nep-exp New Economics Papers
on Experimental Economics
Issue of 2025–10–13
twenty-one papers chosen by
Daniel Houser, George Mason University


  1. Personalized Reminders: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Voluntary Retirement Savings in Colombia By Jared Gars; Laura Prada; Egon Tripodi; Santiago Borda
  2. Insider collusion as a threat to property rights: Experimental evidence from West Africa By Benito Arruñada; Marco Fabbri; Daniele Nosenzo; Giorgio Zanarone
  3. A Tale of Two News: The Impact of Media Outlets on Consumption Choices By Juan Carlos Angulo; Aldo Gutierrez-Mendieta
  4. How survey design influences people's understanding of democracy By Boese-Schlosser, Vanessa; Klatt, Nikolina; Meißner, Daniel; Ngiam, Janice; Ziblatt, Daniel
  5. On the Back Burner: Experimental Evidence for Energy Transitions By Meera Mahadevan; Adrian Martinez; Ryan McCord; Robyn Meeks; Manisha Pradhananga
  6. Measuring land rental market participation in smallholder agriculture can survey design innovations improve land market participation statistics? By Abate, Gashaw T.; Abay, Kibrom A.; Chamberlin, Jordan; Sebsibie, Samuel
  7. AI and jobs. A review of theory, estimates, and evidence By R. Maria del Rio-Chanona; Ekkehard Ernst; Rossana Merola; Daniel Samaan; Ole Teutloff
  8. Can language models boost the power of randomized experiments without statistical bias? By Xinrui Ruan; Xinwei Ma; Yingfei Wang; Waverly Wei; Jingshen Wang
  9. Financial Stability Implications of Generative AI: Taming the Animal Spirits By Anne Lundgaard Hansen; Seung Jung Lee
  10. Do doctors contribute to socioeconomic inequalities in health care provision? An audit experiment in Tunisia By Ghouma, Rym; Lagarde, Mylène; Powell-Jackson, Timothy
  11. Preferences regarding behavioral policy: Attitudes toward sugary beverage taxes in the US By König, Tobias; Schmacker, Renke
  12. Strategic humanitarian aid, trust in Europe and support for authoritarianism By Sinanoglu, Semuhi
  13. Hiring Preferences for Military Veterans: Evidence from a Stated Choice Experiment By Bäckström, Peter
  14. Farmer groups as ICT Hubs: Findings from a cluster-randomized controlled trial in Malawi By Ragasa, Catherine; Ma, Ning; Hami, Emmanuel
  15. Elicitability By Yaron Azrieli; Christopher Chambers; Paul Healy; Nicolas Lambert
  16. Gratitude in Fundraising: Do "Thank You in Advance" and Handwritten Thank-You Notes Impact Fundraising Success? By Maja Adena; Levent Neyse; Steffen Huck
  17. Group versus Individual Coaching for Rural Social Protection Programs: Evidence from Uganda, Philippines, and Bangladesh By Emily A. Beam; Lasse Brune; Narayan Das; Stefan Dercon; Nathanael Goldberg; Rozina Haque; Dean Karlan; Maliha Khan; Doug Parkerson; Ashley Pople; Yasuyuki Sawada; Christopher Udry; Rocco Zizzamia
  18. Buyers’ response to third-party quality certification: Theory and evidence from Ethiopian wheat traders By Abate, Gashaw T.; Bernard, Tanguy; Bulte, Erwin; Miguel, Jérémy Do Nascimento; Sadoulet, Elisabeth
  19. A behavioral reinvestigation of the effect of long ties on social contagions By Luca Lazzaro; Manuel S. Mariani; Ren\'e Algesheimer; Radu Tanase
  20. A game played by tandem-running ants: Hint of procedural rationality By Joy Das Bairagya; Udipta Chakraborti; Sumana Annagiri; Sagar Chakraborty
  21. When Machines Meet Each Other: Network Effects and the Strategic Role of History in Multi-Agent AI By Yu Liu; Wenwen Li; Yifan Dou; Guangnan Ye

  1. By: Jared Gars; Laura Prada; Egon Tripodi; Santiago Borda
    Abstract: A large share of the global workforce lacks access to employer-sponsored retirement plans. In Colombia, where labor informality is high, the government introduced the Beneficios Economicos Periodicos (BEPS) program to promote voluntary retirement savings. However, many enrollees fail to contribute regularly. We conduct a randomized controlled trial with 2, 819 BEPS users, assigning them to different planning and monthly reminder treatments, where reminders are tailored in their timing. We find that personalized reminders significantly increase both the frequency and amount of savings, with individuals who recognize their forgetfulness more likely to demand reminders. Our findings highlight the role of reminders tailored to individuals’ preferred timing in sustaining engagement in voluntary savings programs.
