|
on Experimental Economics |
| By: | Aridor, Guy; Jiménez-Durán, Rafael; Levy, Ro'ee; Song, Lena |
| Abstract: | We provide a practical guide to designing, conducting, and analyzing experiments using social media platforms. First, we discuss the benefits and challenges of using the targeting capabilities of advertisements on social media to recruit participants for a large class of experiments. Next, we outline the different types of interventions and their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we summarize available compliance and outcome data, as well as the main limitations and challenges involved in the design and analysis of social media experiments. Throughout, we provide technical details that are helpful when implementing these experiments. Overall, we argue that experiments on social media are powerful not only for studying economic issues around social media and online platforms but also for experiments studying economic behavior more broadly. |
| Keywords: | Social media; Experiments; Methodology; Experimental design; Sample selection; Interventions |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19861 |
| By: | Kosfeld, Michael; Sharafi, Zahra; Sontag Gonzalez, Maira; Zou, Na |
| Abstract: | Recent work in economics has developed survey-based measures of economic preferences that are “experimentally†or “behaviorally validated.†We scrutinize this approach focusing on the Global Preference Survey (Falk et al., 2018, 2023). Replicating their behavioral validation on almost 2, 000 participants in five countries, China, Colombia, Iran, Kenya, and the US, we find that many items correlate significantly with behavior in incentivized choice experiments, but coefficients vary and are not always sizable. While hypothetical versions of an experiment consistently show the strongest correlations, qualitative self-assessments are also almost always among the best single-item modules predicting behavior in all countries. Within- and across-preference principal component analyses, as well as comparison in terms of predictive validity, suggest that qualitative self-assessments and behavioral measures capture distinct dimensions of the same latent construct of an economic preference, casting doubt on the use of one instrument as an easy substitute for the other. |
| JEL: | C83 C91 D01 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19845 |
| By: | Carattini, Stefano; Chatterjee, Anomitro; Cherry, Todd |
| Abstract: | Biased beliefs affect real-world decisions, including political solutions to societal challenges. One crucial example is environmental policy: people tend to underestimate the incentive effect of Pigouvian policies. Addressing biased beliefs at scale is then paramount. In the days leading up to a ballot initiative in Washington state, we implemented a large-scale field experiment providing information on carbon taxes to over 285, 000 individuals. We complemented it with a survey experiment of about 1, 000 individuals, with the same treatments as in the field experiment, shedding light on social desirability bias and mechanisms around belief revision. Using data at the voting precinct level, we show that our intervention increases revealed support for carbon taxes, mainly for a treatment centered around earmarking of tax revenue, which was one of the design features of the ballot initiative. We find the effect to be stronger in precincts relatively opposed to the initiative, and less exposed to media coverage of carbon taxes, and more exposed to coverage challenging their effectiveness. |
| Keywords: | Carbon taxes; Voting behavior; Facebook ads; Natural field experiments |
| JEL: | C93 D72 D82 H23 Q54 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19850 |
| By: | Baccara, Mariagiovanna; Lee, SangMok; Rogers, Brian; Wei, Chen |
| Abstract: | In a dynamic allocation setup, we experimentally study agents’ choices under the First-In-First-Out (FIFO) and Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) queuing protocols. We find that agents are nearly rational under FIFO but tend to be overselective under LIFO. Within the model that anchors our experiment, we show that the magnitude of such an excessively selective bias reduces the welfare performance gap between FIFO and LIFO. Given the strategic complementarities inherent in LIFO, an agent’s overselective behavior may arise from beliefs that others will act overselectively. Yet, we show that overselection persists in a supplemental treatment where subjects interact with nonstrategic robots. |
| Keywords: | Queuing |
| JEL: | C91 D47 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19876 |
| By: | Yuyu Chen; Hongbin Li; Lingsheng Meng; Xinyao Qiu; Qingxu Yang |
| Abstract: | Generative AI is fast becoming the first place people turn for expert advice. The advice it provides can be directional rather than neutral, shaped in part by the choices of its designers and regulators. When clients consult AI before meeting an expert, they carry this directional advice into a relationship that once rested on the expert's judgment alone. We study its consequences in healthcare through a large-scale preregistered field experiment at a Chinese hospital, where we randomize patients' access to an AI chatbot before their outpatient visit. Examination of the conversation logs shows that the chatbot routinely cautions against the use of medications, especially Traditional Chinese Medicine and antibiotics, while issuing clean recommendations for diagnostic testing, consistent with the liability-driven guardrails encoded in AI training. This directionality propagates into clinical practice. Prescription rates decline among treated patients while diagnostic testing increases, and these effects are more pronounced among physicians who are receptive to patient input and those with more intensive prescribing styles. Beyond shifting healthcare utilization, survey results show that AI access reduces patient compliance and satisfaction, shifting the balance of authority between patients and physicians. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2607.08706 |
| By: | Nikolova, Milena; Milanova, Viliana; Wang, Feicheng |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first causal evidence that merely attributing identical creative work to AI rather than to a human affects how much meaning people derive from a task and how much effort they are willing to contribute. We conducted a preregistered survey experiment in nationally representative samples from the United States (N = 1, 511) and the Netherlands (N = 2, 117). Participants evaluated identical public health campaign slogans that were randomly attributed either to an AI system or to a human professional, allowing us to isolate the causal effect of AI attribution while holding the creative output constant. AI attribution reduced perceived task meaning modestly and made participants 13% less likely to contribute a slogan of their own, indicating lower voluntary effort. These findings suggest that AI can influence work not only by changing productivity but also by altering the perceived value of human contribution itself. |
| Keywords: | Artificial intelligence (AI), Meaning, Effort, Survey experiment |
| JEL: | C91 J01 I30 O33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1788 |
| By: | Bart Cockx; Johan Egebark; Greet Van Hoye; Emilie Videnord; Johan Vikström |
| Abstract: | Reduced motivation over the unemployment spell may contribute to declining job-finding rates. We report findings from a low-cost digital intervention that uses motivational emails to enhance job seekers' search effort. Using a randomized controlled trial that included 200, 720 newly unemployed job seekers in Sweden, we evaluate both supportive messages aimed at encouraging inner motivation, and controlling messages focused on internal and external pressure. The messages increased compliance with mandatory activity reporting, indicating a clear first-stage behavioral response. However, this behavioral change did not translate in more effective job search as both types of emails caused a moderate but significant reduction in search effort and job finding. The supportive messages reduced the number of job applications and showed weakly negative job-finding effects, particularly among men. The controlling messages slightly backfired for job seekers who report strong autonomous motivation at the onset of unemployment. These findings underscore the challenges of motivating job seekers to actively search for jobs and suggest that low-cost digital interventions, in isolation, are inadequate and may even be counterproductive. |
| Keywords: | autonomous and controlled motivation, supportive and controlling messages, job search motvation, low-cost intervention, large-scale RCT, Self-Determination Theory, backfiring |
| JEL: | A12 D01 D91 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12839 |
| By: | Bo Cowgill; Brandon Freiberg; Evan Starr |
| Abstract: | We study worker noncompete clauses in a large field experiment with two finance firms. Across ~14, 000 job offers to freelance recruiters on short-term contracts, we randomize wages and the presence, salience, and duration of noncompetes (all contracts also included a nondisclosure agreement). Removing a noncompete increases mobility between competing employers by 36—52% and raises workers' total earnings from the two firms by 12—17%. We find no evidence — rejecting even small effects — that removing noncompetes generates secret leakage. We also find no evidence that workers choose noncompete jobs for higher pay. Many workers appear unaware of noncompetes before firms' post-employment communication. The results align with a model of inattention and uncertainty about enforcement. |
| Keywords: | noncompete clauses, earnings, knowledge diffusion, mobility, contracting, inattention, enforcement risk |
| JEL: | J42 M5 J31 J41 K31 L41 C93 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12846 |
| By: | Yue Ma; Tianli Feng; Robert W. Fairlie; Chengfang Liu; Prashant Loyalka; Scott Rozelle; Xinwu Zhang |
| Abstract: | The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has heightened interest in personalizing computer assisted learning (CAL) programs to tailor their instruction to individual students. Despite the proliferation of AI-driven CAL programs, evidence for their effectiveness remains limited. We present findings from a large-scale field experiment in rural China examining whether an AI-driven personalized CAL program improves student achievement. We randomly assign 8, 647 students from 315 primary school classes to one of three treatment arms: (i) AI-CAL, (ii) non-personalized CAL (active control), and (iii) non-CAL educational activities (pure control). Results indicate that AI-CAL does not significantly improve achievement, with estimates precise enough to rule out non-trivial positive effects. This finding holds across the difficulty of assessment items and across the baseline achievement of students. The finding that R-CAL modestly benefits students in the middle ability tercile while AI-CAL shows no impact on students in any ability tercile suggests caution when projecting the promise of scaling adaptive AI-driven educational technologies in under-resourced settings. |
| Keywords: | AI, education technology, computer assisted learning, adaptive learning, ICT, RCT, rural China |
| JEL: | I21 O15 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12837 |
| By: | Kenneth Chan; Samuel Fahim |
| Abstract: | We design a lab experiment to study three different search-and-matching market institutions: (1) price posting with directed search, (2) bargaining with directed search, and (3) bargaining with a guaranteed match. We compare their performance in terms of market efficiency, prices of goods, and subjects’ preferences across different market institutions. We find that the price-posting market with directed search is the most efficient, has the lowest prices (a more equitable split of surpluses), and is the most preferred market institution among our experimental subjects. |
| Keywords: | Directed search, Price Posting, Bargaining, Matching Frictions |
| JEL: | C92 C78 D02 |
| Date: | 2026–07–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdp:dpaper:0105 |
| By: | Bart Cockx (Ghent University); Johan Egebark (Swedish Public Employment Service); Greet Van Hoye (Ghent University); Emilie Videnord (Swedish Public Employment Service); Johan Vikström (IFAU and Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | Reduced motivation over the unemployment spell may contribute to declining job-finding rates. We report findings from a low-cost digital intervention that uses motivational emails to enhance job seekers' search effort. Using a randomized controlled trial that included 200, 720 newly unemployed job seekers in Sweden, we evaluate both supportive messages aimed at encouraging inner motivation, and controlling messages focused on internal and external pressure. The messages increased compliance with mandatory activity reporting, indicating a clear first-stage behavioral response. However, this behavioral change did not translate in more effective job search as both types of emails caused a moderate but significant reduction in search effort and job finding. The supportive messages reduced the number of job applications and showed weakly negative job-finding effects, particularly among men. The controlling messages slightly backfired for job seekers who report strong autonomous motivation at the onset of unemployment. These findings underscore the challenges of motivating job seekers to actively search for jobs and suggest that low-cost digital interventions, in isolation, are inadequate and may even be counterproductive. |
