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on Experimental Economics |
| By: | Ben D'Exelle; Christine Gutekunst; Arno Riedl |
| Abstract: | We conduct an artefactual field experiment in real-existing trade networks to analyze how individual network degree affects bargaining demands and outcomes. We combine data from a bilateral bargaining experiment with data of trade networks in 24 villages in Uganda. To identify the effect of individual degree in the village trade network we experimentally vary the disclosure of participants’ identities in a bargaining pair. We derive hypotheses on how degree should affect behavior and find partial support for them. Specifically, we observe that individual degree affects bargaining demands in the predicted direction when one of the bargainers is informed about the network positions but not when both sides are informed. Moreover, network degree affects the likelihood of agreements and earnings, irrespective of the knowledge of the network positions of bargaining partners. |
| Keywords: | bargaining, social networks, network degree, experiments. |
| JEL: | C78 C90 L14 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11832 |
| By: | Fiona Burlig; Amir Jina; Anant Sudarshan |
| Abstract: | Over 2 billion people lack clean drinking water. Existing solutions face high costs (piped water) or low demand (point-of-use chlorine). Using a 60, 000 household cluster-randomized experiment we test an increasingly popular alternative: decentralized treatment and home delivery of clean water to the rural poor. At low prices, take-up exceeds 90 percent, sustained throughout the experiment. High prices reduce take-up but are privately profitable. Self-reported health measures improve. We experimentally recover revealed-preference measures of valuation. Willingness-to-pay is several times higher than prior indirect estimates; willingness-to-accept is larger and exceeds marginal cost. On a cost-per-disability-adjusted-life-year basis, free water delivery regimes appear highly cost-effective. |
| JEL: | O13 Q25 Q53 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33557 |
| By: | Lawrence Choo; Senran Lin; Liangfo Zhao |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the reaction of workers to employer-sponsored general training that provides skills useful not only in the incumbent employer but also in other firms in the industry. While previous research has focused primarily on workers' responses to wage renegotiation, our work extends this understanding by exploring an additional dimension -- workers' discretionary effort beyond their job duties, which is not verifiable. We conduct a laboratory experiment to observe workers' responses in such an effort to different training intensities. We find that workers generally increase their discretionary effort in response to general training, regardless of whether it is employer-sponsored or mandated. Moreover, the employer's intention behind offering training influences both effort and workers' renegotiation responses. Additionally, when workers can penalize employers, they do so, although higher employer-determined training intensities mitigate this behavior. |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2503.20560 |
| By: | Arno Riedl; Hans Schmeets; Peter Werner |
| Abstract: | Using an artefactual field experiment, we elicit revealed preferences for solidarity of different age groups towards the same and other age groups among a large and heterogeneous sample of the Dutch population. Preferences are elicited with a solidarity game and linked to a rich and unique administrative database, enabling us to explore demographic and socio-economic correlates of the elicited preferences. In the solidarity game a winner of a money amount is asked ex-ante how much they are willing to transfer to a loser who receives no money. We find that participants on average have a strong preference for ex-ante solidarity, as they are willing to transfer about 40% of the money they receive. At the same time, there is a mismatch between belief in solidarity and actual solidarity. Participants are overly pessimistic about what others will transfer. Moreover, we observe age-based discrimination because a significant share of participants exhibits stronger solidarity preferences with their own age group than with other age groups. Using questionnaires, we also measure stated solidarity preferences in various domains and observe that revealed solidarity preferences correlate with some self-reported attitudes about general solidarity. We also correlate revealed solidarity preferences with opinions on social security systems and self-reported field behavior involving solidarity and find some relation between them. |
| Keywords: | solidarity, age groups, group identity, social security systems, large population sample. |
| JEL: | D63 D64 D91 C93 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11841 |
| By: | Muriel Niederle |
| Abstract: | This chapter is intended as an introduction to laboratory experiments, when to use, how to evaluate them, why they matter and what are the pitfalls when designing them. I hope that users as well as consumers will find Sections that broaden their views. I start with when an economist might want to run an experiment. I then discuss basic lessons when designing experiments. I introduce a language to start a systematic description of tools we have when designing experiments to show the importance or role of a new model or force in explaining behavior. The penultimate chapter provides an advanced toolkit for running experiments. I end this chapter with my views on pre-registration, pre-analysis plans and the need for replications, robustness tests and extensions. |