    Keywords: Retirement savings, personalized reminders, limited attention, financial inclusion
    JEL: D91 G41 O16
    Date: 2025–09–23
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdp:dpaper:0073
  2. By: Benito Arruñada; Marco Fabbri; Daniele Nosenzo; Giorgio Zanarone
    Abstract: We provide causal evidence on how a community’s formal institutions and social structure jointly affect the value of its land to outside investors. Using field research and a lab-in-thefield experiment in rural Benin, we show that potential urban investors perceive a higher risk of expropriatory collusion among villagers—and thus invest less—when villages lack formal land records and exhibit strong social tightness. We also find that, although formalizing land rights increases the confidence of outsiders, it does not eliminate their concerns about collusion: outsiders remain wary of investing in villages with a tight social structure even with formal property rights, indicating that local collusion continues to pose a barrier to developing impersonal property markets. Our findings therefore suggest that in addition to facilitating intra-community investment and trade (e.g., by formalizing land ownership), well-designed property institutions should also guarantee the impartial treatment of outsiders.
    Keywords: Collusion; lab-in-the-field experiment; property rights; randomized control trial; social structure.
    JEL: D02 Z1
    Date: 2025–09
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1917
  3. By: Juan Carlos Angulo (Department of Economics, Universidad Iberoamericana); Aldo Gutierrez-Mendieta (School of Social Sciences and Government, Tecnologico de Monterrey)
    Abstract: How does exposure to multiple, sometimes conflicting, news stories influence individuals’ consumption choices? We address this question through a survey experiment in which participants are randomly assigned to receive one or two news headlines related to avocado consumption.These vignettes present either a positive framing (health benefits) or negative consequences, such as environmental damage or links to organized crime. After each exposure, we measure participants’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a standard product using a contingent valuation method. Our findings show that the content and emotional framing of information matter more than the number of exposures. The strongest effect comes from conflict-related news, which significantly reduces WTP. When participants receive two headlines, the second exposure tends to drive the response, especially in cases with conflicting information. Overall, these results suggest that consumers react not only to the presence of information but also to how it is framed. Even when the product remains unchanged, the tone and content of the message influence economic decisions in subtle but measurable ways.
    JEL: D91 Q18 D83
    Date: 2025–09–17
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smx:wpaper:2025005
  4. By: Boese-Schlosser, Vanessa; Klatt, Nikolina; Meißner, Daniel; Ngiam, Janice; Ziblatt, Daniel
    Abstract: While it is well established that closed-ended survey questions can prime respondents, less is known about how such priming affects the content of subsequent open-ended responses. We investigate this effect in the context of different understandings/perceptions of the term democracy using a survey experiment conducted in Germany in December 2023. Respondents (N = 3, 123) were randomly assigned to a control or treatment group: the control group answered an open-ended question about what democracy meant to them first, while the treatment group first responded to closed-ended questions about democratic decision-making before also answering the open-ended question. We then compare the open-ended responses across groups. Using computational text analysis, we test three hypotheses regarding priming effects on (1) response length, (2) lexical overlap with vocabulary from the closedended question, and (3) thematic emphasis. Our findings indicate that while response length merely differs slightly between groups, primed participants are more likely to incorporate vocabulary from the closed-ended questions and to emphasize topics related to democratic decision-making. These results highlight how subtle differences in question order can meaningfully influence the way individuals express their understanding of democracy.
