water resources. Within this integrated approach, participatory Living Labs use small focus group settings to collect qualitative data about key phenomena. This qualitative evidence provides foundation for theoretical models that produce testable suggestions for economic experiments. The economic and behavioural experiments focus on gathering quantitative data to test a prediction, subsequently raising further questions – such as heterogeneity of behaviour, causal relationships between factors - that can be explored deeper by living labs qualitative angle. The Living Labs and Experimental Economics approaches have an iterative relationship, examples of which will be highlighted in this article. |
| Keywords: | Water, Living Labs, Experimental Economics, Stakeholder Engagement, Participatory Approaches |
| JEL: | P2 Z1 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:122043 |
| By: | Benjamin Enke; Thomas Graeber; Ryan Oprea; Jeffrey Yang |
| Abstract: | We report a large-scale examination of behavioral attenuation: due to information-processing constraints, the elasticity of people’s decisions with respect to economic fundamentals is generally too small. We implement more than 30 experiments, 20 of which were crowd-sourced from leading experts. These experiments cover a broad range of economic decisions, from choice and valuation to belief formation, from strategic games to generic optimization problems, involving investment, savings, effort supply, product demand, taxes, environmental externalities, fairness, cooperation, beauty contests, information disclosure, search, policy evaluation, memory, forecasting and inference. In 93% of our experiments, the elasticity of decisions to fundamentals decreases in participants’ cognitive uncertainty, our measure of the severity of information-processing constraints. Moreover, in decision problems with objective solutions, we observe elasticities that are universally smaller than is optimal. Many widely-studied decision anomalies represent special cases of behavioral attenuation. We discuss both its limits and why it often gives rise to the classic phenomenon of diminishing sensitivity. |
| JEL: | D03 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32973 |
| By: | Michal Bauer; Julie Chytilová; Eric Ochieng |
| Abstract: | Animosity towards followers of other faiths fuels inter-group conflicts. In order to study the role of religious leaders in shaping pro-sociality within their churches, we directly elicit a rich set of ingroup-out-group biases among pastors (N=200) and members of their churches (N=800) in Kenya, using controlled allocation tasks. We document remarkable heterogeneity in preferences across religious leaders, with one type treating all recipients equally independently of their religious beliefs and the second type severely discriminating against Muslims and non-religious individuals. In line with cultural transmission models, we find that: (i) pastors aim to instill their preferences in church members, (ii) church members follow leaders in an experiment that exogenously provides information about leaders’ behavior, and (iii) preferences of church members are robustly positively related to the preferences of their religious leader, especially among those with greater exposure to the leader. Together, our findings suggest that differences in preferences of religious leaders spill over and create distinct social groups with contrasting moral views how to treat out-group members. |
| Keywords: | Religious leaders, Tolerance, Parochialism, Discrimination, Social preferences, Cultural transmission |
| JEL: | C93 D74 J15 Z12 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp789 |
| By: | Dominik Schmidt (UP1 UFR02 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - École d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Thomas Stöckl; Stefan Palan |
| Abstract: | Capital markets often regulate insider trading, but whether such regulation aligns with traders' preferences is an open question. This study examined traders' regulation preferences conditional on their prospects of becoming informed. Of 64 referenda, traders decided 41 (64%) against regulation. Moreover, traders' prospects of becoming informed significantly impacted the outcomes of the referenda. In markets in which a group of traders has no chance of receiving inside information, 47% of the referenda are decided against regulation. When all traders could get such information, 81% are. Individual votes reveal that traders who know they will remain uninformed support regulation in 69.27% of the cases, while informed traders do so only 8.33% of the time. Traders who may or may not become informed support regulation 33.33% of the time. |
| Keywords: | Experimental finance, Asset market, Insider trading regulation, Vote/referendum, Distributional preferences, JEL classification: G10 G18 G40 Experimental finance Asset market Insider trading regulation |
| Date: | 2024–08–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04692482 |
| By: | Victoria Cornelius (Imperial College London); Odile Sauzet (Imperial College London) |