| JEL: | C9 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33630 |
| By: | Carlsson, Magnus (Department of Economics and Statistics, Linnaeus University); Eriksson, Stefan (Department of Economics, Uppsala University); Rooth, Dan-Olof (Swedish Institute for Social Research) |
| Abstract: | Labor markets in advanced economies have undergone substantial change due to globalization, technological improvements, and organizational changes, making language proficiency increasingly important even in less skilled jobs. Has this development led employers to shy away from hiring immigrants with limited host-country language skills? We shed light on this question by conducting a large-scale field experiment, where we introduce common second-language features in immigrants’ resumes. We also conduct employer surveys to interpret our experimental results. Our main finding is that language proficiency has a strong positive effect on being invited to a job interview, even in typical immigrant entry jobs. |
| Keywords: | language proficiency; immigrant hiring; field experiment |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2025–05–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofile:2025_007 |
| By: | Rebecca Dizon-Ross; Ariel D. Zucker |
| Abstract: | Personalizing policies can theoretically increase their effectiveness. However, personalization is difficult when individual types are unobservable and the preferences of policymakers and individuals are not aligned, which could cause individuals to misreport their type. Mechanism design offers a strategy to overcome this issue: offer an “incentive-compatible” menu of policy choices designed to induce participants to select the variant intended for their type. Using a field experiment that personalized incentives for exercise among 6, 800 adults with diabetes and hypertension in urban India, we show that personalizing with an incentive-compatible choice menu substantially improves program performance, increasing the treatment effect of incentives on exercise by 80% without increasing program costs relative to a one-size-fits-all benchmark. Mechanism design achieves similar performance to personalizing with an extensive set of observable variables, but without the high data requirements or the risk that participants might manipulate their observables. |
| JEL: | D82 I12 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33624 |
| By: | Jonathan Chapman; Pietro Ortoleva; Erik Snowberg; Leeat Yariv; Colin Camerer |
| Abstract: | Qualitative self-assessments of economic preferences have recently gained popularity, often supported by experimental validation, a method that links them to choices in incentivized elicitations. We illustrate theoretically that experimental validation may fail to produce reliable new measures. Empirically, analyzing data from over 13, 000 participants across diverse samples, we document four key findings. First, qualitative self-assessments and traditional incentivized measures exhibit weak correlations, even when accounting for response noise. Second, qualitative self-assessments sometimes correlate more strongly with theoretically distinct incentivized elicitations than those for which they are intended to proxy. Third, relationships between qualitative self-assessments and various attributes---including geographical location, demographics, and behaviors---are unrelated to variation in incentivized elicitations. Fourth, qualitative self-assessments are no simpler for participants than incentivized elicitations: these questions show a common heuristic of extreme or midpoint responses, especially by individuals with lower cognitive ability. |
| JEL: | C90 C91 C93 D90 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33520 |
| By: | Francisco Moraes Leitao Campos; Conconi, Adriana; Elwyn Davies; Marine Gassier; Markus Goldstein |
| Abstract: | How do intrahousehold dynamics affect the investment of female entrepreneurs? This paper presents findings from a randomized controlled trial in Ghana that assesses the impacts of four alternative support mechanisms on women-owned businesses: (a) an unconditional grant provided through a mobile money account equivalent to two months of median profits, (b) an unconditional grant disbursed to the female entrepreneurs’ spouses in similar conditions; (c) a grant conditional on participating with their spouses in a training on joint decision-making; and (d) a grant conditional on reaching a savings goal under a dedicated bank account. In line with Fafchamps et al. (2014), the study finds no impacts of the unconditional grants on the business performance of female entrepreneurs. The disbursement to the spouse also has no impact on the sales, profits, or investment of female entrepreneurs. Although there is no evidence that the allocation of resources within households is efficient, the joint decision-making intervention leads to increased household support for the women’s businesses but does not impact business performance. The savings support mechanism leads to a 15 percent increase in sales and a 10 percent increase in profits. These effects are largest among female entrepreneurs who faced high expropriation pressure at baseline. This subgroup obtains a 29 percent increase in sales and a 23 percent increase in profits. The paper tests for alternative mechanisms, including self-control issues, liquidity constraints, and access to savings, but these do not explain the results. The findings substantiate that intrahousehold dynamics matter for women’s investment decisions, and highlight the importance of promoting autonomy in the face of expropriation pressures, for increased growth and investment. |