    Keywords: Priming, computational text analysis, open-ended question, closed-ended questions, democracy understandings
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbtod:328005
  5. By: Meera Mahadevan; Adrian Martinez; Ryan McCord; Robyn Meeks; Manisha Pradhananga
    Abstract: A central challenge in the global transition to cleaner energy is how governments can design policies that deliver large social benefits while facing trade-offs in energy security, fiscal costs, and household adoption frictions. We study this question in urban Nepal, where cooking is dominated by imported LPG, but abundant hydropower makes both large-scale electrification and improved energy security feasible. We embed household adoption decisions in a model of a planner balancing fiscal, fuel supply, and energy-security considerations, and estimate its key parameters using a scalable randomized controlled trial in Kathmandu Valley. Subsidies had large effects, increasing electric stove adoption by 23 percentage points and compatible cookware purchases by 41 percentage points. In contrast, information treatments highlighting cost or health benefits alone had little impact. Using detailed survey and electricity billing data, we find substitution away from LPG toward electricity, with meaningful household heterogeneity. Disciplined by these experimental estimates, the model evaluates counterfactual targeting rules, and estimates optimal subsidy levels under different macroeconomic conditions.
    Keywords: electrification, energy transition, technology adoption, policy design, development, climate change, energy security
    JEL: C93 O1 O33 Q48 Q56
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12190
  6. By: Abate, Gashaw T.; Abay, Kibrom A.; Chamberlin, Jordan; Sebsibie, Samuel
    Abstract: The emergence of rural land rental markets in Sub-Saharan Africa is recognized as a key component of the region’s ongoing economic transformation. However, the evidence base on land market participation relies on survey-derived measures, which do not always cohere when compared and triangulated, suggesting the possibility of non-trivial measurement error. We report the results of a priming and list experiments designed to shed light on a persistent mystery in rural household survey data from Africa: why there are so many fewer self-reported landlords (renters-out) than tenants (renters-in)? Our design addresses two hypotheses using experimental data from Ethiopia. First, rented-out and rented-in land may be systematically underreported because enumerators and respondents are typically primed to emphasize parcels that are actively managed/cultivated by the household. Second, rented or sharecropped-out land may be systematically underreported because of respondents’ reluctance to acknowledge an activity for which public disclosure may have negative repercussions. We address the first hypothesis with a priming experiment by exposing a random subset of respondents to a nudge that explicitly reminded them to fully account for all land, including rented/sharecropped-in and rented/sharecropped-out. We address the second hypothesis with a double-list experiment, designed to elicit true rates of land renting and sharecropping-out. We find that nudging induces about 4 percentage points increase (or 13% in relative terms) in the share of households participating in renting in or sharecropping-in practices but has negligible effects on reported rates of renting and sharecropping-out. Interestingly, our list experiment indicates much higher revealed rates of renting-out (14-15%) than is reflected in the nominal parcel-roster responses (3%). The magnitude of the latter finding fully explains the apparent difference in renting in versus renting-out rates derived from the regular parcel roster responses. These results indicate that efforts to document land market participation rate and associated impacts must overcome large systematic reporting biases.
    Keywords: land; households; survey design; surveys; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa
    Date: 2024–05–31
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:144206
  7. By: R. Maria del Rio-Chanona; Ekkehard Ernst; Rossana Merola; Daniel Samaan; Ole Teutloff
    Abstract: Generative AI is altering work processes, task composition, and organizational design, yet its effects on employment and the macroeconomy remain unresolved. In this review, we synthesize theory and empirical evidence at three levels. First, we trace the evolution from aggregate production frameworks to task- and expertise-based models. Second, we quantitatively review and compare (ex-ante) AI exposure measures of occupations from multiple studies and find convergence towards high-wage jobs. Third, we assemble ex-post evidence of AI's impact on employment from randomized controlled trials (RCTs), field experiments, and digital trace data (e.g., online labor platforms, software repositories), complemented by partial coverage of surveys. Across the reviewed studies, productivity gains are sizable but context-dependent: on the order of 20 to 60 percent in controlled RCTs, and 15 to 30 percent in field experiments. Novice workers tend to benefit more from LLMs in simple tasks. Across complex tasks, evidence is mixed on whether low or high-skilled workers benefit more. Digital trace data show substitution between humans and machines in writing and translation alongside rising demand for AI, with mild evidence of declining demand for novice workers. A more substantial decrease in demand for novice jobs across AI complementary work emerges from recent studies using surveys, platform payment records, or administrative data. Research gaps include the focus on simple tasks in experiments, the limited diversity of LLMs studied, and technology-centric AI exposure measures that overlook adoption dynamics and whether exposure translates into substitution, productivity gains, erode or increase expertise.