| Abstract: | Introduction: The assessment of harm in randomized controlled trials is vital to enable a risk-benefit assessment on the intervention under evaluation. Many trials undertake regular monitoring of continuous outcomes such as laboratory measurements, for example, blood tests. Typical practice in a trial analysis is to dichotomize this type of data into abnormal/normal categories based on reference values. Frequently, the proportion of participants with abnormal results between treatment arms are then compared using a chi-squared or Fisher’s exact test reporting a p-value. Because dicotomization results in substantial loss of information contained in the outcome distribution, this increases the chance of missing a opportunity to detect signals of harm. Methods: A solution to this problem is to use the outcome distribution in each arm to estimate the between-arm difference in proportions of participants with an abnormal result. This approach has been developed by Sauzet et. al (2016), and it protects against a loss of information and retains statistical power. Results: In this talk, I will introduce the distributional approach and associated Stata community-contributed command distdicho. I will compare the original analysis of blood test results from a small population drug trial in pediatric eczema with the results using the distributional approach and discuss inference from the trial based on these. |
| Date: | 2024–09–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:lsug24:16 |
| By: | Minyu Shen; Feng Xiao; Weihua Gu; Hongbo Ye |
| Abstract: | When making route decisions, travelers may engage in a certain degree of reasoning about what the others will do in the upcoming day, rendering yesterday's shortest routes less attractive. This phenomenon was manifested in a recent virtual experiment that mimicked travelers' repeated daily trip-making process. Unfortunately, prevailing day-to-day traffic dynamical models failed to faithfully reproduce the collected flow evolution data therein. To this end, we propose a day-to-day traffic behavior modeling framework based on the Cognitive Hierarchy theory, in which travelers with different levels of strategic-reasoning capabilities form their own beliefs about lower-step travelers' capabilities when choosing their routes. Two widely-studied day-to-day models, the Network Tatonnement Process dynamic and the Logit dynamic, are extended into the framework and studied as examples. Calibration of the virtual experiment is performed using the extended Network Tatonnement Process dynamic, which fits the experimental data reasonably well. We show that the two extended dynamics have multiple equilibria, one of which is the classical user equilibrium. While analyzing global stability is intractable due to the presence of multiple equilibria, local stabilities near equilibria are developed analytically and verified by numerical experiments. General insights on how key parameters affect the stability of user equilibria are unveiled. |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2409.11908 |
| By: | Silke Anger (Institute for Employment Research (IAB) / Otto-Friedrich University Bamberg); Bernhard Christoph (Institute for Employment Research (IAB)); Agata Galkiewicz (University of Potsdam); Shushanik Margaryan (University of Potsdam); Frauke Peter (German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies); Malte Sandner (Technical University Nürnberg); Thomas Siedler (University of Potsdam) |
| Abstract: | Reading skills are crucial for academic success and long-term educational attainment. However, children from disadvantaged backgrounds read less than their more privileged peers. This study assesses the impact of a randomized reading intervention conducted in Germany targeting 11–12-year-olds from low-income households. The intervention involved distributing e-book readers, which provided free access to a large digital library of age-appropriate books, directly to the children's homes. Our results show that the intervention led to increased reading engagement among the children, which in turn improved their academic performance, particularly in reading comprehension and math. Additionally, we observe positive effects on their socio-emotional well-being. |
| Keywords: | randomized controlled trial, low socioeconomic status, reading comprehension, early education |
| JEL: | C93 I20 I24 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2024-018 |
| By: | Peter Arcidiacono; Karthik Muralidharan; John D. Singleton |
| Abstract: | We leverage a unique two-stage experiment that randomized access to private school vouchers across markets as well as students to estimate the revealed preference value of school choice. To do this, we estimate several choice models on data only from control markets before turning to the treatment data for model validation. This exercise reveals that a model where school choice is constrained by ability-to-pay achieves better out-of-sample fit but still underpredicts experimental take-up of the voucher offer. We then present evidence from treatment markets that: a) the voucher offer also induced search; and b) private schools used program surplus to incentivize enrollment. Further, we show that a unified model incorporating these features can explain both the control and treatment data patterns. Estimates from that model imply that a targeted voucher program would have a marginal value of public funds (MVPF) of at least 3. |
| JEL: | H4 I20 O12 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32968 |
| By: | DeFusco, Anthony A.; Tang, Huan; Yannelis, Constantine |
| Abstract: | Information asymmetries are known in theory to lead to inefficiently low credit provision, yet empirical estimates of the resulting welfare losses are scarce. This paper leverages a randomized experiment conducted by a large fintech lender to estimate welfare losses arising from asymmetric information in the market for online consumer credit. Building on methods from the insurance literature, we show how exogenous variation in interest rates can be used to estimate borrower demand and lender cost curves and recover implied welfare losses. While asymmetric information generates large equilibrium price distortions, we find only small overall welfare losses, particularly for high-credit-score borrowers. |
