|
on Experimental Economics |
| By: | John A. List |
| Abstract: | Consider a referee report containing the sentence: “Assignment to treatment was voluntary, though the authors acknowledge this as a limitation in the conclusion.” The Editor would summarily reject. Now replace “assignment to treatment” with “entry into the experimental sample, ” and the sentence describes the modal published experiment. This study shows that both biases are the same mathematical object. The bias from non-random sample entry is the sorting-on-gains term from the classic selection decomposition. Interestingly, they both admit an isomorphic Roy micro-foundation and inverse-Mills characterization. A simple calibration reveals that for the typical experiment, the observed bias can be large. One solution to this bias is to conduct a natural field experiment (NFE). When an NFE is not possible, three alternative reporting practices are offered. |
| JEL: | C21 C24 C9 C90 C91 C92 C93 C99 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35544 |
| By: | Benghalem, Hélène (University of Lausanne); Bächli, Mirjam (University of Lausanne); Tinello, Doriana (Univeristy of Geneva); Zuber, Sascha (University of Geneva); Cherubini, Mauro (University of Lausanne); Aschwanden, Damaris (University of Geneva); Kliegel, Matthias (University of Geneva); Lalive, Rafael (University of Lausanne); Pellizzari, Michele (University of Geneva) |
| Abstract: | Cognition is likely to be important for job search, but its role is not yet well understood. We study an online field experiment with jobseekers registered at the Swiss public employment services. Participants were randomly assigned to an online cognitive training program designed to strengthen core cognitive abilities and transversal cognitive abilities relevant for job search. Combining administrative and survey data on employment and earnings, we find that access to cognitive training substantially increases employment rates and earnings while reducing reliance on transfer income. In a simple search model, these findings could arise when cognition improves search effectiveness leading to lower search effort but higher chances of employment. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, online job search, cognitive training |
| JEL: | J64 J62 C93 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18886 |
| By: | Fabien Giauque; Mehdi Farsi; Michael Puntiroli |
| Keywords: | Incentivized Experiment, Charitable Giving, Dictator Game, Injunctive Norms, Perceived descriptive Norms |
| JEL: | D91 D64 C91 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irn:wpaper:26-08 |
| By: | Eszter Timár (Corvinus University of Budapest); Hubert János Kiss (ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies; Corvinus University of Budapest); Dániel Horn (ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies; Corvinus University of Budapest) |
| Abstract: | Response time is increasingly used as a window to look into decision-making process in economic experiments. Yet its interpretation is ambiguous: a fast response may reflect quick comprehension or an impulsive choice. We show that the source of this ambiguity is conceptual and can be resolved by a simple design feature: the separation of instruction and decision screens. Using data from approximately 1, 100 students in a lab-in-the-field experiment linked to standardized test scores, we decompose total response time into comprehension time and deliberation time. We show that each component is informative in its own right. Comprehension time is correlated with cognitive ability, providing a cost-free ability proxy in any experiment with split screens. Deliberation time is independent of ability but responds to the structure of the choice: heuristic choices are faster and decisions near the indifference point take longer. The decomposition recovers behavioral patterns that total response time obscures. |
| Keywords: | response time; comprehension; deliberation; cognitive ability; experimental economics |
| JEL: | C90 C91 D83 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:2611 |
| By: | Dioikitopoulos, Evangelos (Athens University of Economics and Business); Megalokonomou, Rigissa (Monash University); Sartori, Tommaso (Monash University); Zenou, Yves (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | Public information campaigns often rely on credible expert messengers to influence people’s beliefs. We study how messenger identity and communication technology shape persuasion in a large-scale randomized experiment on vaccination attitudes among young adults in Greece. Participants receive an identical public-health message that varies only in who delivers it—a medical scientist or a social media influencer—and in how it is delivered—through immersive virtual reality or conventional video. Exposure raises trust in vaccines and trust in the healthcare system. Scientists are rated substantially more credible than influencers yet are no more persuasive on average; the two groups’ effectiveness rests on different characteristics—the scientists’ on perceived reliability and knowledgeability, the influencers’ on personal appeal, prior familiarity, and reputation. We find that persuasion is greater under virtual reality, consistent with stronger engagement. Changes in beliefs persist for at least six months, and initially hesitant participants report greater willingness to vaccinate. A model in which engagement, prior uncertainty, and effective credibility enter persuasion multiplicatively rationalizes these patterns. |