| Date: | 2025–05–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11111 |
| By: | Noam Angrist; Sarah Kabay; Dean Karlan; Lincoln Lau; Kevin Wong |
| Abstract: | Children spend most of their time at home in their early years, yet efforts to promote human capital at home in many low- and middle-income settings remain limited. We conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate an intervention which encourages parents and caregivers to foster human capital accumulation among their children between ages 3 and 5, with a focus on math and phonics skills. Children gain 0.52 and 0.51 standard deviations relative to the control group on math and phonics tests, respectively (p |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33574 |
| By: | Björn Bartling; Krishna Srinivasan |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the determinants of individuals’ demand for and supply of paternalistic interventions—measures intended to help others avoid mistakes. Based on data from an incentivized experiment conducted with a large U.S. sample, we find that both demand and supply are higher for informational interventions than for those that restrict choice, and when targeted individuals perceive themselves or are per- ceived as more error-prone. Moreover, granting targets the right to withhold consent increases demand. These behavioral patterns, supported by participants’ free-text re- sponses, suggest that both receiving and supplying interventions entail utility costs, particularly when interventions infringe upon personal autonomy. Our findings in- form policy design by highlighting the importance of autonomy-preserving features such as choice options and consent rights in securing public support for paternalistic interventions. |
| Keywords: | Paternalism, interventions, consent rights, policy design |
| JEL: | C91 D60 D91 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:469 |
| By: | Sandro Ambuehl; B. Douglas Bernheim; Tony Q. Fan; Zach Freitas-Groff |
| Abstract: | Why is in-kind aid a prominent feature of welfare systems? We present a lab-in-the-field experiment involving members of the general U.S. population and SNAP recipients. After documenting a widespread desire to limit recipients’ choices, we quantify the relative importance of (i) welfarist motives, (ii) utility or disutility derived from curtailing another’s autonomy, and (iii) absolutist attitudes concerning the appropriate form of aid. Choices primarily reflect the two non-welfarist motives. Because people systematically misperceive recipient preferences, their interventions are more restrictive than they intend. Interventionist preferences and non-welfarist motives are more pronounced among the political right, particularly when recipients are black. |
| Keywords: | in-kind aid, paternalism, welfare transfers, SNAP, food stamps. |
| JEL: | D04 D63 D91 H53 I38 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11830 |
| By: | Goda, Gopi Shah; Levy, Matthew R.; Flaherty Manchester, Colleen; Sojourner, Aaron; Tasoff, Joshua; Xiao, Jiusi |
| Abstract: | We conduct a randomized controlled trial to understand how a web-based retirement saving calculator affects workers' retirement-savings decisions. In both the treatment and active control conditions, the calculator projects workers' retirement income goal. In the treatment condition only, it also projects retirement income based on defined-contribution savings, prominently displays the gap between projected goal and actual retirement income, and allows users to interactively explore how alternative, future contribution choices would affect the gap. The treatment increased average annual retirement contributions by $174 (2.3 percent). However, effects were larger for those with higher measures of financial knowledge, suggesting this type of tool complements, rather than substitutes for, underlying financial capability. |
| Keywords: | exponential-growth bias; financial capability; financial literacy; present bias; retirement planning; retirement saving |
| JEL: | D14 G23 |
| Date: | 2023–10–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120272 |
| By: | Jun Sashihara; Teruaki Hayashi |
| Abstract: | In recent years, the magnitude of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) markets have grown significantly, highlighting the increasing significance of trust between buyers and sellers. However, the specific aspects of product information that facilitate effective communication and trust building in C2C markets remain poorly understood. This study examines the concept of information digestion-the process through which information is accurately understood-and aims to elucidate differences in the information digestion processes of sellers and buyers to clarify the role of product page information. To address this, we conducted two experiments: a questionnaire survey involving 400 subjects and a conjoint analysis with eye-tracking for 15 participants. Initially, we selected eight sample products from four distinct product categories based on the Foote, Cone, and Belding (FCB) grid and compared the product information components considered important by sellers and buyers. Subsequently, we created 12 types of product pages that varied in the combination of four attributes: title, price, product description, and image. Experiment 1 revealed significant differences in the perceived importance of product page components between buyers and sellers. It also demonstrated that product categories and transaction experience influenced the importance assigned to these components, particularly for buyers. Results from Experiment 2 showed that buyers prioritize product descriptions and identified two distinct buyer groups based on their information digestion patterns: one that carefully reads and digests information and another that processes information more rapidly. These findings enhance our understanding of trust-building mechanisms in online C2C markets and provide practical insights for platform designers and market participants. |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2503.20834 |