    Date: 2025–09
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2509.15265
  8. By: Xinrui Ruan; Xinwei Ma; Yingfei Wang; Waverly Wei; Jingshen Wang
    Abstract: Randomized experiments or randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are gold standards for causal inference, yet cost and sample-size constraints limit power. Meanwhile, modern RCTs routinely collect rich, unstructured data that are highly prognostic of outcomes but rarely used in causal analyses. We introduce CALM (Causal Analysis leveraging Language Models), a statistical framework that integrates large language models (LLMs) predictions with established causal estimators to increase precision while preserving statistical validity. CALM treats LLM outputs as auxiliary prognostic information and corrects their potential bias via a heterogeneous calibration step that residualizes and optimally reweights predictions. We prove that CALM remains consistent even when LLM predictions are biased and achieves efficiency gains over augmented inverse probability weighting estimators for various causal effects. In particular, CALM develops a few-shot variant that aggregates predictions across randomly sampled demonstration sets. The resulting U-statistic-like predictor restores i.i.d. structure and also mitigates prompt-selection variability. Empirically, in simulations calibrated to a mobile-app depression RCT, CALM delivers lower variance relative to other benchmarking methods, is effective in zero- and few-shot settings, and remains stable across prompt designs. By principled use of LLMs to harness unstructured data and external knowledge learned during pretraining, CALM provides a practical path to more precise causal analyses in RCTs.
    Date: 2025–10
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2510.05545
  9. By: Anne Lundgaard Hansen; Seung Jung Lee
    Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of the adoption of generative AI on financial stability. We conduct laboratory-style experiments using large language models to replicate classic studies on herd behavior in trading decisions. Our results show that AI agents make more rational decisions than humans, relying predominantly on private information over market trends. Increased reliance on AI-powered trading advice could therefore potentially lead to fewer asset price bubbles arising from animal spirits that trade by following the herd. However, exploring variations in the experimental settings reveals that AI agents can be induced to herd optimally when explicitly guided to make profit-maximizing decisions. While optimal herding improves market discipline, this behavior still carries potential implications for financial stability. In other experimental variations, we show that AI agents are not purely algorithmic, but have inherited some elements of human conditioning and bias.
    Date: 2025–10
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2510.01451
  10. By: Ghouma, Rym; Lagarde, Mylène; Powell-Jackson, Timothy
    Abstract: In this paper, we explore an important but understudied driver of health inequalities: whether doctors treat patients from different socioeconomic backgrounds differently during a clinical encounter. We design an audit experiment in Tunisia, sending standardised patients with the same symptoms to 130 public and private primary care doctors for consultation. Informed by in-depth qualitative work, we vary the attitude and appearance of the patients so that they appear to be “poor” or “middle-class”. We find no evidence that doctors manage patients differently, but they respond to the socioeconomic profile of patients by prescribing fewer expensive drugs and giving out more free drugs to poorer patients. We also show significant differences in communication between patients: doctors are more likely to provide more explanation to richer patients about the diagnosis, the drugs prescribed and the treatment plan. These differences are not explained by time constraints as doctors spent comparable time with both types of patients. To the extent that differences in communication with patients can lead to differences in patients’ health decisions, our results suggest that doctors could contribute indirectly to health inequalities.