| Keywords: | randomized experiment, persuasion, belief formation, source credibility, messenger familiarity, social media influencers, virtual reality, engagement, health communication, vaccination |
| JEL: | C93 D83 I12 D91 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18900 |
| By: | Kaeppel, Katharina; Mo, Zhexun; Schröder, Carsten; Yang, Li |
| Abstract: | Can correcting large misperceptions about foreign economic exposure change preferences over economic integration? We study this question in a high-stakes setting, Chinese direct investment in Germany, with a survey experiment embedded in the German SocioEconomic Panel (N = 2, 365) and a comparative survey in China (N = 2, 000). Germans overestimate Chinese FDI more than 30-fold (perceived 33% vs. actual 1%) and evaluate it far less favorably than EU or US investment, while Chinese respondents view German FDI positively. We test the effects of three randomized interventions on attitudes: a factual correction and two narrative framings. Factual information improves stated perceptions of the economic benefits of Chinese FDI by about 0.2 standard deviations, positive narratives produce smaller gains, and negative narratives leave these perceptions unchanged, consistent with already-low baseline beliefs. Yet these changes in perceptions do not translate into changes in preferences over foreign investors. In conjoint choices between hypothetical investment proposals, Chinese investors are 40 percentage points less likely to be chosen than otherwise identical EU investors, and respondents require a Chinese acquirer to save about 40% more jobs than an EU or US acquirer before viewing the offers as equivalent; both estimates remain statistically unchanged across all treatment arms. These results demonstrate that brief informational interventions cannot reshape entrenched attitudes toward investment from geopolitically distant partners, though they can improve assessments of its instrumental benefits. |
| Keywords: | Foreign direct investment, Public opinion, Survey experiment, Misperceptions, Narrative framing, Conjoint analysis |
| JEL: | C93 D83 D91 F21 F50 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:343113 |
| By: | Amrote Seyoum Getu (TU Berlin); Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel (TU Berlin); Michel Tolksdorf (TU Berlin); Eva Wiese (TU Berlin) |
| Abstract: | We study how perceived teammate identity shapes effort allocation in hybrid human–artificial agent teams in collaborative environments. In a real-effort online experiment and under different incentive schemes, fixed payment and team competition, participants work in a team where each team member is responsible for their own segment but can observe and intervene in teammates’ segments. Teammates are algorithmically controlled agents, framed as either artificial or human-like, with their actual behavior held constant across treatments. Participants exert approximately one-third less compensatory effort when teammates are presented with human-like cues than when they are transparently labeled as artificial, and this difference is robust across both incentive schemes. The pattern is consistent with a model in which perceived human identity reduces the non-monetary benefit of helping. The result highlights that in hybrid teams, the labeling and presentation of artificial collaborators have economically meaningful consequences for cooperative effort and the organization of team production. |
| Keywords: | human–ai collaboration; online experiment; team incentives; teamwork; tournaments; |
| JEL: | C91 D29 D83 D89 |
| Date: | 2026–07–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:580 |
| By: | Berk, Christopher; Nunez, Lucas; Burkhardt, Brett C (Oregon State University) |
| Abstract: | A substantial literature on welfare politics shows that public support for redistribution depends on markers like need, effort, and reciprocity that sort recipients into deserving and undeserving categories. We test whether incarceration status functions as a particularly powerful deservingness marker, structured by the eighteenth-century principle of "less eligibility": that no one subject to punishment should fare better than the poorest free person. Using a pre-registered conjoint experiment with a representative U.S. sample (N = 1, 929), we find that incarcerated applicants to an identical rehabilitative program receive substantially less public support than otherwise-comparable poor or welfare-dependent applicants — a penalty that persists even when the incarcerated applicant is shown to benefit more from the program than the comparison case. Decomposing the moral-cultural mechanisms behind this penalty, we find community-belonging and cost-benefit evidence each narrow it somewhat, while signals of the applicant's hard work and reliability paradoxically widen it. The incarceration penalty, we argue, operates as a durable boundary of moral exclusion rather than a correctable informational gap, with implications for how welfare-state and punishment scholarship jointly understand deservingness. |