| By: | Chowdhury Mohammad Sakib Anwar; Konstantinos Georgalos; Sonali SenGupta |
| Abstract: | Gallice and Monzon (2019) present a natural environment that sustains full cooperation in one-shot social dilemmas among a finite number of self-interested agents. They demonstrate that in a sequential public goods game, where agents lack knowledge of their position in the sequence but can observe some predecessors' actions, full contribution emerges in equilibrium due to agents' incentive to induce potential successors to follow suit. Furthermore, they show that this principle extends to a number of social dilemmas, with the prominent example that of the prisoner's dilemma. In this study, we experimentally test the theoretical predictions of this model in a multi- player prisoner's dilemma environment, where subjects are not aware of their position in the sequence and receive only partial information on past cooperating actions. We test the predictions of the model, and through rigorous structural econometric analysis, we test the descriptive capacity of the model against alternative behavioural strategies, such as conditional cooperation, altruistic play and free-riding behaviour. We find that the majority resorts to free-riding behaviour, around 30% is classified as Gallice and Monzon (2019) types, followed by those with social preference considerations and the unconditional altruists. |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2504.10441 |
| By: | Eleanor Wiske Dillon; Sonia Jaffe; Nicole Immorlica; Christopher T. Stanton |
| Abstract: | We present evidence on how generative AI changes the work patterns of knowledge workers using data from a 6-month-long, cross-industry, randomized field experiment. Half of the 7, 137 workers in the study received access to a generative AI tool integrated into the applications they already used for emails, document creation, and meetings. We find that access to the AI tool during the first year of its release primarily impacted behaviors that workers could change independently and not behaviors that require coordination to change: workers who used the tool in more than half of the sample weeks spent 3.6 fewer hours, or 31% less time on email each week (intent to treat estimate is 1.3 hours) and completed documents moderately faster, but did not significantly change time spent in meetings. |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2504.11436 |
| By: | Pei Kuang; Michael Weber; Shihan Xie |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of political polarization on public trust in the Fed and its influence on macroeconomic expectations. Using a large-scale survey experiment which we fielded on President Trump's 2025 inauguration day, we study how households form beliefs about the Fed regarding its political leaning, independence, and trustworthiness. Political alignment significantly shapes perceptions: individuals who view the Fed as politically aligned report higher independence of and trust in the Fed, leading to lower inflation expectations and uncertainty. Strategic communication on institutional structure and policy objectives effectively mitigates perception biases, reinforcing the Fed’s credibility and enhancing its policy effectiveness. |
| JEL: | D72 D73 D74 E63 E70 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33524 |
| By: | Jessica Piccolo; Yuriy Gorodnichenko |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how homeownership status shapes attention to inflation and its impact on durable consumption. Using randomized controlled trials on U.S. households (2021–2023), we document systematic heterogeneity in responses to inflation-related information. Homeowners exhibit greater baseline awareness and update their expectations less than renters. Exploiting exogenous variation in inflation expectations induced by the treatments, we find that homeowners adjust durable spending significantly, whereas renters do not. These results highlight homeownership as a key factor in the formation of inflation expectations and their influence on economic behavior. |
| JEL: | C93 D12 D84 E21 E31 R21 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33595 |
| By: | Nicklisch, Andreas; Bock, Olaf; Lauer, Thomas |
| Abstract: | We analyse the availability of source data of experimental data in a sample of highly respected economic journals. We test whether publication strategies of journals have an effect for the publication of data. The results for the sample of journals we investigated indicate a large variety of publication patterns. Even mandatory publication of experimental data leads in many cases to sources which are only available upon request. Thus, transparency and replicability of experimental results currently depend to a large extend on the good will of the journals and the stringency by which editors follow the research data availability policies. |
| Keywords: | experimental results, data availability, repositories |
| JEL: | C91 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:uhhwps:316437 |
| By: | Ji Ma |