| JEL: | A12 D01 D91 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2026–07–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2026013 |
| By: | Megalokonomou, Rigissa (Monash University); Silva Goncalves, Juliana (University of Sydney); van Veldhuizen, Roel (Lund University) |
| Abstract: | We study the role of self-promotion and career advice in sustaining gender differences in labor market outcomes. We conduct a pre-registered experiment in which “advisers†advise “workers†to attempt either a more or a less ambitious task. We find that women promote themselves less than men and, as a result, are 12 percentage points less likely to be advised to choose the more ambitious task. This gender gap in advice persists across both quantitative and qualitative self-assessments and is robust to variation in advisers' information sets — including when advisers observe workers' actual performance — but is eliminated and even reversed when advisers are informed of the gender gap in self-promotion. |
| Keywords: | advice, gender, self-promotion, randomized experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D91 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18777 |
| By: | Contractor, Zara (Middlebury College); Reyes, Germán (Middlebury College) |
| Abstract: | We study how generative AI affects student learning in a randomized experiment. In proctored, in-person sessions, undergraduates learn about an unfamiliar topic and write an analytical essay with or without access to off-the-shelf generative AI, then complete unaided assessments immediately and one week later. We measure learning with knowledge tests (factual and conceptual understanding) and open-ended essays (higher-order skills). AI access raises immediate test scores by 0.27 standard deviations. These gains persist one week later. Essay quality, by contrast, changes little while students have AI access but improves in style and relevance one week later, when students write unaided. These delayed gains are larger among augmentation users—who use AI to explain concepts rather than generate text—whereas automation users' short-run quality gains vanish once AI is removed. We find evidence for two mechanisms behind the learning gains: students shift time away from drafting text and toward reading and searching for information, and they report greater learning enjoyment. |
| Keywords: | generative AI, human capital, learning, higher education, randomized experiment |
| JEL: | I21 I23 J24 O33 C93 D83 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18792 |
| By: | Nikolova, Milena (University of Groningen); Milanova, Vilian (University of Groningen); Wang, Feicheng (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first causal evidence that merely attributing identical creative work to AI rather than to a human affects how much meaning people derive from a task and how much effort they are willing to contribute. We conducted a preregistered survey experiment in nationally representative samples from the United States (N = 1, 511) and the Netherlands (N = 2, 117). Participants evaluated identical public health campaign slogans that were randomly attributed either to an AI system or to a human professional, allowing us to isolate the causal effect of AI attribution while holding the creative output constant. AI attribution reduced perceived task meaning modestly and made participants 13% less likely to contribute a slogan of their own, indicating lower voluntary effort. These findings suggest that AI can influence work not only by changing productivity but also by altering the perceived value of human contribution itself. |
| Keywords: | Artificial intelligence (AI), meaning, effort, survey experiment |
| JEL: | C91 J01 I30 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18784 |
| By: | Cowgill, Bo (University of Toronto); Freiberg, Brandon (INSEAD); Starr, Evan (University of Maryland) |
| Abstract: | We study worker noncompete clauses in a large field experiment with two finance firms. Across ~14, 000 job offers to freelance recruiters on short-term contracts, we randomize wages and the presence, salience, and duration of noncompetes (all contracts also included a nondisclosure agreement). Removing a noncompete increases mobility between competing employers by 36--52% and raises workers' total earnings from the two firms by 12--17%. We find no evidence---rejecting even small effects---that removing noncompetes generates secret leakage. We also find no evidence that workers choose noncompete jobs for higher pay. Many workers appear unaware of noncompetes before firms' post-employment communication. The results align with a model of inattention and uncertainty about enforcement. |
| Keywords: | noncompete clauses, earnings, knowledge diffusion, mobility, contracting, inattention, enforcement risk |
| JEL: | J42 M5 J31 J41 K31 L41 C93 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18820 |
| By: | Cockx, Bart (Ghent University); Egebark, Johan (Swedish Public Employment Agency); Van Hoye, Greet (Ghent University); Videnord, Emilie (Swedish Public Employment Agency); Vikström, Johan (IFAU and Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | Reduced motivation over the unemployment spell may contribute to declining job-finding rates. We report findings from a low-cost digital intervention that uses motivational emails to enhance job seekers' search effort. Using a randomized controlled trial that included 200, 720 newly unemployed job seekers in Sweden, we evaluate both supportive messages aimed at encouraging inner motivation, and controlling messages focused on internal and external pressure. The messages increased compliance with mandatory activity reporting, indicating a clear first-stage behavioral response. However, this behavioral change did not translate in more effective job search as both types of emails caused a moderate but significant reduction in search effort and job finding. The supportive messages reduced the number of job applications and showed weakly negative job-finding effects, particularly among men. The controlling messages slightly backfired for job seekers who report strong autonomous motivation at the onset of unemployment. These findings underscore the challenges of motivating job seekers to actively search for jobs and suggest that low-cost digital interventions, in isolation, are inadequate and may even be counterproductive. |
| Keywords: | autonomous and controlled motivation, job search, supportive and controlling, large-scale RCT, low-cost intervention, field experiment, backfiring, self-determination theory |
| JEL: | A12 D01 D91 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18812 |
| By: | Brudevold-Newman, Andrew Peter; Boxho, Claire Elise; Montalvao Machado, Joao H. C.; O'Sullivan, Michael; Proenca, Matheus |
| Abstract: | Insecure land rights and limited access to modern inputs are often seen as key constraints on smallholder investment in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper studies both in a three-year field experiment with women farmers in Mozambique, cross-randomizing a statutory land registration intervention with a subsidized package of agricultural inputs and climate-smart agriculture training, and eliciting willingness to pay for the package at randomized prices. Demand for registration was high, but its effects were limited: it produced only a temporary gain in perceived tenure security and did not raise willingness to pay for inputs or down-stream investment. Despite gender-targeted titling, it also did not improve women’s intra-household security or decision-making power. The input-and-training package raised input use but reduced harvests, with exploratory evidence of a shift toward a more shock-prone crop; the losses persisted even after households fully reverted to pre-program practices. Consistent with negative social learning, non-recipients with more treated network connections also reduced their adoption of climate-smart practices over time. Relaxing both constraints together produced no effects beyond either intervention alone. |
| Date: | 2026–06–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11421 |
| By: | Tom F. Reuscher; Julia Seitz Sänger; Alexander Maedche; Petra Nieken |
| Abstract: | Initial interactions are crucial for establishing collaboration in virtual teams; however, virtual environments often lack the non-verbal cues necessary to mitigate strategic uncertainty. We examine whether making mutual eye contact salient and observable during an initial video meeting can improve subsequent coordination and cooperation in three-person virtual teams. Using state-of-the-art eye-tracking technology and a novel gaze-adaptive video meeting system, we conduct a preregistered lab experiment where teams engage in non-game-related pre-play communication before a Weakest-Link Game. Eye-tracking data reveal that the amount of mutual gaze exchanged in treatments with or without the gaze-adaptive technology did not differ. Thus, making eye contact salient did not alter gaze patterns. However, salience significantly increased minimum effort in the first round, which is a measure of cooperation in the sense of selecting a more Pareto-efficient equilibrium, before any performance feedback is available. The treatment did not significantly influence wasted effort, our measure of the team's coordination. The treatment's effect on cooperation weakened as rounds progressed, and participants began responding to realized performance rather than initial social signals. Exploratory mediation analyses (2SLS, SEM) are consistent with the treatment operating through increased interpersonal trust and higher beliefs about teammates' contributions. Our findings suggest that a low-cost, non-verbal salience cue can help newly formed virtual teams avoid low-effort coordination traps at the outset of collaboration. |
| Keywords: | team, cooperation, coordination, weakest-link-game, eye tracking |
| JEL: | C71 C91 C92 D01 D83 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12908 |
| By: | Macchi, Elisa; Stalder, Jeremia |
| Abstract: | We investigate work as informal redistribution and the drivers underlying these preferences. In a field experiment in Kampala, Uganda, we find that employers and workers consistently choose work redistribution over cash transfers, both revealing a willingness to pay for work. By randomizing work tasks---including busywork---we show that work production value does not explain work redistribution choices: employers pay for zero marginal product work. Choices are also not explained by relational benefits such as signaling or networking; instead, motivations are normative. Experimental evidence suggests a norm for work redistribution rooted in incentive arguments on the demand side, as employers stop requiring work when recipients have verifiable emergencies, and a combination of reciprocity and dignity from earning on the supply side. This norm impacts the organization of production: firms appear larger and less productive. Effective firm size is 6.4% smaller, and revenues per hour are 9.3% higher when accounting for symbolic work. |
| Keywords: | Preferences for redistribution; Firms; Sharing norms; Employment |
| JEL: | C93 D22 O13 O14 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19833 |
| By: | Akram, Agha Ali (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation); Fleischman, Gabriella (University of Pittsburgh); Hussam, Reshmaan (Harvard Business School); Khan, Akib (House of Sustainable Society (HoSS)) |
| Abstract: | How does a person’s own learning experience affect their ability to learn from others? We conduct a field experiment on chlorination in Pakistan, where randomized “learning-arm” households use a tool to track their children’s diarrhea before and after chlorine distribution. Learning-arm households with learning-arm neighbors chlorinate significantly more one year after the withdrawal of the tool, with children’s health improving by 0.08 SD relative to all other households receiving chlorine. Neither learning households without learning-arm neighbors, nor non-learning households with learning-arm neighbors, exhibit sustained behavior change, results which have significant implications for intervention and evaluation design. |
| Keywords: | Social learning; experiential learning; health behavior; chlorination; water treatment; field experiment; Pakistan; child health |
| JEL: | D83 I12 O12 |
| Date: | 2026–06–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:hamisu:2026_003 |
| By: | Aurelien Baillon; Francesco Capozza; Vahid Moghani |
| Abstract: | Elicited probabilities conflate latent beliefs, ambiguity attitudes, and response er- ror. We develop a measurement method that identifies these components from noisy subjective-probability data using consequential bets on singleton and union events. Ambiguity weighting is parameterized by two indices (a, b), capturing insensitivity and elevation. A hierarchical Bayesian model places latent beliefs on the simplex, al- lows respondent-level (ai, bi), and treats elicited probabilities as noisy measurements. We implement the method in a randomized information experiment in the Dutch LISS panel, where respondents make incentivized forecasts about a demographically matched virtual twin’s GP utilization. The treatment effect on raw probabilities is imprecise and indistinguishable from zero; model-recovered beliefs show meaningful updating, improving predictive accuracy by 0.026–0.032 Brier points and lowering elevation-based ambiguity aversion, with a smaller and less robust change in likelihood insensitivity. Treatment effects on elicited probabilities need not identify treatment effects on beliefs. |