    Keywords: health care provision; socioeconomic inequalities; standardised patients; audit experiment; Tunisia
    JEL: J1
    Date: 2025–12–31
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129460
  11. By: König, Tobias; Schmacker, Renke
    Abstract: Using surveys and experiments, we provide evidence on how people think about and justify sugar-sweetened-beverage (SSB) taxes, a widely discussed behavioral policy intervention. We show that motives to correct internalities and behavioral biases impact policy preferences almost as much as standard externality reasoning. However, antipaternalistic attitudes explain why many people oppose SSB taxes although they acknowledge the relevance of behavioral biases. We demonstrate that instructional explanations about how behavioral SSB taxes work significantly increase support for such taxes. By contrast, simple information feedback regarding the statistical prevalence of internalities and externalities has no effect. Our findings suggest that the nature of information provision-particularly explaining a policy's goals and mechanisms-is crucial for enhancing its acceptability.
    Keywords: Paternalism, sin tax, internality, externality, soda tax, self-control
    JEL: H23 I18 D12 D78
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbmbh:328006
  12. By: Sinanoglu, Semuhi
    Abstract: How does international assistance impact public attitudes towards donors in the recipient country when tied to strategic interests? European leaders increasingly highlight the strategic and transactional nature of international assistance. Yet, we still do not know much about how such shifts in the framing of international assistance are perceived by the recipient public, especially in contexts with prevalent anti-Western attitudes and propaganda that dismisses aid as hypocritical and disingenuous. I conducted an online survey experiment in Turkey to assess the attitudinal and quasi-behavioural effects of different types of international assistance post-disaster - conditional, unconditional, and strategic - and whether they help sway public attitudes in the face of authoritarian propaganda. Strategically distributed humanitarian aid decreased trust in the government as a defender of national interest among conservative, nationalist and Eurosceptic regime supporters, and also increased trust in European organisations. It did so partly by mitigating conspiracism and evoking positive emotions among pro-government voters whose views are hard to change. However, this comes at a cost: increased trade scepticism and decreased engagement with foreign media outlets among regime opponents. The findings have significant implications for international assistance strategies for increasing European soft power.
    Keywords: propaganda, polarisation, foreign aid, public support, post-disaster relief, conspiracism, experimental research, Turkey
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:diedps:327980
  13. By: Bäckström, Peter (Department of Economics, Umeå University)
    Abstract: Successfully finding and maintaining civilian employment is crucial for military veterans' reintegration into civilian society. This paper examines how formerly deployed Swedish military veterans are treated in civilian hiring situations using data from a stated-choice experiment. Approximately 1, 000 survey respondents were asked to imagine advising on recruitment for a job similar to their own and to choose repeatedly between two hypothetical job applicants, some of whom were described as military veterans. The results indicate that former military deployment can be both an advantage and a disadvantage in job applications, depending on the occupational field and recruiter characteristics. Military veterans who served as infantry soldiers face obstacles when applying for jobs in social professions, especially if the recruiter is female or lacks personal experience with military veterans. Conversely, veterans who served in military staff positions are more likely to be called for an interview, particularly if the recruiter is male, has personal experience with military veterans, or if the job is for a managerial position. These findings suggest that the impact of military deployment on job prospects is highly context-dependent.
    Keywords: military veterans; hiring; choice experiment; hiring bias
    JEL: C91 H56 J24 J71
    Date: 2025–10–02
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:1037
  14. By: Ragasa, Catherine; Ma, Ning; Hami, Emmanuel
    Abstract: Many rural producer groups face poor management practices, low productivity, and weak market linkages. An information and communication technology (ICT)-based intervention bundle was provided to producer groups to transform them into ICT hubs, where members learn about and adopt improved management practices and increase their productivity and incomes. The intervention bundle includes phone messages and videos, promotion of the call center/hotline, and facilitation of radio listening clubs and collective marketing. The study, a cluster-randomized controlled trial, randomly assigned 59 groups into treatment groups and 59 into control groups. After 18 months of interventions, results show positive but small impact on crop sales (USD65 per household) and no impact on productivity. The income effect was mainly from Kasungu and Nkhota-kota, which experienced increased production and sales of rice, soybean, and groundnut and received higher prices due to collective marketing. Farmers in Kasungu and Nkhota-kota improved a few agricultural management practices, while farmers in other districts did not improve their management practices. Results show more farmers accessing phone messaging on agriculture and markets, greater awareness and use of the call center, more listening groups established, and more farmers—especially women—joining these groups. Nevertheless, coverage and uptake remain very low, which are likely reasons for the limited impact.