| Abstract: | Large language models (LLMs) increasingly serve as human-like decision-making agents in social science and applied settings. These LLM-agents are typically assigned human-like characters and placed in real-life contexts. However, how these characters and contexts shape an LLM's behavior remains underexplored. This study proposes and tests methods for probing, quantifying, and modifying an LLM's internal representations in a Dictator Game -- a classic behavioral experiment on fairness and prosocial behavior. We extract ``vectors of variable variations'' (e.g., ``male'' to ``female'') from the LLM's internal state. Manipulating these vectors during the model's inference can substantially alter how those variables relate to the model's decision-making. This approach offers a principled way to study and regulate how social concepts can be encoded and engineered within transformer-based models, with implications for alignment, debiasing, and designing AI agents for social simulations in both academic and commercial applications. |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2504.11671 |
| By: | Harang Ju; Michael Zhao; Sinan Aral |
| Abstract: | Prior spending shutoff experiments in search advertising have found that paid ads cannibalize organic traffic. But it is unclear whether the same is true for other high volume advertising channels like mobile display advertising. We therefore analyzed a large-scale spending shutoff experiment by a US-based mobile game developer, GameSpace. Contrary to previous findings, we found that paid advertising boosts organic installs rather than cannibalizing them. Specifically, every $100 spent on ads is associated with 37 paid and 3 organic installs. The complementarity between paid ads and organic installs is corroborated by evidence of temporal and cross-platform spillover effects: ad spending today is associated with additional paid and organic installs tomorrow and impressions on one platform lead to clicks on other platforms. Our findings demonstrate that mobile app install advertising is about 7.5% more effective than indicated by paid install metrics alone due to spillover effects, suggesting that mobile app developers are under-investing in marketing. |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2504.16151 |
| By: | Michael Thaler |
| Abstract: | When people choose how to communicate, they must consider whether their audience will be biased in interpreting their messages. This paper experimentally examines how politically-motivated reasoning affects information transmission. Senders are randomly matched with receivers whose political parties' stances happen to be aligned or misaligned with a truthful statement, and either face incentives to be rated as truthful or face no incentives. Incentives for senders to be rated as truthful backfire, causing senders to be less truthful. Backfiring occurs because incentivized senders tailor false messages to better align with receivers' politically-motivated beliefs. Receivers are naive to these incentives' adverse effects. |
| JEL: | C91 D83 D91 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11828 |
| By: | Ines A. Ferreira; Rachel M. Gisselquist; Finn Tarp |
| Abstract: | Knowledge of the factors driving people's views on redistribution in the Global South remains limited. While these societies occupy top positions in inequality rankings, redistribution levels tend to be lower. We combine survey and experimental data from Mozambique and Viet Nam to test whether redistributive preferences vary depending on the source of inequality, focusing on two channels: fairness views and communication. First, we confirm that inequality resulting from differences in merit is more accepted than inequality due to luck or factors outside of individual control. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, Altruism, Mozambique, Viet Nam, Redistribution |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-24 |
| By: | Gary Charness; Eugen Dimant; Uri Gneezy; Erin Krupka |
| Abstract: | Eliciting social norms is essential for understanding a range of behaviors in economic contexts. This paper reviews key experimental approaches to social-norm measurement, comparing the methods, practical considerations, and specific conditions under which each is most effective. We discuss various social norm elicitation techniques, including coordination-based, opinion-based, and distributional approaches. Our findings suggest that coordination-game approaches are the most widely adopted and tested; they deliver robust results, particularly in contexts with a single dominant norm. Importantly, while early methods focused on eliciting mean or modal normative beliefs, recent work shifts focus to eliciting beliefs about the distribution of normative beliefs. This allows the researcher to draw inferences on the degree of uncertainty that underlies norm assessments. This paper aims to help experimentalists and practitioners choose suitable norm-elicitation methods that are aligned with research objectives and logistical constraints. |
| Keywords: | methodology, norm elicitation, social norms. |
| JEL: | C91 D91 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11840 |
| By: | Fang, Dawei (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Ke, Changxia (School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology); Kubitz, Greg (School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology); Liu, Yang (Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne); Noe, Thomas (Saıd Business School & Balliol College, University of Oxford); Page, Lionel (School of Economics, University of Queensland) |