| Keywords: | subjective probabilities, measurement error, Hierarchical Bayesian Model, ambiguity attitudes, information treatments, virtual twins |
| JEL: | C83 C93 D81 D84 D91 I12 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12856 |
| By: | Liu, Mengyu; Jin, Yana; Hu, Wuyang |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how information and framing shape consumers’ preferences of sustainability attributes in China’s pork market, and whether information-induced preference shifts persist over time. We implement a discrete choice experiment with pork consumers in Beijing and Shanghai (N = 887), varying price and three attributes, carbon footprint, water pollution, and animal welfare. The experiment embeds three randomized interventions designed to map onto distinct behavioral channels: child-related framing, health warning-style tips displayed within choice sets, and a two-stage design that introduces a time gap between information exposure and the choice tasks. Mixed logit estimates show targeted preference shifts consistent with these channels. Child-related framing reduces price sensitivity and strengthens aversion to high water pollution. Health tips increase aversion to low animal welfare, with effects concentrated among respondents with weaker baseline healthy-eating habits. By contrast, carbon-footprint valuations decay as the information-to-choice gap lengthens, suggesting limited durability for more abstract attributes. WTP estimates imply economically meaningful premia for sustainability improvements, particularly for reducing water pollution. Overall, the results provide experimentally identified evidence on when information interventions shift multi-attribute sustainability valuations, for whom, and how durable those shifts are, with implications for the timing and design of sustainability labeling and nudging policies. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404463 |
| By: | Afridi, Farzana (Indian Statistical Institute); Sahoo, Soubhagya (Higher School of Economics University); Sangwan, Nikita (Queen's University Belfast) |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of labor market information on beliefs, job search and employment outcomes of job seekers in urban India. Through a cluster-randomized intervention in Delhi, over 3000 men and women are randomized into a treatment group in which they are informed and assisted in accessing a job matching platform, supplemented by phone messages that deliver either non-personalized or personalized labor market information; or a control group in which neither assistance with the matching platform nor any phone messages is given. A year after intervention, men reduce overall job search while women's search shifts to online modes in both treatment groups. Although there is no impact on overall employment, we find evidence of a marginal shift in occupational structure -- away from casual jobs towards salaried work -- along with higher earnings, for women in later months. These employment impacts are relatively stronger in the personalized messaging group. We highlight the role of (mis-)beliefs about the labor market and gendered information frictions in explaining our findings. |
| Keywords: | job search, digital platforms, employment, expectations, gender, youth |
| JEL: | J21 J28 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18821 |
| By: | Charles N. Noussair; Liang Qiao |
| Abstract: | Users are now typically able to access historical data in traffic, restaurant, and retailing contexts. This availability of information can be viewed as a means to reduce congestion. However, scientific support for this notion is weak. We investigate, using a laboratory experiment, whether an intermediate level of information provision might reduce congestion. We also study how the effect of making more information available changes over time. We show that providing all users with information is counterproductive in the short run. In the long run, users\' behavior adjusts so that providing some or all individuals with information leads to more efficient outcomes than when no information is made available. The incidence of group over-and under-reaction to congestion cost differences is only mildly responsive to the information level, a pattern consistent with Small Sample models, which do not assume sequential adjustment. |
| Keywords: | Coordination Game, Information Use, Information Value, Learning, Experiment |
| JEL: | C72 C92 D83 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exc:wpaper:2025-05 |
| By: | Braghieri, Luca; Schwardmann, Peter; Tripodi, Egon |
| Abstract: | We conduct an experiment in which U.S. Democrats and Republicans engage in naturalistic video conversations about policy-relevant facts. We investigate self-selection into politically homogeneous interactions and how these interactions affect information aggregation and affective polarization. Participants exhibit a preference against cross-partisan conversations, explained by lower expectations about their informational and hedonic value. Indeed, participants find it significantly more difficult to extract knowledge from counter-partisans and, thus, tend to learn less from them. In contrast, cross-partisan interactions prove more enjoyable than anticipated and lastingly reduce affective polarization. Overall, cross-partisan contact may better serve to reduce affective polarization than to improve information aggregation. |
| Keywords: | Echo chambers |
| JEL: | C93 D83 D9 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19753 |
| By: | Xu, Alan; Chen, Rui |
| Abstract: | Climate adaptation in controlled environment agriculture increasingly depends on biological technologies that differ in how deeply they intervene in plant function. Genetic modification, beneficial microorganisms, and conventional plant breeding are often grouped together as climate-smart innovations, leaving consumers without a framework to differentiate them on the basis of biological intervention. We test whether disclosing the intrusiveness of each technology reshapes consumer choices. A nationwide discrete choice experiment with 4, 824 U.S. consumers randomly assigned half of respondents to a control condition and half to a treatment condition labeling plant breeding as low intrusive, beneficial microorganisms as low-to-moderately intrusive, and genetic modification as highly intrusive. Without disclosure, consumers strongly penalize genetic modification but do not significantly differentiate breeding from microorganisms. Disclosure deepens aversion to genetic modification, eliminates the baseline premium on beneficial microorganisms, and modestly improves preferences for breeding. Heterogeneity analyses show that women, college-educated consumers, and political moderates respond most strongly to disclosure, while prior technology attitudes amplify rather than narrow the treatment effect on genetic modification. The results indicate that transparency about biological intervention does not uniformly raise acceptance of climate-smart technologies. It reallocates demand along a perceived naturalness gradient and can polarize as much as it informs. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404587 |
| By: | Dee, Thomas (Stanford University); Gibbs, Chloe (University of Notre Dame); Margolit-Chan, Rebecca (Cornell University); Morrell, Lillian (University of Notre Dame); Sullivan, James (University of Notre Dame) |
| Abstract: | Timely high school completion is a critical step in successful transitions to post-secondary schooling and the labor market. This randomized controlled trial, deployed in two urban, disadvantaged school districts, tests the effectiveness of a mature and comprehensive student-support program on an unusually large scale (n=2, 528). While overall effects on graduation rates are small and statistically insignificant, exploratory analyses reveal notable variation by site and over time, mirroring heterogeneity in treatment timing and program implementation. These findings highlight the challenges of scaling interventions and raise concerns about generalizing results from small-scale, single-site evaluations. |
| Keywords: | graduation, dropout |
| JEL: | I24 I26 I31 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18840 |
| By: | Gill, David (Purdue University); Qiao, Zhongheng (Purdue University) |
| Abstract: | Workers and organizations routinely choose the complexity of tasks that they undertake. We study how cognitive ability and overconfidence shape this choice of task complexity, both theoretically and experimentally. Consistent with our model, we find that more cognitively able individuals choose more complex tasks. Conditional on cognitive ability, we find that more overconfident individuals also choose more complex tasks. About 80% of subjects pick their payoff-maximizing task, and higher cognitive ability predicts more efficient choices of task complexity. But errors are strikingly one-sided: nearly all who fail to choose optimally pick tasks that are too complex. Our findings suggest that organizations should pair task menus and incentives for choosing more complex tasks with information and feedback that help workers assess their ability and probability of success. This preserves the benefits of self-selection while reducing costly overreach. |
| Keywords: | cognitive ability, complexity, task choice, choice efficiency, overconfidence, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D03 D83 D91 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18834 |
| By: | Hermes, Henning; Krauss, Marina; Lergetporer, Philipp; Peter, Frauke; Wiederhold, Simon |
| Abstract: | This field experiment investigates the causal impact of mothers’ perceptions of gender norms on their employment attitudes and labor-supply expectations. We provide mothers of young children in Germany with information about the prevailing gender norm regarding maternal employment in their city. At baseline, over 70% of mothers incorrectly perceive this gender norm as too conservative. Our randomized treatment improves the accuracy of these perceptions, significantly reducing the share of mothers who misperceive gender norms as overly conservative. The treatment also shifts mothers’ own labor-market attitudes towards being more liberal—and we show that specifically the shifted attitude is a strong predictor of mothers’ future labor-market participation. Consistently, treated mothers are significantly more likely to plan an increase in their working hours one year ahead. |
| JEL: | J16 J18 J22 C93 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19800 |
| By: | Gill, David (Purdue University); Prowse, Victoria (Purdue University); Reddinger, J. Lucas (Purdue University) |
| Abstract: | Teamwork requires more than the general skills that team members bring. In successful teams, members invest in team-specific skill or capital that accumulates within the team and raises the return to coordinated production. We provide the first systematic analysis of dynamic investment in such team skill. Adopting a dynamic game approach, we develop a novel theoretical framework where investment in team skill creates persistent benefits but is risky because the benefits depend on successful team coordination. We then take this framework to the laboratory to study empirically the factors that influence dynamic investment in team skill. We find underinvestment compared to the efficient benchmark. However, investment responds strongly to incentives, in line with specific theory-predicted patterns. Pre-registered traits (theory of mind and propensity to coordinate) predict investment and team-level efficiency. We conclude that careful design of team incentives and selection of team members can facilitate the development of team skill. |
| Keywords: | teams, team-specific capital, team-specific skill, investment, skill, coordination, theory of mind, dynamic game, repeated game, basin of attraction, subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium, Stag Hunt game, experiment, signaling, machine learning |
| JEL: | C73 C92 D91 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18833 |
| By: | Dur, Robert (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Harms, Job (Ministry of Finance, The Netherlands); Non, Arjan (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Tinbergen Institute, and CESifo) |
| Abstract: | In countries with a complex tax system, it is difficult for people to correctly assess their effective marginal tax rate, which in turn can have important consequences for labor supply. We conduct a two-wave randomized survey experiment among a representative sample of the Dutch working-age population (N≈2, 000) to assess what misperceptions people have and whether addressing those misperceptions via an information intervention affects their labor supply. Our data show that people with low income greatly overestimate their marginal tax rate, while people with high income tend to slightly underestimate it. The information intervention results in more accurate perceptions of the effective marginal tax rate two months after treatment. Work hours of those who initially overestimated their marginal tax rate increase by 1.5 hours per week as a result of the information treatment. The implied compensated wage elasticity of labor supply is +0.3. The effect is concentrated among those who indicate in the first wave that they face no restrictions to increase their work hours. The information intervention reduces income inequality. |