| Date: | 2026–08–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:3dn9y_v1 |
| By: | David Autor; Tanya Rodchenko; Josh Martin; Zanna Iscenko; Scott Strand; David Pearl; Melissa Ferere |
| Abstract: | Whether AI assistance builds or erodes professional expertise is unsettled. In a pre-registered three-month randomized controlled trial, we gave 133 practicing patent lawyers at eleven U.S. intellectual property law firms access to a custom AI drafting assistant and measured both their performance while using AI and their professional judgment afterward without it. All work was scored by blinded expert patent attorneys. Paralleling findings from other white-collar domains, AI access raised the quality of work delivered on benchmark patent drafting tasks at 10 days (0.34 SD, p = 0.03) and 90 days (0.38 SD, p = 0.01), with larger gains among junior lawyers. After three months, all subjects redlined an existing patent application without AI, a core task of patent practice requiring expert judgment. Treated lawyers outperformed controls by 0.32 SD (p = 0.04), but this advantage was concentrated entirely among senior lawyers (0.45 SD, p = 0.02). Junior lawyers showed no average gain; their scores instead bifurcated, with sharply fewer mediocre scores offset by more poor and more good ones. The largest gains from AI thus accrued to the lawyers who retained the least. Foundational expertise may be a prerequisite for extracting durable skill from AI-assisted practice. |
| JEL: | I24 I29 J0 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35720 |
| By: | Claudio Schilter; Thea S. Zoellner |
| Abstract: | Many firms in tight labor markets recruit for highly gender-segregated occupations, leaving them, in effect, drawing from only half the potential labor pool. We study how firms can use fringe benefits to attract workers and influence occupational choice. Unlike occupation-specific recruiting strategies, fringe benefits can be added to any occupation; they are also easily tailored, implemented, and scaled. Using a personalized and incentivized discrete choice experiment, we present participants with job options that match their skills and work task preferences. Within each option, we vary salary, occupation, and fringe benefits that adolescents had classified as gender-neutral, male-typed, or female-typed. We find that fringe benefits are highly valued: their effect is around a third as large as having prior interest in the occupation. Neutral and stereotypical benefits in particular improve perceptions of the firm across multiple dimensions. Furthermore, we find substantial gender differences. Female-typed benefits deter male participants, whereas all other benefit-participant combinations have a positive effect. Female participants value benefits more when those benefits are paired with an atypical occupation, and we find suggestive evidence that this reflects benefits alleviating concerns about limited support in such roles. In addition, male-typed benefits can increase the attractiveness of gender-atypical occupations for female participants. Female participants who consider atypical occupations place relatively higher value on these benefits and tend to exhibit less traditionally feminine preferences. We also find suggestive evidence that anticipated social reactions, particularly from parents, accompany these choices. |
| Keywords: | occupational choice, fringe benefits, gender |
| JEL: | J20 J24 J28 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0259 |
| By: | Michela Carlana; Francesca Miserocchi; Eleonora Patacchini |
| Abstract: | Professionals routinely make consequential decisions for others without systematically observing how those decisions turn out. Whether such decisions reflect accurate forecasting or systematically distorted beliefs has important implications for equality of opportunity. We study this question in the context of teachers' recommendations for high school tracks by combining nationwide administrative data, randomized vignette experiments, belief elicitation, and a field experiment. Holding students' academic performance and interests constant, teachers are significantly less likely to recommend demanding academic tracks when students come from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. This differential treatment is accompanied by systematically inaccurate beliefs: teachers substantially overestimate the probability that high-achieving disadvantaged students will fail in academically demanding schools. We then provide teachers with personalized feedback on their previous recommendations and objective information on the realized success of disadvantaged students. The intervention substantially reduces socioeconomic gaps in recommendations for high-achieving students. Effects are concentrated among boys assigned to teachers with the largest prior recommendation gaps and the most inaccurate beliefs. Among the high-achieving disadvantaged boys most affected by the intervention, these changes translate into higher enrollment in demanding academic tracks, without detectable adverse effects on short-run academic performance. |