| Abstract: | Risk-taking spurred by rank-based contest rewards can have enormous consequences, from breakthrough innovations in research competitions to hedge fund collapses engendered by risky bets aimed at raising league-table rankings. This paper provides a novel theoretical and experimental framework of rank-motivated risk-taking that both allows for complex prize structures and permits participants to make arbitrary mean-preserving changes to their random performance. As predicted by our theory, participants choose positively skewed performance under highly convex prize schedules and negatively skewed performance under concave ones. Convexifying the prize schedule or increasing competition for identical winner prizes induces riskier and more skewed performance. |
| Keywords: | rank incentives; risk taking; skewness; contest structure |
| JEL: | C72 C91 D74 D81 |
| Date: | 2025–05–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0855 |
| By: | Yasushi Sakai; Parfait Atchade-Adelomou; Ryan Jiang; Luis Alonso; Kent Larson; Ken Suzuki |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a voting process in which voters allocate fractional votes to their expected utility in different domains: over proposals, other participants, and sets containing proposals and participants. This approach allows for a more nuanced expression of preferences by calculating the result and relevance within each node. We modeled this by creating a voting matrix that reflects their preference. We use absorbing Markov chains to gain the consensus, and also calculate the influence within the participating nodes. We illustrate this method in action through an experiment with 69 students using a budget allocation topic. |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2504.13641 |
| By: | Cornago Bonal, Luis; Raffaelli, Francesco (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | Do political identities influence workers' willingness to cooperate at work? Do workers prefer copartisans over outpartisans as colleagues even at the expense of competence? This article bridges the affective polarization literature with studies in political economy, economic sociology, and management to develop a theory on how political identities permeate modern workplaces, where collaboration and non-cognitive skills are essential. An original survey experiment conducted in the United Kingdom reveals that workers avoid close collaboration with outpartisans and favour copartisans. While highly competent workers are generally preferred, their favorability drops significantly if they are outpartisans. A new measure of affective polarization at work, based on open-ended survey items, suggests that many respondents view partisan and Brexit identities as indicators of non-cognitive skills valued in colleagues. More broadly, this article contributes to our understanding of the challenges to workplace cooperation in knowledge economies with significant levels of affective polarization. |
| Date: | 2024–10–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:j43tn_v2 |
| By: | Eleanor Wiske Dillon; Sonia Jaffe; Sida Peng; Alexia Cambon |
| Abstract: | Advances in generative AI have rapidly expanded the potential of computers to perform or assist in a wide array of tasks traditionally performed by humans. We analyze a large, real-world randomized experiment of over 6, 000 workers at 56 firms to present some of the earliest evidence on how these technologies are changing the way knowledge workers do their jobs. We find substantial time savings on common core tasks across a wide range of industries and occupations: workers who make use of this technology spent half an hour less reading email each week and completed documents 12% faster. Despite the newness of the technology, nearly 40% of workers who were given access to the tool used it regularly in their work throughout the 6-month study. |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2504.11443 |
| By: | Adeline L. Delavande; Areeba Shahab; Javed Younas; Basit Zafar |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the effectiveness of randomized interventions aimed at alleviating psychological barriers (maternal stress and difficulty visualizing the future) and addressing information frictions on early childhood immunization uptake in a sample of 2, 145 mothers of infants in Pakistan. A phone-delivered intervention providing psychological support and visualization techniques to mothers increases the total number of vaccines received by young children by 0.3, or 7% of the control mean, one year after baseline. The impacts are larger for lower-income households. We also find that the intervention improves maternal knowledge, attitudes, and perceived returns to vaccination, highlighting the role of psychological support in shaping health behaviors. However, supplementing this intervention with vaccination-related information from influencers does not yield additional benefits. |
| JEL: | I1 J10 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33559 |
| By: | Yasukazu Ichino (Economics Department, Ritsumeikan University); Toru Kawai (Sport and Health Science Department, Ritsumeikan University); Mifuyu Kira (Osaka School of International Public Policy, The University of Osaka); Mai Seki (Faculty of International Social Sciences, Gakushuin University) |