| Keywords: | marginal tax rate, labor supply, information experiment, income inequality |
| JEL: | C83 C93 H24 J22 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18870 |
| By: | Sankar, Anirudh; Dulin, Robert; Davies, Benjamin; Nourani, Vesall; Rudder, Jess; Salomon, Abraham; Taulya, Godfrey |
| Abstract: | Mechanistic explanations—descriptions of a system through the causal interactions of its parts—play a key role in human cognition and scientific progress. Despite their importance, we lack systematic evidence on whether and how mechanistic explanations help lay decision-makers interpret information in complex economic environments. We evaluate the causal impact of including mechanistic explanations in an information intervention: public demonstrations of fertilizer use for smallholder tomato farmers in Eastern Uganda. In all demonstrations, extension officers showcased the impact of a recommended fertilizer recipe. In the treatment group, officers also explained the mechanisms underlying the recipe’s effects—introducing the language of macronutrients and the causal processes linking nutrients, soil features, and plant growth. We collected detailed data on beliefs and behaviors from 797 farmers in a lab-in-the-field experiment conducted at the demonstration site and followed up with them over two growing seasons. In the lab-in-the-field, treated farmers generalized more effectively—making better substitution and arbitrage decisions among fertilizers and achieving 9% higher simulated profits in an incentivized fertilizer-application task. At endline, treated farmers’ real fertilizer choices reflected improved nutrient timing and balance, and their yields were 14% higher. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404655 |
| By: | Avdeenko, Alexandra; Gärtner, Jakob; Gillaizeau, Marc; Karbala, Ghida; Montenbruck, Laura; Montresor, Giulia; Pasha, Atika; Zudenkova, Galina |
| Abstract: | We conduct a randomized controlled trial in rural Pakistan, comparing the effects of a remote awareness campaign with and without Imam-led loudspeaker endorsements on strategies to contain disease spread. Our results show that labor supply and social interactions decrease significantly only when religious leaders support the campaign, particularly among men. These results cannot be explained by differences in the mode or frequency of treatment across groups. Our findings—compatible with predictions from a model that analyzes the individual trade-off between prevention benefits and losses from forgone income—highlight the critical role of religious figures in shaping public responses to health crises. |
| Keywords: | Labor; Health; Religion |
| JEL: | D80 D81 I12 I18 O10 Z12 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19724 |
| By: | Abate, Gashaw T.; Kramer, Berber; Porter, Maria; Regassa, Mekdim D. |
| Abstract: | Crop genetic improvement is central to raising agricultural productivity and resilience in low- and middle-income countries, yet use of improved varieties remains limited due to persistent supply- and demand-side constraints. We evaluate whether relaxing constraints to experimentation and subsequent expansion through production and consumption trial packs of wheat and teff can accelerate use, using a cluster randomized trial with a 2×2 factorial design among 1, 800 smallholder farmers in 120 villages in Ethiopia. Seed trial packs enable farmers to experiment and harvest seed for replanting, thereby enabling expansion in subsequent seasons, while consumption trial packs allow assessment of consumption attributes. We find that seed trial packs accelerate use in the following season, as farmers replant and expand the area under promoted varieties. Consumption trial packs alone have no significant effect, likely due to limited availability of promoted varieties in local seed markets. However, combining both interventions yields modest additional gains, suggesting that consumption traits may influence production decisions when seed access constraints are relaxed. Thus, for open- or self-pollinated crops, lowering experimentation costs and enabling expansion through farmers’ own seed use can accelerate varietal turnover in settings with underdeveloped seed systems. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404780 |
| By: | Tianyi Li; Charles N. Noussair |
| Abstract: | While overconfidence in one's ability relative to others is common, the feeling that one is less qualified than one's peers is widespread in elite groups. In this paper, we show that both effects simultaneously exist for the same individuals and we propose the notion of a sorting bias to capture the overall pattern. We conduct an experiment in which individuals first take a mathematics test. They are then sorted into levels based on their performance, and matched with a competitor who scored at a similar level. The matched pairs then take a second mathematics test. Before the sorting into levels, they are asked to predict the probability that they perform better than the person that they are paired with, in a strategy method protocol. If they properly condition on the rule that sorts participants into pairs, they would predict a probability of .5 of being the better performer in their pair. We find that participants act as if they condition on the way their opponent has been sorted but do not sufficiently account for their own sorting. Individuals are less optimistic about outperforming a similarly selected peer, the higher performing the group to which they are assigned. This effect co-exists with a general pattern of overplacement, measured here as a belief that one has a greater than 50% chance of outperforming a peer with similar qualifications. |
| Keywords: | Overconfidence, Sorting Bias, Competitor Ability |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exc:wpaper:2025-06 |
| By: | Fiona Burlig (Harris School of Public Policy and Energy Policy Institute (EPIC), University of Chicago; NBER); James Bushnell (Department of Economics, University of California, Davis; NBER); David Rapson (Department of Economics, University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: | Despite the importance of program participation for policy, treatment effects are often measured on self-selected samples. We study electric vehicle (EV) managed charging, intended to reduce electric grid strain by optimally allocating charging across EVs. Prior work finds large impacts of managed charging among households who volunteer for an RCT. In contrast, we test managed charging with an experiment including all EVs within a California utility. Enrollment is low even with high incentives, and we can reject even modest intent-to-treat effects on electricity consumption. Managed charging is less effective than previously thought, underscoring the value of population-wide experiments. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2026-56 |
| By: | Busso, Matías; Messina, Julián; Quigua, Juliana |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether information about corruption and tax evasion changes perceived unfairness in the income distribution, perceived inequality of opportunity, and support for specific redistributive policies. Using a survey experiment administered in eight Latin American countries, we find that factual information about public corruption and elite tax evasion increases perceptions of unfairness and unequal opportunity. It also increases support for taxing rich households relative to middle-class households. However, these effects do not extend to broader tax-financed redistribution: respondents do not become more supportive of raising corporate taxes, broadening the personal income tax, or increasing the VAT to finance social spending, nor do they become more supportive of expanding conditional cash transfers or non-contributory pensions through higher taxes. The results are consistent with trust limiting the translation of inequality concerns into support for broader tax-financed redistribution: the treatments increased perceived elite influence over government policy and reduced some measures of trust in public officials and firms. |
| JEL: | D31 H21 H26 D73 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14661 |
| By: | Costa-Font, Joan; Gatti, Nicolò; Turati, Gilberto; Wiesen, Daniel |
| Abstract: | We study the extent to which exposure to COVID-19 relates to healthcare professionals’ prosociality. Drawing on empirical evidence from an incentivized experiment and a companion survey of healthcare professionals (HCPs) at a large Italian hospital (N = 194), we find that different forms of exposure to COVID-19 predict their altruistic motivation in heterogeneous ways. HCPs who worked in COVID 19 wards or had a close relative or friend severely affected by the virus are more than 5 percentage points more likely to prioritize patient welfare over personal gain, with the association for professional exposure being mostly driven by female HCPs, especially nurses. Conversely, personally contracting COVID-19 is associated with a 6 percentage point decline in prosociality. Our results highlight that different experiences of need shape prosocial behavior in hospital settings. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19;provider altruism;healthcare professionals;medical decision-making;prosocial behavior;experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D64 D81 I12 |
| Date: | 2026–07–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140229 |
| By: | Galasso, Vincenzo; Nannicini, Tommaso; Nozza, Debora |
| Abstract: | Understanding individuals’ beliefs, preferences, and motivations is essential in social sciences. Recent technological advancements—notably, large language models (LLMs) for analyzing open-ended responses and the diffusion of voice messaging— have the potential to significantly enhance our ability to elicit these dimensions. This study investigates the differences between oral and written responses to open-ended survey questions. Through a series of randomized controlled trials across three surveys (focused on AI, public policy, and international relations), we assigned respondents to answer either by audio or text. Respondents who provided audio answers gave longer, though lexically simpler, responses compared to those who typed. By leveraging LLMs, we evaluated answer informativeness and found that oral responses differ in both quantity and quality, offering more information and containing more personal experiences than written responses. These findings suggest that oral responses to open-ended questions can capture richer, more personal insights, presenting a valuable method for understanding individual reasoning. |
| Keywords: | Survey design; Open-ended questions; Large Language Models; beliefs |
| JEL: | C83 D83 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19749 |
| By: | Amaral, Sofia; Garcia-Ramos, Aixa; Gulesci, Selim; Oré, Sarita; Ramos, Alejandra; Sviatschi, Maria Micaela |
| Abstract: | Gender-based violence (GBV) at schools is a pervasive problem that affects millions of adolescent girls worldwide. In partnership with the Ministry of Education in Mozambique, we developed an intervention to increase the capacity of key school personnel to address GBV and to improve students' awareness as well as proactive behaviors. To understand the role of GBV on girls' education, we randomized not only exposure to the intervention but also whether the student component was targeted to girls only, boys only, or both. Our findings indicate a reduction in sexual violence by teachers and school staff against girls, regardless of the targeted gender group, providing evidence of the role of improving the capacity of key school personnel to deter perpetrators. Using administrative records, we also find that in schools where the intervention encouraged proactive behavior by girls, there was an increase in their school enrollment, largely due to an increased propensity for GBV reporting by victims. Our findings suggest that effectively mitigating violence to improve girls’ schooling requires a dual approach: deterring potential perpetrators and fostering a proactive stance among victims, such as increased reporting. |
| Keywords: | Gender and educational achievement; Violence |
| JEL: | O12 J16 I25 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19738 |
| By: | Gary Charness; Francesco Feri; Matthew Jackson; Miguel Melendez-Jimenez; Matthias Sutter |
| Abstract: | We provide a first causal analysis of the behavioral consequences of the friendship paradox—the fact that people’s friends in a network have more connections than average. We find that people’s behavior is biased by their network position: they do not best respond to what they should infer the average behavior of the population to be, but instead simply to the average behavior of their friends. Moreover, we find that they fail to learn to overcome such a bias when relocated within the network, varying their observational environment. In these games of complements, the friendship paradox generates a systematic upward distortion in actions, increases behavioral dispersion, and persists despite learning opportunities. |
| Keywords: | friendship paradox, networks, learning, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D01 D85 D90 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12905 |
| By: | Matthias Rodemeier; Christoph Semken |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the growing field of behavioral environmental economics: the study of how cognition, beliefs, and social preferences shape sustainable behavior and the effectiveness and political feasibility of environmental policy. We synthesize recent theoretical, experimental, and empirical contributions, with emphasis on sustainable consumption, green investment, firm behavior, and political economy. We highlight design lessons and open questions for policy and research. |