    Keywords: markets; Information and Communication Technologies; digital agriculture; digital extension tools; impact assessment; sales; productivity; agriculture; Malawi; Africa; Eastern Africa
    Date: 2024–06–30
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:148814
  15. By: Yaron Azrieli; Christopher Chambers; Paul Healy; Nicolas Lambert
    Abstract: An analyst is tasked with producing a statistical study. The analyst is not monitored and is able to manipulate the study. He can receive payments contingent on his report and trusted data collected from an independent source, modeled as a statistical experiment. We describe the information that can be elicited with appropriately shaped incentives, and apply our framework to a variety of common statistical models. We then compare experiments based on the information they enable us to elicit. This order is connected to, but different from, the Blackwell order. Data preferred for estimation are also preferred for elicitation, but not conversely. Our results shed light on how using data as incentive generator in payment schemes differs from using data for statistical inference.
    Date: 2025–10
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2510.00879
  16. By: Maja Adena; Levent Neyse; Steffen Huck
    Abstract: While almost all charities rely on a set of donor appreciation strategies, their effectiveness for the success of fundraising campaigns is underresearched. Through two preregistered field studies conducted in collaboration with a leading German opera house (N=10, 000), we explore the significance of expressing gratitude and examine two different approaches to doing so. Our first study investigates the impact of a "thank you in advance" statement in fundraising letters, a common strategy among fundraisers. In the second study, we explore the effectiveness of handwritten thank-you postcards versus printed postcards, shedding light on the roles of personalization and handwriting in donor appeals. Our findings challenge conventional wisdom, revealing that neither “thank you in advance” nor handwritten thank-you notes significantly affect donor contributions.
    Keywords: gratitude in fundraising, charitable giving, behavioral economics
    JEL: D64 C93 D03
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12184
  17. By: Emily A. Beam; Lasse Brune; Narayan Das; Stefan Dercon; Nathanael Goldberg; Rozina Haque; Dean Karlan; Maliha Khan; Doug Parkerson; Ashley Pople; Yasuyuki Sawada; Christopher Udry; Rocco Zizzamia
    Abstract: Multifaceted social protection programs in low-income countries often include both capital grants and informational and behavioral support on the premise that households face simultaneous and multiple frictions. To tackle informational and behavioral constraints, programs typically deploy either individual or group coaching visits from field agents. The relative efficacy of individual versus group coaching could provide insights into the underlying mechanism through which information and behavioral support change household decisions. However, in three similar randomized evaluations in Uganda, the Philippines, and Bangladesh, we find no differences in efficacy. Given its 15–20% lower costs, group coaching is more cost-effective.
    JEL: D22 I38
    Date: 2025–10
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34309
  18. By: Abate, Gashaw T.; Bernard, Tanguy; Bulte, Erwin; Miguel, Jérémy Do Nascimento; Sadoulet, Elisabeth
    Abstract: When quality attributes of a product are not directly observable, third-party certification (TPC) enables buyers to purchase the quality they are most interested in and reward sellers accordingly. Beyond product characteristics, buyers’ use of TPC services also depends on market conditions. We study the introduction of TPC in typical smallholder-based agriculture value chains of low-income countries, where traders must aggregate products from many small-scale producers before selling in bulk to downstream processors, and where introduction of TPC services has oftentimes failed. We develop a theoretical model identifying how different market conditions affect traders’ choice to purchase quality-certified output from farmers. Using a purposefully designed lab-in-the-field experiment with rural wheat traders in Ethiopia, we find mixed support for the model’s prediction: traders’ willingness to specialize in certified output does increase with the share of certified wheat in the market, and this effect is stronger in larger markets. It, however, does not decrease with the quality of uncertified wheat in the market. We further analyze conditions where traders deviate from the theoretically optimal behavior and discuss implications for future research and public policies seeking to promote TPC in smallholder-based food value-chains.