| Abstract: | While peer effects in higher education, particularly through random roommate assignments, have been extensively studied, research on in-class peer effects, especially in group work settings, remains limited. Simultaneously, flipped classrooms are gaining increasing attention in higher education as a popular form of active learning, where students watch lecture videos before class and engage in group discussions or assignments during class. This study aims to estimate the heterogeneous impact of flipped classrooms on college students' learning outcomes by examining how these effects vary according to the characteristics of group members (i.e., math and English placement test scores, learning motivation, and attitude toward group learning). This study uses random assignment of first-year college students to sections of an introductory economics course and random assignment of group members within the flipped classroom (totaling n=3749), to examine the impact of the flipped classroom teaching method. The study finds that the presence of highly motivated group members significantly improves students' learning outcomes. The results provide suggestive evidence that peer characteristics could positively influence learning outcomes in in-class activities within flipped classrooms. |
| Keywords: | flipped classroom; randomized experiment; group effects |
| JEL: | A22 I23 C93 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osp:wpaper:25e001 |
| By: | Tianshi Mu; Pranjal Rawat; John Rust; Chengjun Zhang; Qixuan Zhong |
| Abstract: | We compare the performance of human and artificially intelligent (AI) decision makers in simple binary classification tasks where the optimal decision rule is given by Bayes Rule. We reanalyze choices of human subjects gathered from laboratory experiments conducted by El-Gamal and Grether and Holt and Smith. We confirm that while overall, Bayes Rule represents the single best model for predicting human choices, subjects are heterogeneous and a significant share of them make suboptimal choices that reflect judgement biases described by Kahneman and Tversky that include the ``representativeness heuristic'' (excessive weight on the evidence from the sample relative to the prior) and ``conservatism'' (excessive weight on the prior relative to the sample). We compare the performance of AI subjects gathered from recent versions of large language models (LLMs) including several versions of ChatGPT. These general-purpose generative AI chatbots are not specifically trained to do well in narrow decision making tasks, but are trained instead as ``language predictors'' using a large corpus of textual data from the web. We show that ChatGPT is also subject to biases that result in suboptimal decisions. However we document a rapid evolution in the performance of ChatGPT from sub-human performance for early versions (ChatGPT 3.5) to superhuman and nearly perfect Bayesian classifications in the latest versions (ChatGPT 4o). |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2504.10636 |
| By: | Duarte, Belmiro P.M.; Atkinson, Anthony C. |
| Abstract: | Phase I clinical trials are the first-in-human studies that primarily focus on the safety profile of drugs. Traditionally, the primary aim of a phase I clinical trial is to establish the maximum tolerated dose and characterize the toxicity profile of the tested agents. As a secondary aim, some phase I studies also include studies to obtain preliminary efficacy information about the experimental agents. In our research, we consider the optimal design of experiments in extended phase I clinical trials where both efficacy and toxicity are measured and the maximum tolerated dose has been established. We represent the response of both outcomes using a bivariate probit model for correlated responses and propose systematic numerical approaches based on Semidefinite Programming to address the problem. We construct locally optimal experimental designs for the following situations: (i) responses with efficacy and toxicity strongly correlated versus non-correlated, by varying the correlation parameter; (ii) a priori known correlation versus unknown correlation; (iii) unconstrained versus constrained designs, where the constraints represent safety limits, budget constraints and probability bounds; (iv) single versus combined drugs. Additionally, we consider four distinct optimality criteria: D–, A–, E–, and K–optimality. Our methodologies are extensively tested, and we demonstrate the optimality of the designs using equivalence theorems. To enrich our analysis, an equivalence theorem for the K–optimality criterion is derived. |
| Keywords: | optimal design of experiments; dose-response models; semidefinite programming; efficacy-toxicity; probit model; k-optimality; els |
| JEL: | C1 |
| Date: | 2025–04–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127305 |
| By: | Mikołaj Czajkowski (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Bartosz Jusypenko (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Ben White (SurveyEngine GmbH, Germany) |
| Abstract: | This pioneering study employs stated preference methods, specifically discrete choice experiments, to evaluate public preferences for the protection of diverse cultural heritage assets in Victoria, Australia. By analyzing responses to a series of hypothetical policy scenarios, we uncover the economic values the public assigns to various heritage attributes, including condition, accessibility, and protection measures. Our findings emphasize the importance of both use and non-use values in shaping willingness to pay for heritage conservation. These insights are critical for developing more effective, community-aligned heritage policies that reflect the public's valuation of cultural heritage. This research marks a significant advancement in the application of discrete choice experiments for general heritage valuation, offering a robust framework for future studies and policy development in cultural heritage preservation. |
| Keywords: | cultural heritage, historic preservation, built environment, non-market valuation, discrete choice experiment, public preferences |
| JEL: | C51 H43 Z18 Q51 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2025-11 |