| Keywords: | behavioral environmental economics, sustainable consumption, environmental policy, energy conservation, green investment, social preferences, carbon pricing, behavioral political economy |
| JEL: | D61 D72 D91 G11 G41 G41 H23 H41 P18 Q50 Q51 Q58 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12847 |
| By: | Campos, Francisco; Safir, Abla; Koffka, Celine; McKenzie, David; Zia, Bilal |
| Abstract: | Business plan competitions aim to identify and spur high-growth entrepreneurs. Two experiments were embedded into in a Kenyan competition to test how intensity of selection and of capital determine entrepreneurial outcomes. Applicants received a US$9, 000 grant after a streamlined process or went through multiple selection stages and were randomly assigned US$9, 000 or US$36, 000. All grants initially generated jobs, but the impacts only persisted over three years under multi-stage selection. The larger grants did not yield greater long-term impacts than the multi-stage US$9, 000 grant, suggesting diminishing returns to capital and limited lumpy investment opportunities. Selection, rather than grant size, determines long-run firm growth. |
| Date: | 2026–07–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11432 |
| By: | Ãlkers, Tim; Musshoff, Oliver |
| Abstract: | This paper presents evidence from a randomized controlled trial evaluating two digital agricultural interventions among smallholder maize farmers in southern Mali. The first intervention consists of a standalone mobile-delivered weather index-insurance product, while the second intervention provides a movile-delivered bundled package combining weather index-insurance with localized weather forecasts and agricultural advisory services delivered via SMS. Using data from approximately 1, 400 farming households across diverse agro-climatic zones in Mali, we find that both interventions, weather index-insurance alone and the bundled product, improve agricultural outcomes, with substantially stronger effects observed for the bundled product relative to the control group. These larger effects are primarily driven by changes in agricultural input use and production practices induced by the tailored agronomic advice and weather information. Together, these complementary services enable farmers to make more informed production decisions, better manage climate-related risks, adopt more productive farming strategies, and ultimately improve agricultural productivity and household welfare. A cost-benefit analysis further indicates that the bundled intervention is highly cost-effective. The findings highlight the potential of combining financial instruments with digital information services to strengthen agricultural productivity and resilience in low-income settings, while also pointing to promising avenues for future bundled agricultural service models. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404328 |
| By: | Gill, David (Purdue University); Rosokha, Yaroslav (Purdue University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we identify level-k reasoning in repeated games that operates at the level of a supergame strategy. First, we develop a model of level-k reasoning that incorporates choices over strategies as well as beliefs about the strategies chosen by others. Then, jointly using elicited strategies and beliefs about strategies from the indefinitely repeated Prisoner's Dilemma, and applying a new notion of balance-optimal error tolerance, we classify a substantial fraction of subjects as level-1 or level-2. Moreover, we show that when level-k reasoning operates at the level of a repeated-game strategy, cognitive ability and experience predict higher level reasoning. |
| Keywords: | level-k, repeated game, Prisoner's Dilemma, strategy, beliefs, cognitive ability, experience, elicitation, bounded rationality, experiment, game theory |
| JEL: | C73 D83 D91 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18832 |
| By: | Ben Dhia, Aïcha; Crépon, Bruno; Mbih, Esther; Paul-Delvaux, Louise Rita; Picard, Bertille; Pons, Vincent |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the impact of Bob Emploi, a digital platform designed to provide personalized job search advice and coaching to the unemployed. The platform, developed by a nonprofit organization with access to France’s public employment agency data, aims to replicate traditional counseling services through automated tools. The experiment included 212, 277 individuals, with 56.3 percent randomly assigned to receive encouragement to use the platform. Although our intervention increased Bob Emploi’s usage by 27 percentage points, the effects of the platform remained limited. Users made modest changes to their search methods, showed slightly higher engagement with standard employment services, and felt more supported in their search. However, the evaluation finds no impact on time spent searching, occupational scope, or job seeker well-being. Most importantly, the platform did not improve any employment outcomes over an 18-month follow-up period, with precise null effects across all subgroups. These results suggest that digital job search assistance platforms may need to combine coaching with specific job recommendations to effectively improve job seekers’ labor market outcomes. |
| Date: | 2026–05–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11376 |
| By: | Adesina, Bukade; Bauchet, Jonathan; Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob |
| Abstract: | Food safety failures in informal food markets remain widespread, driven by the unobservability of food contaminants, information asymmetries between producers and consumers, and the lack of incentive to supply safe foods. Whether market-based mechanisms can support food safety improvements, and under what conditions such markets can emerge, remains unclear. These issues are salient in cyanide-safe cassava product markets, leading to serious health risks for hundreds of millions who consume cassava foods as a staple. We implemented a randomized controlled trial combined with experimental auctions among 1, 200 small-scale cassava processors and 792 consumers in Nigeria to estimate supply and demand conditions that can lead to a market for safe gari (a cassava flour). We specifically evaluated whether training, price incentives, and information can spur the supply and demand of cyanide-safe gari in the same market. At midline, training alone and training combined with price incentive reduced cyanide concentrations by 14.7 and 17.5 ppm respectively, increasing WHO compliance by 35 and 70 percentage points. At a six-month follow-up, both effects persisted with near-equal magnitude 15.4 and 15.5 ppm reductions, and compliance gains of 69 and 74 percentage points.. Consumers were willing to pay more than processors required as a premium to produce safe gari, by a margin large enough to suggest that a market for safe food exists given simple processor training and consumer information. Overall, results show informal food markets can internalize safety when the costs of producing safe foods are low, and training and information are provided. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404544 |
| By: | Lueras, Ruby |
| Abstract: | Climate change is expected to reduce the productivity of traditional sugar maple forests across much of the United States, creating challenges for maple syrup producers and motivating interest in climate adaptation strategies. One potential adaptation strategy is the diversification of sugarbushes with alternative sap-producing tree species such as birch and beech. However, the market viability of these products depends on consumer acceptance. This study examines consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for diversified syrup blends and evaluates whether climate-related information influences purchasing behavior. Using a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) experimental auction, 191 participants submitted bids for pure maple syrup, a maple-birch blend, and a maple-birch-beech blend across three rounds: a blind tasting round, a composition disclosure round, and an information treatment round. Participants were randomly assigned to either a neutral control, a forest diversification treatment, or a place-based climate information treatment. Results indicate that consumers generally preferred products more closely resembling traditional maple syrup, with pure maple syrup receiving the highest bids and maple-birchbeech blends receiving the lowest. Revealing syrup composition significantly increased bids relative to blind tasting, while the climate-related information treatments did not significantly affect willingness to pay. Regression results further suggest that taste preferences were the strongest and most consistent predictor of bidding behavior. These findings indicate that consumer acceptance of diversified syrup products is driven primarily by sensory characteristics rather than climate-related messaging, highlighting the importance of product quality in the successful commercialization of climate-adapted food products. |
| Keywords: | Research Methods/ Statistical Methods |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404523 |
| By: | Charness, Gary (University of California, Santa Barbara); Feri, Francesco (Royal Holloway University of London); Jackson, Matthew (Stanford University); Melendez-Jimenez, Miguel (University of Malaga); Sutter, Matthias (Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics) |
| Abstract: | We provide a first causal analysis of the behavioral consequences of the friendship paradox—the fact that people’s friends in a network have more connections than average. We find that people’s behavior is biased by their network position: they do not best respond to what they should infer the average behavior of the population to be, but instead simply to the average behavior of their friends. Moreover, we find that they fail to learn to overcome such a bias when relocated within the network, varying their observational environment. In these games of complements, the friendship paradox generates a systematic upward distortion in actions, increases behavioral dispersion, and persists despite learning opportunities. |
| Keywords: | friendship paradox, networks, learning, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D01 D85 D90 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18861 |
| By: | Cavapozzi, Danilo; Francesconi, Marco; Nicoletti, Cheti |
| Abstract: | Using UK longitudinal data on dual-earner couples, this paper estimates a model of intrahousehold housework decisions, which combines a randomized experimental framework eliciting counterfactual choices with gender norms differences across ethnicities and cohorts to identify the impacts of individual preferences and gender identity norms. Equal sharing of tasks yields greater utility for both men and women, with women disliking domestic chores as much as men. Although couples would want to use housework arrangements to compensate for differentials in labor market involvement, women end up performing a substantially larger share of housework. This is not due to specialization, rather social norms play a key role. Exposure to more egalitarian gender attitudes significantly increases the probability of choosing an equal share of housework. Were attitudes evened up to the most progressive levels observed in the sample, women doing more housework than their partners would stop to be the norm already among present-day households, except for households with children. |
| Keywords: | Labor supply; Gender gaps |
| JEL: | C25 C26 D13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19726 |
| By: | Victor Gonzalez-Jimenez; Patricio S. Dalton; Charles N. Noussair |
| Abstract: | To enhance workers' motivation, organizations often offer monetary bonuses that are linked to meeting production goals. We argue that when workers set these production goals and are sufficiently loss averse, offering a monetary bonus for goal achievement may backfire. The rationale is as follows: while self-chosen goals can act as reference points that motivate loss-averse workers to increase effort and earnings, a monetary bonus for goal achievement may crowd-out the motivation to set an ambitious goal because workers will not want to miss the bonus offered. Hence, monetary bonuses will induce workers set more conservative goals, attenuating the motivational effects of goal setting. We show experimental evidence consistent with this mechanism. |
| Keywords: | Loss aversion, Goals, Monetary and Non-monetary incentives |
| JEL: | D86 D90 C91 D81 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exc:wpaper:2024-03 |
| By: | Kiesel, Kristin; Lee, Hyunjung |