| JEL: | I24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35701 |
| By: | Thomas Dee; Chloe R. Gibbs; Rebecca Margolit-Chan; Lillian Morrell; James X. Sullivan |
| 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. |
| JEL: | I24 I26 I31 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35558 |
| By: | Sahil Loomba; Dean Eckles |
| Abstract: | In the presence of interference, where the treatment assigned to one unit can affect the outcomes of others, many causal estimands depend on the treatment-assignment policy under which the experiment is conducted. This policy dependence creates a fundamental challenge for off-policy estimation, where the goal is to estimate causal quantities under a hypothetical intervention policy different from the one used to collect data. We study this problem of off-policy estimation of causal effects for heterogeneous Bernoulli policies. By representing exposure-weighted potential outcomes in the biased Fourier basis of the experimental design, we construct, for any prespecified Fourier subspace encoding the assumed interference structure, the unique minimum-$L^2$ weight that transports every function in that subspace. Global and local inverse-probability weights, linear-interference weights, and no-interference weights are special cases. The weight variance is a structured chi-square distance between the experiment and target policies. When the assumed interference structure is misspecified, the introduced bias couples the omitted outcome spectrum with the corresponding policy-shift coefficients, yielding a sharp robustness bound and a bias-variance trade-off. A Fourier-neighborhood-overlap condition gives consistency under structured interference, and we state a Doob-martingale central limit theorem for off-policy estimators. As the variance is not identified, we derive identifiable bounds and associated conservative estimators of the variance. Simulations illustrate these theoretical results for the design and analysis of experiments under network interference and design mismatch. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.02756 |
| By: | Maria Balgova (Bank of England and IZA); Tsegay Tekleselassie (Wellesley College); Lukas Hensel (Peking University); Marc Witte (VU Amsterdam, Tinbergen Institute and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Wage information is rare in job adverts, yet crucial for search. To study this information friction, we run a field experiment with real vacancies, randomly adding or withholding wage information. Disclosing wages does not change average application volumes. Instead, it amplifies the wage elasticity of applications: higher‑wage vacancies receive more applicants, while lower‑wage vacancies receive fewer. Average applicant quality remains unchanged, challenging standard directed search models. We rationalise the lack of skill‑based sorting with two‑sided limited information about applicants’ skills. We further show that firms’ decision not to post wages can act as insurance against unproductive matches. |
| Keywords: | Vacancy posting;wage posting;information;field experiment;job search. |
| JEL: | C93 J31 J62 J63 |
| Date: | 2025–10–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:023270 |
| By: | Sarika Gupta; Jessica Leight; Daniel W. Maggio; Simone G. Schaner |
| Abstract: | Households' most consequential economic decisions are usually made jointly, yet behavioral interventions are typically targeted to individuals and optimized to overcome intra-personal constraints. We use a randomized controlled trial to study whether behavioral interventions targeted to couples can overcome interpersonal constraints related to intra-household decision-making. In rural Liberia, we layer a facilitated joint financial planning exercise atop a large unconditional cash transfer, assessing effects relative to cash only and a pure control. Relative to cash only, adding planning increases the amount of the transfer spent on productive investment and consequently improves economic outcomes by 0.16 standard deviation units. However, for households with the highest ex-ante conflict risk, these gains come at the cost of additional intimate partner violence. |
| JEL: | D13 I30 J12 J16 O12 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35478 |
| By: | Matthias Rodemeier (Bocconi University); Jared Gars (University of Florida); Justin Holz (University of Michigan); Egon Tripodi (Hertie School); Juan Miguel Villa (Inter-American Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | Governments increasingly encourage socially desirable behavior with probabilistic incentives. We study such “Pigouvian lotteries” in a retirement-savings field experiment with 387, 000 workers in Colombia’s public pension system. The lotteries induce sharp bunching at qualification thresholds, but workers mostly meet them by retiming rather than increasing deposits, leaving overall savings largely unaffected. Lotteries further crowd out valuable life and disability insurance and disproportionately reward wealthier savers. A welfare analysis shows that, once we account for these unintended consequences, lotteries reduce welfare. Our findings illustrate that behavioral spillovers across time and choice domains can reverse the verdict on behavioral public policies. |