| Keywords: | asymmetric information; consumer credit; experiment; Fintech; welfare |
| JEL: | D14 D82 G10 G23 |
| Date: | 2022–12–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:116693 |
| By: | Bryan, Gharad; Karlan, Dean; Osman, Adam |
| Abstract: | We experimentally study the impact of relatively large enterprise loans in Egypt. Larger loans generate small average impacts, but machine learning using psychometric data reveals "top performers" (those with the highest predicted treatment effects) substantially increase profits, while profits drop for poor performers. The large differences imply that lender credit allocation decisions matter for aggregate income, yet we find existing practice leads to substantial misallocation. We argue that some entrepreneurs are overoptimistic and squander the opportunities presented by larger loans by taking on too much risk, and show the promise of allocations based on entrepreneurial type relative to firm characteristics. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; enterprise credit; heterogenous treatment effects; psychometric data; small and medium enterprises |
| JEL: | D24 M21 O12 O16 |
| Date: | 2024–09–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120637 |
| By: | Anne Boring (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Josse Delfgaauw (Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Abstract: | Do workers speak their mind about sexism and about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in the workplace? We measure social desirability bias regarding sexism and DEI policies using a list experiment survey among workers from five male-dominated industries in France and in the US. In both countries and, remarkably, among both men and women, we document substantial social desirability bias. Managers exhibit a larger bias than non-managerial employees. This difference between voiced and real attitudes may make organizations overestimate support for DEI policies in their workforce, rendering such policies less effective. |
| Keywords: | Sexism, Diversity, Social desirability bias, List experiment survey |
| JEL: | J16 J71 M14 M5 |
| Date: | 2024–11–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20240002 |
| By: | Arroyo-Araujo, María (QUEST center for responsible research); Carneiro, Clarissa França Dias; Piper, Sophie K.; Wilcke, Juliane C. (LMU Munich); Ellenbach, Nicole; Boulesteix, Anne-Laure; Emprechtinger, Robbert; Haller, Bernhard; Ineichen, Benjamin V.; Riecken, Lars Björn |
| Abstract: | Confirmatory multi-lab preclinical trials are a powerful experimental strategy to enable decisions to transition from preclinical to clinical settings. With their complexity, such study designs pose several challenges in analysing and reporting experiments. To address these, we convened an expert group of biostatisticians and biomedical scientists currently involved in such trials to summarise the most common scenarios. Furthermore, we incorporated statistical advice from existing clinical trials’ guidelines and adapted it into recommendations for future preclinical trials. We describe strategies on key topics such as calculating sample sizes, handling of differences between centres, and selecting relevant covariates. Additionally, we give guidance on statistical methods to account for lab effects and proper reporting of analyses. We embed this in a general discussion on remaining open questions to advance the analysis of preclinical confirmatory studies. The provided general, non-case-specific guidance serves as a conversation starter between scientists and statisticians to develop robust statistical analysis strategies for confirmatory multi-lab preclinical trials |
| Date: | 2024–09–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:metaar:cnuh7 |
| By: | Tom Akana; Will Daniel; Amber Lee |
| Abstract: | Survey after survey indicates that building savings and reducing debt are among the top financial goals for many Americans. However, because of limited resources and inherent trade-offs, achieving these two goals can be challenging and often requires prioritizing one goal over the other. We conduct two survey experiments with national samples of U.S. adults to understand how individuals balance saving and paying off debt, while taking into account survey context and question effects that might influence self-reports of behaviors. Both studies find a significant question order effect, in which respondents provide different answers about their preferred financial choice depending on the placement of questions within the survey. Specifically, when asked how to allocate their discretionary income between savings and debt payments, respondents generally indicate a greater preference for savings; however, when asked about their personal financial values before the allocation question, they are more willing to allocate a larger portion toward debt payments. These findings highlight the importance of considering survey context and question content when interpreting survey responses about personal finances. |
| Keywords: | personal finance; financial decision-making; savings and debt; survey experiments; survey methodology; question order effects; wording effects |
| JEL: | D14 C83 |
| Date: | 2024–10–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:98891 |