| Abstract: | This study examines how consumers across income groups respond to sustainability-related food labels and claims in local food purchasing decisions. Using a field experiment conducted in Solano County, California, the analysis combines stated preference measures, including perceived quality and willingness to pay (WTP), with revealed preference measures based on actual purchase decisions. Participants evaluated strawberry baskets before and after exposure to different combinations of sustainability-related labels and claims, including the USDA Organic seal and the Sustainable Solano logo. The results suggest that sustainability-related labels generally increase both perceived quality and WTP relative to unlabeled products, although the effectiveness of different labeling strategies varies. The USDA Organic seal generates the strongest improvements in perceived quality, while combining local sustainability claims with the USDA Organic seal produces largest increase in WTP, suggesting that monetary valuations reflect not only perceived product quality but also broader consumer values, such as support for local farmers and regional food systems. The findings also reveal substantial heterogeneity across income groups, with lower-income consumers exhibiting stronger responses to label information than higherincome consumers. At the same time, the results highlight an important distinction between stated and revealed preferences. Although labels improve product evaluations and valuations, their effects on actual purchase decisions remain relatively limited, suggesting that consumer purchasing behavior may be more resistant to change than stated evaluations alone would imply. |
| Keywords: | Marketing |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404533 |
| By: | Sabine Wildemann; Daniel Ambach |
| Abstract: | Civic AI systems increasingly support democratic participation, yet interactions with them may reveal sensitive political views, creating tension between improving AI models and residents' expectations of privacy and consent. This study examines the conditions of transparency and user control under which Swiss residents are willing to donate their anonymized chatbot conversations to train an open-source AI model. A 2x2 between-subjects factorial design evaluated how a Data Nutrition Label and a granular consent dashboard influence donation decisions. The experiment was delivered via a multilingual online survey featuring a custom chatbot powered by the Apertus-70B model. Analysis of the 205 participants revealed that neither transparency nor control significantly affected donation behavior. Rates were uniformly high (91.7% overall), producing a ceiling effect, and Bayesian checks confirmed the absence of treatment effects. The dashboard raised perceived control but not donation, and high-control participants actively restricted their data-use settings. A qualitative analysis of 120 open-ended responses indicates that residents framed donation as a contribution to the public good, motivated by democratic participation, an open-source model, and research, while many regarded their anonymized queries as non-personal and therefore low in risk. Interpreted through the privacy calculus, a high perceived benefit coincided with a low perceived risk under high institutional trust, so both sides of the trade-off aligned and interface design had little leverage. Offering control served less to raise donation than to let residents define the terms of their contribution. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2607.21044 |
| By: | BartoÅ¡, VojtÄ›ch; Bauer, Michal; Cahlíková, Jana; Chytilová, Julie |
| Abstract: | Preferences and beliefs about different age groups shape social, political, and economic outcomes. This paper provides strong evidence of “youngism†, which refers to systematic bias in social preferences and unfavorable stereotypes against young adults. Among nationally representative samples from the United States and Czechia, we show that participants in both countries are substantially less pro-social in controlled allocation tasks towards young adults relative to other age groups. This preference bias is widespread, similar in size to discrimination against immigrants, and increases with age. Next, we show that young adults are perceived as more immoral, less helpful, less responsible, less hard-working, and enjoying easier lives than other age groups. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that these unfavorable stereotypes about young adults feed into the preference bias. |
| JEL: | C93 D64 D91 J14 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19598 |
| By: | Boldrini, Michela; Bosetti, Valentina; Nunnari, Salvatore |
| Abstract: | Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) — a range of methods to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — are a crucial innovation in meeting temperature targets set by international climate agreements. However, mechanisms that undo the adverse consequences of short-sighted actions (such as NETs) can fuel substitution effects and crowd out virtuous behaviors (e.g., mitigation efforts). For this reason, the impact of NETs on environmental preservation is an open question among scientists and policy-makers. We model this problem through a novel restorable common-pool resource game and use a laboratory experiment to exogenously manipulate the key features of NETs and assess their consequences. We show that crowding out only emerges when NETs are surely available and cheap. The availability of NETs does not allow experimental communities to either conserve the common resource for longer or accrue higher earnings and makes the earnings distribution more unequal. |
| Keywords: | Carbon Dioxide Removal; Environmental Sustainability; Climate Crisis; Common-Pool Resource |
| JEL: | C92 H41 Q55 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19806 |
| By: | D. Chiang, Harold; Matsushita, Yukitoshi; Otsu, Taisuke |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates estimation and inference for average treatment effects in completely randomized experiments when researchers observe potentially many covariates. Within Neyman’s (1923) design-based framework, allowing the number of covariates to grow more slowly than the sample size, we demonstrate that a cross-fitted regression adjustment estimator–adapted from Aronow and Middleton (2013)–exhibits more favorable asymptotic properties than existing alternatives, such as Lin’s (2013) regression adjustment estimator and the bias-corrected estimator of Lei and Ding (2021). For inference, we derive the first- and second-order terms in the stochastic expansions of regression-adjusted estimators, analyze the higher-order behavior of existing inference procedures, and introduce a modified version of the HC3 standard error. The proposed methods extend naturally to stratified experiments with large strata. Simulation studies show that the cross-fitted estimator, in combination with the modified HC3, provides accurate point estimates and reliable size control across a wide range of data-generating processes. |
| Keywords: | completely randomized experiments;regression adjustment;finite population;designbased;many covariates |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2026–09–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140302 |
| By: | Okunogbe, Oyebola |
| Abstract: | Many lower income countries know little about their citizens and their tax bases, which hinders effective taxation. This paper studies the impact of making the tax base more “legible†and signaling this legibility to taxpayers. Leveraging a new digitized property database, a randomized experiment in Liberia finds that including identifying information (owners’ names and property photographs) in tax notices quadruples the likelihood of payment from 2 percent to over 8 percent, but only when the notice also details noncompliance penalties. The intervention pays for itself within one year, and its effects persist to the 4th year. These results underscore that both legibility and enforcement are essential for taxation. |
| Keywords: | Taxation |
| JEL: | H24 H26 O10 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19916 |
| By: | Koch, Alexander K; Nafziger, Julia |
| Abstract: | We investigate, using an online experiment, whether a gradual policy reform can increase support for CO2 taxes compared to a one-step reform. Under a gradual reform, voters first decide on implementing an intermediate tax, followed by a second decision between maintaining the intermediate tax or adopting a higher tax. We hypothesize that the gradual reform may increase voter support by shifting norms and correcting misperceptions; but it has the disadvantage that the benefits of a high tax, relative to an intermediate tax, can appear (too) small. Our empirical findings reveal that the gradual reform backfires: fewer voters support a high CO2 tax under the gradual reform than under the one-step reform. This effect appears to stem from voter satisfaction with the intermediate tax and adverse responses to subsequent reform steps. Further, positive perceptions that arise from experiencing an intermediate tax do not spillover to perceptions about the high tax. Information provision partially alleviates backfiring of the gradual reform. |
| Keywords: | beliefs |
| JEL: | Q58 H23 D90 C91 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19712 |
| By: | Nikolova, Milena (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first causal evidence on how Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based workplace safety systems shape perceived job quality. I conducted a preregistered vignette experiment with a nationally representative sample of 2, 172 Dutch adults who evaluated otherwise identical workplaces introducing one of three safety systems: human supervisors, AI-only monitoring, or hybrid AI-human supervision. Compared with human supervision, both AI-only and hybrid systems reduced perceived job satisfaction, work meaningfulness, and perceived social value of the job. Contrary to expectations, combining AI with human supervisors did not mitigate these negative effects. Respondents also viewed AI-based systems as less respectful of workers' privacy and dignity, despite viewing them as effective as human supervisors. Perceived fair wages changed little across conditions. These findings suggest that AI can influence work not only by improving safety but also by reducing important non-pecuniary dimensions of job quality, highlighting that the welfare consequences of workplace AI extend beyond productivity and accident prevention. |
| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence (AI), safety systems, survey experiment, work meaningfulness, job quality |
| JEL: | I39 J01 J28 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18782 |
| By: | Rakesh Banerjee (University of Exeter Business School); Tushar Bharati (Department of Economics, University of Western Australia); Adnan Fakir (University of Sussex Business School, Brighton, UK); Yiwei Qian (Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China) |
| Abstract: | Do flexible working hours benefit or hurt productivity? To answer this question, we conducted an experiment on a major online freelance platform. We began with three data entry job postings that were identical except for the level of flexibility in work hours. For each job, we invited a randomly selected group of freelancers to apply, and we hired all freelancers who accepted the job offer. Next, among the freelancers hired for jobs with no or limited flexibility, a randomly chosen subset was later granted full flexibility. We find that, compared to freelancers hired for the flexible job, those who had no flexibility in choosing work hours produced 25% fewer correct entries. Around 40% of this effect is explained by selection - more productive workers are more likely to choose flexible jobs. The remaining 60% is a direct effect of reduced flexibility in choosing work hour |
| Keywords: | work-hours flexibility, online freelancing jobs |
| JEL: | J22 O14 J16 L86 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwa:wpaper:26-06 |
| By: | Nikolova, Milena |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first causal evidence on how Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based workplace safety systems shape perceived job quality. I conducted a preregistered vignette experiment with a nationally representative sample of 2, 172 Dutch adults who evaluated otherwise identical workplaces introducing one of three safety systems: i) human supervisors, ii) AI-only monitoring, or iii) hybrid AI-human supervision. Compared with human supervision, both AI-only and hybrid systems reduced perceived job satisfaction, work meaningfulness, and perceived social value of the job. Contrary to expectations, combining AI with human supervisors did not mitigate these negative effects. Respondents also viewed AI-based systems as less respectful of workers' privacy and dignity, despite viewing them as effective as human supervisors. Perceived fair wages changed little across conditions. These findings suggest that AI can influence work not only by improving safety but also by reducing important non-pecuniary dimensions of job quality, highlighting that the welfare consequences of workplace AI extend beyond productivity and accident prevention. |
| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence (AI), safety systems, survey experiment, work meaningfulness, job quality |
| JEL: | I39 J01 J28 O33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1787 |
| By: | Curi, Claudia (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano); Dibiasi, Andreas (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano); Nicolini, Francesco (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano); Ploner, Matteo (University of Trento); Tonin, Mirco (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano) |