| Keywords: | retirement savings; prize-linked savings; paternalism; informality; household finance; |
| JEL: | D14 D91 H55 C93 G52 |
| Date: | 2026–09–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:582 |
| By: | Changxia Ke; Greg Kubitz; Yang Liu |
| Abstract: | We study auctions with costly entry in which bidders have incomplete information about their affiliated private valuations prior to entry. We examine whether indicative bidding--a mechanism requiring non-binding preliminary bids before entry--can stimulate participation and improve entrant selection, and we compare its performance with unrestricted and capped entry in a controlled laboratory experiment. When entry costs are high, indicative bidding generates significantly more revenue, primarily by increasing participation beyond theoretical predictions. When entry costs are low, its predicted revenue advantage is attenuated by higher-than-predicted selection inefficiency. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.24457 |
| By: | Debruyne, Victor (Ghent University); Devos, Louise (Ghent University); Moens, Eline (Ghent University); Baert, Stijn (Ghent University) |
| Abstract: | University credentials are among the most visible signals on a graduate’s CV, but it remains unclear whether and why employers respond to institutional prestige, a shared alma mater, or neither. In this letter, we employ a state-of-the-art factorial survey experiment with genuine recruiters to shed further light on this question. We find that sharing an alma mater indeed increases perceived collaboration potential in Belgium. This does not, however, translate into a higher propensity to invite candidates for an interview, nor does mentioning a degree from a higher-ranked university. The alma mater effect therefore appears, at least in Belgium, not to generate a prestige premium, but rather to reflect a narrower perception of interpersonal fit. |
| Keywords: | hiring, alma mater, university prestige, recruiter perceptions |
| JEL: | C90 I23 J24 M51 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18908 |
| By: | Devos, Louise (Ghent University); Lippens, Louis (Ghent University); Baert, Stijn (Ghent University) |
| Abstract: | Religious discrimination in hiring is rarely studied independently from ethnic discrimination. We fill this gap using a preregistered factorial survey experiment in which professional recruiters evaluate candidate profiles that independently vary by ethnic majority versus minority names, visual religious signals, and volunteering activities signalling either Christian or Muslim religious affiliation. Beyond hiring intentions, we measure recruiters’, colleagues’, and customers’ anticipated willingness to work with candidates, as well as recruiters’ HEXACO personality assessments of the candidates. Candidates whose religious position recruiters identify receive lower interview ratings than candidates whose position remains unclear to them, and this penalty does not differ between Christian, Muslim, and atheist attributions; interview propensity declines further as attributed religiosity rises; and among the assigned signals, only religious volunteering reduces hiring chances. Religious candidates are not regarded as less diligent or less honest, but as less likely to be accepted by others. |
| Keywords: | religion, hiring, discrimination, factorial survey experiment |
| JEL: | C83 J61 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18906 |
| By: | E. Jason Baron; Arkadev Ghosh; Richard Lombardo |
| Abstract: | Many public-sector decisions require allocating scarce attention under uncertainty. We examine whether algorithmic risk assessments improve child-protection decisions, where supervisors decide which cases need closer scrutiny. In a randomized evaluation of 4, 752 child referrals over 14 months in Northampton County, supervisors received an algorithmic risk score alongside standard case records. Access to the score increased foster-care placements and services for children at highest predicted risk, with little change for lower-risk cases, and it reduced subsequent maltreatment referrals. We find no evidence that the score widened racial disparities in decisions or outcomes, suggesting algorithms can improve targeting while preserving human discretion. |
| JEL: | C93 I38 J13 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35540 |
| By: | Garro, Carmen; Ortega, Fernanda |
| Abstract: | This replication report examines the reproducibility of Vaz et al. (2024), who demonstrate the Cumulative Redundancy Bias (CRB)-the tendency to favor early-leading candidates and to suspect fraud when a late reversal occurs. Using the authors' openly available raw data and analysis code, we successfully reproduced all reported results across seven preregistered studies. The only discrepancy identified was a minor difference in Experiment 5, which did not affect the results of the study. In addition, the authors conducted non-parametric tests for all experiments in the complementary documents. We verified and reported their results, concluding that the authors have followed good practices for the replication of their outcomes. The non-parametric tests support the original findings: early leaders were consistently evaluated more positively, and late-lead scenarios reliably increased perceived manipulation, even when using real election data, presenting results as percentages, providing explanatory information, or accounting for partisanship. The evidence strengthens the conclusion that sequential reporting of partial results can distort perceptions of electoral integrity, underscoring the importance of communication strategies that better convey vote-count dynamics and uncertainty. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:316 |