    Keywords: agriculture; certification; markets; quality; smallholders; Ethiopia; Africa; Eastern Africa
    Date: 2024–06–04
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:144973
  19. By: Luca Lazzaro; Manuel S. Mariani; Ren\'e Algesheimer; Radu Tanase
    Abstract: Faced with uncertainty in decision making, individuals often turn to their social networks to inform their decisions. In consequence, these networks become central to how new products and behaviors spread. A key structural feature of networks is the presence of long ties, which connect individuals who share few mutual contacts. Under what conditions do long ties facilitate or hinder diffusion? The literature provides conflicting results, largely due to differing assumptions about individual decision-making. We reinvestigate the role of long ties by experimentally measuring adoption decisions under social influence for products with uncertain payoffs and embedding these decisions in network simulations. At the individual level, we find that higher payoff uncertainty increases the average reliance on social influence. However, personal traits such as risk preferences and attitudes toward uncertainty lead to substantial heterogeneity in how individuals respond to social influence. At the collective level, the observed individual heterogeneity ensures that long ties consistently promote diffusion, but their positive effect weakens as uncertainty increases. Our results reveal that the effect of long ties is not determined by whether the aggregate process is a simple or complex contagion, but by the extent of heterogeneity in how individuals respond to social influence.
    Date: 2025–10
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2510.04785
  20. By: Joy Das Bairagya; Udipta Chakraborti; Sumana Annagiri; Sagar Chakraborty
    Abstract: Navigation through narrow passages during colony relocation by the tandem-running ants, $\textit{Diacamma}$ $\textit{indicum}$, is a tour de force of biological traffic coordination. Even on one-lane paths, the ants tactfully manage a bidirectional flow: Informed individuals (termed leaders) guide nest-mates (termed followers) from a suboptimal nest to a new optimal nest, and then return to recruit additional followers. We propose that encounters between the ants moving in opposite directions can be modelled within the framework of game theory leading to an understanding of the mechanism behind observed behaviours. Our experiments reveal that, upon encountering a tandem pair (a leader and its follower) on a narrow path, the returning leader reverses her direction and proceeds toward the new nest again as if she becomes the leader guiding a follower. This observed behaviour is consistent with game-theoretic predictions, provided the assumption of perfect rationality is relaxed in favour of bounded rationality -- specifically, procedural rationality. In other words, the experimental outcomes are consistent with sampling equilibrium but not with Nash equilibrium. Our work, which strives to induct the essence of behavioural game theory into the world of ants, is first ever report of realizing sampling equilibrium in scenarios not involving human players.
    Date: 2025–09
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2509.17147
  21. By: Yu Liu; Wenwen Li; Yifan Dou; Guangnan Ye
    Abstract: As artificial intelligence (AI) enters the agentic era, large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed as autonomous agents that interact with one another rather than operate in isolation. This shift raises a fundamental question: how do machine agents behave in interdependent environments where outcomes depend not only on their own choices but also on the coordinated expectations of peers? To address this question, we study LLM agents in a canonical network-effect game, where economic theory predicts convergence to a fulfilled expectation equilibrium (FEE). We design an experimental framework in which 50 heterogeneous GPT-5-based agents repeatedly interact under systematically varied network-effect strengths, price trajectories, and decision-history lengths. The results reveal that LLM agents systematically diverge from FEE: they underestimate participation at low prices, overestimate at high prices, and sustain persistent dispersion. Crucially, the way history is structured emerges as a design lever. Simple monotonic histories-where past outcomes follow a steady upward or downward trend-help stabilize coordination, whereas nonmonotonic histories amplify divergence and path dependence. Regression analyses at the individual level further show that price is the dominant driver of deviation, history moderates this effect, and network effects amplify contextual distortions. Together, these findings advance machine behavior research by providing the first systematic evidence on multi-agent AI systems under network effects and offer guidance for configuring such systems in practice.
    Date: 2025–10
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2510.06903

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