| Abstract: | Using original survey data from working-age individuals in Northern Italy, we study longevity beliefs and other key knowledge components relevant for retirement decisions. We find substantial dispersion in population longevity beliefs, with 40% of individuals misestimating life expectancy by more than five years, and highly fragmented knowledge across domains. Providing actuarial life expectancy information -- tailored by age, gender, and county of residence -- does not affect beliefs about individuals’ own longevity or retirement plans, reflecting a disconnect between beliefs about one’s own longevity and that of others. We compare our results with forecasts provided by 262 academic experts. On average, experts accurately anticipate the levels and correlations of longevity literacy with other knowledge components, but they mispredict a strong updating response of own longevity expectations to the provision of population information that deviates markedly from what we observe in the data. |
| Keywords: | subjective longevity, expert forecasts, financial literacy, retirement |
| JEL: | D83 J26 D15 G50 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18863 |
| By: | Kamenica, Emir; Lin, Xiao |
| Abstract: | When does a Sender, in a Sender-Receiver game, strictly value commitment? In a setting with finite actions and finite states, we establish that, generically, Sender values commitment if and only if he values randomization. In other words, commitment has no value if and only if a partitional experiment is optimal under commitment. Moreover, if Sender's preferred cheap-talk equilibrium necessarily involves randomization, then Sender values commitment. We also ask: how often (i.e., for what share of preference profiles) does commitment have no value? For any prior, any independent, atomless distribution of preferences, and any state space: if there are n actions, the likelihood that commitment has no value is at least 1/n^n. As the number of states grows large, this likelihood converges precisely to 1/n^n. |
| Keywords: | Bayesian persuasion |
| JEL: | D80 D83 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19759 |
| By: | Claudia Curi (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy); Andreas Dibiasi (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy); Francesco Nicolini (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy); Matteo Ploner (University of Trento, Italy); Mirco Tonin (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy & Research Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies (IRVAPP), Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK), Trento, Italy) |
| Abstract: | Using original survey data from working-age individuals in Northern Italy, we study longevity beliefs and other key knowledge components relevant for retirement decisions. We find substantial dispersion in population longevity beliefs, with 40% of individuals misestimating life expectancy by more than five years, and highly fragmented knowledge across domains. Providing actuarial life expectancy information – tailored by age, gender, and country of residence – does not affect beliefs about individuals' own longevity or retirement plans, reflecting a disconnect between beliefs about one's own longevity and that of others. We compare our results with forecasts provided by 262 academic experts. On average, experts accurately anticipate the levels and correlations of longevity literacy with other knowledge components, but they mispredict a strong updating response of own longevity expectations to the provision of population information that deviates markedly from what we observe in the data. |
| Keywords: | Subjective longevity, Expert forecasts, Financial literacy, Retirement. |
| JEL: | D83 J26 D15 G50 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bzn:wpaper:bemps119 |
| By: | George Beknazar-Yuzbashev; Francesco Capozza; Kylan Rutherford; Mateusz Stalinski |
| Abstract: | We study whether content-level moderation that reduces exposure to social media toxicity, holding platform access constant, affects mental health. We deploy, for randomly assigned users, a cross-platform browser extension that hides posts and comments exceeding a prespecified toxicity threshold, and follow N = 664 desktop users over a six-week intervention across two waves – one during the 2024 U.S. election campaign and one outside of it. Contrary to basic intuition, filtering toxicity worsens mental health: treatment raises a standardized index of GAD-7 and PHQ-8 symptoms by 0.15σ, and the share of respondents above a moderate-symptom screening cutoff rises by about 12 pp. A QALY-based calibration implies a welfare cost of about $158 per treated participant. Heightened loneliness and a diminished relative moral self-view emerge as potential channels. We conclude that curbing toxic content can impose unintended psychological costs, even where it yields other social benefits. |
| Keywords: | mental health, toxic content, hate speech, moderation, social media, field experiment |
| JEL: | C93 D83 I10 I31 L82 L86 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12855 |
| By: | Anna Chernesky; Kim P. Huynh; Marcel C. Voia |
| Abstract: | Cross-country evidence finds that there are low levels of financial literacy. Financial literacy is often measured using the “Big Three” questions about interest rates, inflation, and risk. These questions are usually part of a longer survey. Respondents in long surveys may suffer survey fatigue and have lower quality responses. Therefore, the placement of the questions (and survey fatigue) may play a role in the results. We use a randomization of question placement to estimate the causal effect on financial literacy results. We find that when financial literacy questions are placed at the end of a survey, respondents are more likely to answer “Don’t know.” The increase in “Don’t know” responses comes largely at the expense of correct responses. We find that this leads to a drop in financial literacy by 5%-15%. This research suggests a measure of financial literacy that is adapted to account for survey length. |
| Keywords: | Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Money and payments, Cash and bank notes, Digital assets and fintech, Payment and financial market infrastructures, Retail payments |
| JEL: | C81 C83 D12 G53 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:26-5 |
| By: | Alrababah, Ala; De Vries, Catherine Eunice (Bocconi University); Myrick, Rachel (Duke University) |
| Abstract: | Do external security threats reduce support for far-right parties? Existing scholarship suggests such threats should weaken extreme parties by generating rally effects, shifting attention to foreign policy, and increasing demand for experienced leadership. We develop a theoretical framework distinguishing these channels and test them in the context of Russian aggression in Europe. In Study 1, leveraging an unexpected event during survey fieldwork in the European Social Survey, we find no evidence that Russia's invasion of Ukraine reduced support for far-right parties. In Study 2, a pre-registered survey experiment in Germany, we expose respondents to a scenario of US withdrawal from NATO and a Russian invasion of an EU member state. Threats increase demand for competent leadership and boost incumbent support by about 4 points, but do not reduce far-right support, which proves remarkably sticky. Together, these findings show that security shocks can reshape mainstream competition without eroding far-right support. |
| Date: | 2026–07–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:9m4jf_v1 |
| By: | Ba, Cuimin; Bohren, Aislinn; Imas, Alex |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how cognitive constraints interact with the information environment to determine whether people overreact or underreact to information. In our model of belief updating, limited attention leads people to form a distorted mental model or representation of the information environment, and limited processing capacity generates cognitive imprecision when using this representation to update beliefs. The model predicts overreaction when facing complex environments, noisy or surprising signals, or priors concentrated on moderate states; it predicts underreaction when facing simple environments, precise or confirmatory signals, or priors concentrated on extreme states. A series of pre-registered experiments provide support for these predictions and direct evidence for the proposed cognitive mechanisms. Crucially, the interaction between the cognitive constraints generates the observed pattern of bias: neither constraint on its own can explain the data. These results connect prior disparate findings on whether underreaction versus overreaction arises. |
| Keywords: | overreaction; underreaction; beliefs |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19576 |
| By: | Koreis, Jonas |
| Abstract: | This cumulative dissertation examines order picking performance in manual and semi-automated picker-to-parts order picking systems, guided by the theory of swift and even flow (TSEF). Six empirical articles—organized into Part A (manual order picking system) and Part B (semi-automated order picking system)—investigate how physical task design, workload visibility, and the integration of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) affect performance outcomes. Linear mixed-effects regression models constitute the primary methodological approach applied throughout the dissertation, complemented by controlled experiments such as eye-tracking studies and large-scale field experiments with difference-in-differences (DiD) designs. Part A focuses on manual order picking and identifies key drivers of performance. Drawing on task switching theory, evidence from an eye-tracking experiment on switching and search behavior in combination with empirical data from a grocery retail warehouse indicates that switching between pick location heights increases task performance time. Ground-to-chest transitions are found to result in longer task performance times than chest-to-ground transitions, with product weight moderating these effects. Drawing on goal-setting and signaling theories, a large-scale field experiment provides empirical data, further demonstrating that workload visibility only affects work speed when the frequency of updates matches the decision tempo on the shop floor. Lower-performing workers are found to speed up in response to signals, while high-performing workers might slow down if signals are too infrequent. Part B introduces semi-automated order picking into an existing manually operated environment and follows its staged operational rollout. The results show that AGVs improve order picking performance, especially under favorable conditions such as short travel distances, light product weight, and low pick density. However, at the system level, performance follows a U-shaped pattern as moderate robot shares improve flow, while excessive AGV density creates congestion and stop–go patterns. The findings further reveal that cumulative experience improves task performance time in both manual and semi-automated settings, albeit with flatter learning curves and greater variability in AGV-assisted order picking. Finally, AGV-assisted order picking is associated with higher physiological workload, highlighting a trade-off between performance and worker well-being. This cumulative dissertation refines and extends the TSEF for picker-to-parts order picking by specifying mechanisms that affect order picking performance in manual and semi-automated systems. It advances task switching theory by showing that performance losses stem not only from absolute pick heights but also from switching between heights, with asymmetric switching costs moderated by product weight adding a sequencing perspective to ergonomic design. It further extends signaling theory by identifying signal frequency as a critical boundary condition for workload visibility, showing that pacing only stabilizes when updates match the decision tempo. For semi-automated systems, it demonstrates that performance gains depend on the context and follow a U-shaped relationship at the system level, while learning curves are flatter and execution more variable than in manual settings. Importantly, the results show that these performance improvements are accompanied by higher physiological workload, highlighting a trade-off between performance and worker well-being. Conceptually, the dissertation expands the TSEF by incorporating worker well-being as a complementary outcome dimension, emphasizing that sustainable swift and even flow requires aligning speed, stability, and ergonomic relief. From a managerial perspective, the results highlight actionable levers for warehouse operations. Batching and routing should account for height-switching costs while balancing ergonomic strain, supported by clear shelf labeling to reduce disorientation. It is necessary to align workload visibility with the decision tempo, as lower-performing workers benefit from signals whereas high-performing workers might slow down when updates are too sparse. Semi-automated systems should be deployed selectively under favorable conditions, with system-level robot shares calibrated to aisle length, travel distance, and picker density to avoid congestion. AGVs should be scaled gradually, and standardized guidelines are necessary to reduce variability in semi-automated settings. Finally, because AGV-assisted order picking elevates physiological workload, well-being indicators should be integrated into workforce management to trigger recovery breaks and prevent long-term productivity losses. |
| Date: | 2026–03–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dar:wpaper:160751 |
| By: | Kamei, Kenju; Putterman, Louis; Tabero, Katy; Tyran, Jean-Robert |