| By: | Esslinger, Anna |
| Abstract: | This study investigates how the connection of taxation to public benefits can decrease tax payers' perceived tax burden, affecting their labor-leisure decision. We present a model of tax and benefit (mis)-perception, in which payoff maximizing work effort increases when the perceived tax burden de- creases. Increasing the salience of benefits funded by taxation and the prob- ability of receiving them decreases this perceived tax burden. We use two real-effort online experiments to test the suppositions of the model. In a flat tax system, we find that lack of information on the accrual of benefits increases perceived tax burden and decreases labor supply. In a progressive tax system, we find that full benefit salience improves motivation to re- main in the unemployment insurance system and that effort increases under benefit salience when the unemployment rate is high. As such, behavioral responses to the salience of benefits also requires the expectation of their need. |
| Keywords: | Work Motivation, Online Experiment, Tax and Benefit Salience, Unemployment Insurance |
| JEL: | D91 H24 J22 J31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:aluord:343050 |
| By: | Travis Baseler; Jules Gazeaud; Erik Snowberg |
| Abstract: | We derive four facts from experiments on the spillover effects of cash and in-kind transfer programs onto non-recipients: (1) average spillovers on consumption and asset value are negligible; (2) negative psychological spillovers emerge in the longer term among households randomly excluded from transfers by within-village lotteries; (3) these spillovers are concentrated in consumption-poor households; and (4) they do not appear when the selection of transfer recipients is eligibility-based. These findings are consistent with household preferences against within-village randomization of transfers, and point to additional benefits of cluster-level randomized designs over household-level ones. |
| JEL: | C93 D62 F35 I31 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35681 |
| By: | Maria Dieci; Paul Gertler; Jonathan T. Kolstad; Carlos Paramo |
| Abstract: | Unnecessary treatment reflects a gap between what patients believe about their health and their true condition; people often seek and consume care for diseases they suspect, but do not know that actually have. The value a patient places on testing therefore depends on their priors about being sick, and when those beliefs are biased, the resulting testing rate might be sub-optimal and leave welfare on the table. We study diagnosis-contingent incentive contracts, which tie treatment incentives to diagnostic results. For malaria, the contract subsidizes rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and antimalarials (ACTs) only for patients who test positive. In a cluster-randomized experiment across 140 Kenyan pharmacies, both patient subsidies and provider incentives roughly tripled testing and sharply reduced unnecessary ACT purchases among test-negative patients, working through distinct channels: patient subsidies through lower prices, provider incentives through information and advice. A model of patient choice implies these contracts raise social welfare well above their cost. Estimating the model structurally, we find that because patients substantially overestimate their infection risk, loading incentives onto diagnosis-contingent treatment discounts delivers four times the welfare gains of free testing programs. |
| JEL: | I11 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35543 |
| By: | Yuanyuan Shen; Yiren Yan; Wenjie Li; Chunhui Zhu |
| Abstract: | Industrial recommenders give new content initial views through budgeted exploration, then use early performance to decide further delivery. On many short-video platforms, exploration is the primary way new videos reach viewers. Viewer-side tests measure consumption; the published budget objectives we review omit creator response. We analyze four experiments on a major short-video platform. An eight-month creator ablation finds production exploration raises videos posted per creator by 8.55% and creators posting at least once by 7.10% relative to a minimal floor. A budget-matched reallocation raises creator participation with no detectable short-run viewer-side change. A year-long viewer ablation finds 1.74% more video views but 2.13% less view time. A delivered view creates immediate feed value, can trigger organic take-up, and can induce creator supply. Take-up and supply replenish a shared corpus, creating two measurement limits. Viewer-side A/B tests cancel the corpus effect when both arms consume the same corpus. Giving each arm its own corpus avoids cancellation, but turnover still controls the horizon. If the corpus turns over at rate w per posting cycle, a t-cycle experiment expresses at most wt of the eventual corpus effect. More users reduce noise but do not speed turnover. Before the corpus path visibly bends, data cannot distinguish a modest fast effect from an arbitrarily large slow one, so a valid confidence interval may lack a finite upper endpoint. As predicted, the three-week co-diverted experiment cannot determine the sign of the eventual corpus effect. Within the window, it identifies the direct feed effect, and an exploratory cohort analysis detects organic lift after exploration ends. The experiments establish a positive creator response, measure the gross corpus flow visible within three weeks, and show the design and duration needed to identify total value. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.29430 |
| By: | Jordans, Mark J.D.; Lund, Crick; Garman, Emily; Seifert Bonifaz, Manuel; Avendano, Mauricio; Bauer, Annette; Dedios Sanguineti, Maria Cecilia; Eleftheriou, Georgia; Evans-Lacko, Sara; García Jaramillo, Sandra; García, Juan Felipe; Gautam, Kamal; Gevonden, Martin; Jacobs, Roxanne; Kohrt, Brandon A.; Krabbendam, Lydia; Luitel, Nagendra P.; van der Merwe, Nicci; Castellanos Piedrahita, Juan Jose; Singh, Rakesh; Sinichi, Mohammadamin; Trujillo, Daniela; Sorsdahl, Katherine; Roy, Sanchari; Tol, Wietse A.; Rojas, Daniela; Yarrow, Paula |
| Abstract: | Background Poverty is associated with depression and anxiety among adolescents, but evidence of interventions that prevent adolescent depression and anxiety among adolescents living in poverty is weak. Interventions either focus on reducing poverty or addressing depression and anxiety, but an approach that combines both may offer larger benefit. This multi-site parallel pilot cluster randomised controlled trial (cRCT) evaluates the feasibility and acceptability of a selective preventive intervention for depression and anxiety that simultaneously intervenes on both poverty and self-regulation among adolescents living in urban poverty. Methods The study takes place in Bogotá (Colombia), Kathmandu (Nepal) and Cape Town (South Africa). The pilot cRCT has four arms: (i) self-regulation intervention, (ii) economic intervention, (iii) combined (self-regulation + economic) intervention, and (iv) control group (care as usual). Interventions consist of 20 weekly group sessions with adolescents, and 6 monthly group sessions with their caregivers. The self-regulation intervention for adolescents includes psychological activities (mindfulness breathing, problem solving, biofeedback and goal setting) and a physical activity. The economic intervention includes three dimensions (financial training, negotiation training, education information) and a monthly cash transfer. In each site, the aim was to recruit 240 adolescents and their caregivers across eight schools (clusters), with two schools randomised to each arm. Adolescents residing in areas at risk of multidimensional poverty and who had symptoms of depression or anxiety, but who did not meet thresholds indicating depression and anxiety disorders, were considered for enrolment. Recruitment into the study is complete: a total of 628 adolescents and 536 caregivers were enrolled. Participants will be assessed four times: at enrolment, post-intervention and at 12 and 18 months post-enrolment. Primary outcomes include feasibility and acceptability criteria for study and intervention delivery procedures (i.e. randomisation, masking, recruitment, retention, missingness, fidelity, attendance, adverse events) defined as traffic light criteria to assess progression to an adequately powered trial. Secondary outcomes include self-report instruments, physiological measures and neuropsychological tasks. Discussion The effectiveness of combining self-regulation and anti-poverty interventions remains untested. This study will establish the feasibility and acceptability of delivering such an intervention, as well as test the trial procedures to inform a future adequately powered trial. Trial registration ISRCTN 14601588. Retrospectively registered. Date: 19 May 2024. |
| Keywords: | adolescence;anxiety;depression;prevention;poverty;self-regulation;cash transfer |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2026–12–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138586 |
| By: | Mameno, Kota; Sato, Masayuki; Shoji, Yasushi; KUBO, Takahiro (National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)) |
| Abstract: | Biodiversity credit schemes have gained attention as a mechanism for mobilizing private finance for biodiversity conservation. As primary suppliers of biodiversity outcomes in agricultural landscapes, farmers’ willingness to participate is critical to the success of these schemes. However, little is known about farmers' preferences for biodiversity credit designs, particularly regarding metrics used to certify biodiversity outcomes and the spatial scales at which biodiversity credits are implemented. To our knowledge, this is the first study to provide empirical evidence on how certification metrics and implementation scales influence farmers' preferences for voluntary biodiversity credit schemes. A discrete choice experiment with a latent class model were applied to examine