| Abstract: | Corruption is the great disease of government. It undermines the efficiency of the public sector in many countries around the world. We experimentally study civic engagement (CE) as a constraint on corruption when incentives are stacked against providing CE. We show that CE is powerful in curbing corruption when citizens can encourage each other to provide CE through social approval. Social approval induces strategic complementarity among conditional cooperators which counteracts the strategic substitutability (which tends to limit beneficial effects of CE) built into our design. We also show that civic engagement in the lab is correlated with civic engagement in the field, and that the effects of social approval are surprisingly robust to framing in our setting. |
| Keywords: | Corruption; Civic engagement; Public sector; Public goods |
| JEL: | C92 D73 D91 H41 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19834 |
| By: | Francesco Capozza; Ruben Durante; Siddharth George |
| Abstract: | Voters in multiparty systems often fail to coordinate on majority-preferred parties. Using constituency-level election data linked to party-ideology measures across 96 countries, we show that in 20–30% of multiparty elections since 1940 the Condorcet winner does not win, and in roughly 10% the winner is the Condorcet loser. Failures are most common under plurality rule and in fragmented, volatile party systems, and systematically disadvantage opposition and culturally liberal parties while benefiting organizationally strong ones. Can information fix this? In four pre-registered experiments around Indian elections (N > 4, 000), constituency-level polls shift voting intentions by at most 2 percentage points, a precisely estimated null, despite modest belief updating, though undecided voters become 7 points more likely to support a viable party. A model with expressive motives rationalizes both results: polls refine beliefs but lack the leverage to overcome entrenched attachments, identifying boundary conditions on polls as coordination devices. |
| Keywords: | condorcet winner, coordination failures, polls |
| JEL: | D72 K16 P17 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12857 |
| By: | Zitian Adam (University of Manchester [Manchester]); Yingting Wen (EM - EMLyon Business School) |
| Abstract: | Brands communicate who they are through visual content (e.g., images, videos). How does the visual complexity of such content shape perceived brand status (prestige, luxury)? This research examines two key aspects of visual complexity: edge complexity (edge density and irregularity) and color complexity (hue quantity and dissimilarity). Drawing on computer-vision analyses of over 400, 000 visuals and a controlled experiment, the findings show that: (1) edge complexity exerts a U-shaped effect on perceived brand status, such that status perceptions are lowest at moderate levels of edge complexity and higher at low or high levels; (2) color complexity consistently reduces perceived brand status; and (3) these effects operate sequentially through perceived visual curation (how intentionally and professionally crafted a visual appears) and perceived exclusivity (how limited in availability the offering appears). Theoretical, methodological, and managerial implications are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Visual complexity, Brand status, Visual branding, Digital content marketing |
| Date: | 2026–07–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05704517 |
| By: | Kai Wang |
| Abstract: | There is a largely overlooked assumption underlying stochastic choice theory: menus are assigned exogenously, as if by a hidden randomized controlled trial. This assumption is not innocuous, because in many real-world settings menus are assigned endogenously according to the decision makers' preferences. This paper studies Random Utility Model under menu endogeneity and shows that any seemingly anomalous choice behavior can be generated by a population of rational decision makers with heterogeneous preferences facing endogenously assigned menus. To address this problem, I propose a new causal estimand: the probability that an alternative would be chosen from a given menu if that menu were presented to the entire population. I then characterize sharp bounds on this estimand using observed menu and choice frequencies. In addition, I show that when choices are observed across multiple markets with different preference distributions and a common menu-assignment rule, the causal estimands from those markets and the menu assignment rule are uniquely identified. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2607.08218 |
| By: | Pei Kuang; Li Tang; Michael Weber; Michael Weber |
| Abstract: | Expectations are typically modeled as functions of an agent’s information set. Using preregistered evidence, we show that beliefs depend instead on the information agents retrieve when forming them. Even after observing identical histories of inflation or stock returns, individuals recall different observations, and their beliefs track what they retrieve. Selective recall therefore generates disagreement, within-person belief instability, and heterogeneity in subjective uncertainty without any new information. We formalize these patterns in a parsimonious model in which agents store observed signals, retrieve each only probabilistically, and update optimally using recalled rather than objectively available information. The model yields sharp predictions for how beliefs vary with the composition of stored information, recall probabilities, and contextual cues. Large-scale experiments that hold information fixed and intervene only after exposure confirm these predictions, while survey evidence on macroeconomic and financial expectations supports their external relevance. Disagreement, instability, and uncertainty are thus structural features of belief formation rather than mere measurement error. |
| Keywords: | belief disagreement, belief instability, ambivalence, subjective uncertainty, contextual cues |
| JEL: | E31 D84 C83 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12849 |
| By: | Guirado, Carlos; Oum, SangHyouk; Griswold, Julia; Walker, Joan |
| Abstract: | Public acceptance remains a major barrier to autonomous vehicle (AV) deployment, yet most perception research relies on hypothetical surveys or small controlled experiments with AV-naive respondents. This cross-sectional study surveys 811 San Francisco Bay Area residents with real-world AV exposure (376 robotaxi passengers and 435 non-passengers: pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers) in one of the world’s most mature deployment environments. We ask whether trust levels among AV-exposed residents differ from national baselines, whether trust varies by interaction mode, and whether experience is associated with differential recalibration of specific safety concerns. We find that 61% trust AVs to be safe, 4.7 times the 13% national rate. Trust varies sharply by mode: passengers report 82% trust versus 43-45% among non-passengers. Even non-riders far exceed national levels, consistent with ambient exposure beyond ridership alone contributing to higher trust, though residential selection cannot be ruled out. Concern about system malfunction is significantly lower among passengers (45%) than pedestrians and cyclists (63%), consistent with recalibration through direct performance feedback, whereas concern about unpredictable human behavior remains constant across all modes ( ∼ 55%). These patterns suggest that experience is associated with attenuation of technology-related concerns while human-behavior concerns persist: a divergence with implications for communication strategies and infrastructure design as AV deployment expands. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences, Autonomous vehicles, Safety perception, Trust in automation, Experience effects, Human-AV interaction, Driver/pedestrian psychology |
| Date: | 2026–08–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt9zw2w5tz |
| By: | Woerner, Andrej; Imai, Taisuke; Pace, Davide; Schmidt, Klaus |
| Abstract: | Carbon pricing is a powerful but politically contentious tool for tackling climate change. Governments can, however, try to increase public support for it by adjusting how the revenues raised by the carbon price are used. In a fully incentivised experiment with a large representative sample of the German population, we compare voter support for five different carbon pricing schemes. We show that uniform carbon dividends (equal per capita transfers to all citizens) receive substantially more support than a carbon dividend that favours poorer people, than earmarking revenues for climate projects, and especially than using revenues for the general government budget. Among the uniform carbon dividend schemes, a Climate Premium that pays a fixed upfront transfer equal to the expected carbon revenues receives more support than a carbon dividend scheme where the size of the transfer is determined ex-post based on the actual revenues. Furthermore, we show that participants and experts underestimate public support for carbon pricing. These findings suggest that policies for sustainable development gain more support when affected voters are uniformly compensated for the costs imposed on them. In addition, the paper highlights the importance of incentivised experiments in studying public support for such policies. |
| JEL: | H23 P48 Q54 Q58 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19590 |
| By: | Victor H. Aguiar |
| Abstract: | Economics uses different behavioural models for risk, time, losses, valuation, and social choice. I study a unified choice experiment in which the same decision makers face all these domains. I hide a decision maker's choices in one domain and ask a frozen tabular foundation model to recover them from that decision maker's choices elsewhere and labelled choices by other participants. The foundation model improves on the training-sample median, and the gain disappears when visible choices are shuffled across decision makers. I then estimate one random-utility model over the foundation model's learned representation. This structural model applies the same utility function in every domain, retains most of the foundation model's reduction in prediction error, predicts domains excluded from utility estimation, and reproduces how behavioural measures co-move across people. The resulting model separates three objects: a learned common choice domain, one systematic utility function on that domain, and one random component that generates stochastic choice on observed menus. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.06842 |
| By: | Nicoli, Francesco; Biten Butorac, Merve (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Crises are often treated as engines of European integration, although the public-opinion mechanism behind crisis-led integration remains underspecified. This article argues that support for EU crisis powers depends on the configuration of the crisis: its symmetry, intensity, field of impact, direct national exposure, and attribution of responsibility. The argument is tested through a crisis-profile conjoint experiment fielded in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom between 20 April and 1 May 2025. Respondents evaluated crisis profiles and indicated whether the EU should receive fewer powers, no change in powers, or more powers to address the crisis. The results indicate that military crises, high-intensity crises, symmetric crises, and crises directly affecting the respondent's country create more favourable public-opinion conditions for EU competence expansion. Fiscal and economic crises generate less support than military crises and natural-disaster crises. Attribution of responsibility mainly affects opposition to integration: when EU policies are not blamed for the crisis, respondents become less likely to prefer fewer EU powers. These findings identify demand-side conditions under which stylised crisis descriptions make European action more acceptable as protection against a common shock. |
| Date: | 2026–07–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:audc8_v1 |
| By: | Klein, Tobias; Salm, Martin |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether financial incentives for general practitioners (GPs) can effectively replace patient cost-sharing within a gatekeeper healthcare system in which the GP regulates access to specialist care. We estimate the effects of incentives provided to GPs by exploiting a field experiment in which treated GPs received a share of the cost savings they achieved. There was also a set of control practices. The patient population includes about 26, 000 individuals and is largely representative of the overall population in the Netherlands. We estimate the effects of incentives for patients provided by a deductible using a simulated instrumental variables approach. For both sets of analyses, we use the same measures of healthcare costs, the same time period, and the same population of patients. Our findings show that the incentives provided to GPs reduce costs by 4.3 percent, mainly by decreasing less-urgent specialist care. A small patient deductible of 375 euros per year reduces costs by 27.8 percent in each month in which patients still have to pay out-of-pocket and 10.4 percent at the annual level, impacting all types of care. In contrast, physicians discriminate by type and priority of care. We do not find clear patterns for the interaction of incentives provided to GPs and patients. Our results suggest that GP incentives may complement but not fully replace patient deductibles in managing healthcare costs effectively. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19578 |