Japanese farmers' preferences for alternative biodiversity credit schemes. The results showed substantial heterogeneity in farmers' willingness to participate in biodiversity credit schemes, with approximately half of the farmers belonging to a participation-averse group. In both groups, implementation scale was the primary determinant of participation decisions. Farmers preferred individual farmland scale implementation over coordinated participation. Certification metric exerted limited influence on participation decisions, suggesting that ecosystem-based credits can be implemented without substantially reducing farmers' willingness to participate. Additional bonuses increased participation among farmers already willing to participate, but had little effect on initially reluctant farmers . Membership analysis indicated that willingness to participate was positively associated with biodiversity policy awareness, biodiversity-friendly farming practices, pro-biodiversity attitudes, and expectations of branding-related benefits. Expanding voluntary biodiversity credit markets, therefore, requires not only financial compensation but also information provision, demonstration projects, and communication of potential market benefits. |
| Date: | 2026–08–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:43yg5_v1 |
| By: | Jianhao Lin; Lexuan Sun; Yixin Yan |
| Abstract: | Tariff threats can move household beliefs before policy is enacted, yet their rapidly changing language is difficult to study with conventional surveys. We build a multi-agent system that turns 300 households from the Michigan Surveys of Consumers into persistent large-language-model agents exposed to social-media information over several simulated months. Calibrated agents reproduce some distributional and demographic patterns in human survey data collected after the announcement of Liberation Day tariffs. Simulated experiments indicate that immediacy, rate salience, semantic progression, message complexity, narrative, and sender identity jointly shape inflation and unemployment expectations and their dispersion. Open-ended responses trace these effects to attention, ambiguity, credibility, and causal narratives. A second experiment finds that central-bank explanations can coordinate beliefs, although their effects on average expectations depend on message content. The framework supports disciplined exploration of policy communication, subject to human validation rather than as a substitute for it. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.30522 |
| By: | Yingxiang Li; Tong Liu; Ting Xu |
| Abstract: | We show that investor patience shapes venture-capital (VC) investment strategies and outcomes. Through a randomized experiment with Chinese fund managers, we demonstrate that managers explicitly tailor fund duration and project holding periods to the perceived horizons of their limited partner (LP) base. We find consistent evidence in the field, exploiting a 2014 Chinese reform that opened RMB-denominated VC funds to insurers. We compare treated RMB funds to unaffected USD-denominated funds run by the same general partners (GPs), both investing in Chinese startups. Insurer entry reshaped the LP base by displacing shorter-horizon investors such as individuals. Consequently, treated funds shifted strategy toward longer holding periods and earlier-stage investments, leading to improved portfolio company exits and innovation. Our results highlight the importance of patient ultimate investors in building a successful VC ecosystem, and offer a cautionary note on the ongoing retailization of private markets. |
| JEL: | G22 G23 G24 G32 O3 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35711 |
| By: | Davide Domenico Pace (LMU Munich, CesIfo); Johanna Kober (LMU Munich) |
| Abstract: | International climate negotiations focus on three distinct climate change costs: mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage. This paper measures voters' fairness views about how these costs should be allocated between nations, and investigates whether fairness views and beliefs about a country's responsibility matter for policy support. In an online survey experiment, the paper finds that fairness views vary with the type of cost, that voters underestimate their country responsibility, and that fairness views and beliefs jointly predict voters' climate policy preferences. The paper also implements tailored treatments to test whether fairness views and beliefs causally affect policy support, but it finds no evidence of a causal link. The results highlight that, to be consistent with citizens' fairness ideals, the international distribution of mitigation costs should differ from the one of adaptation and loss and damage. |
| Keywords: | climate change; international negotiations; policy support; fairness; misperceptions; |
| JEL: | D63 D91 F53 H41 Q54 |
| Date: | 2026–08–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:584 |
| By: | Pawel Struski; Jakub Swistak; Inez Okulska; Przemyslaw Biecek |
| Abstract: | Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed as economic agents, yet there is little evidence whether LLM agents are suited for participating in market mechanisms designed for humans, and whether these mechanisms deliver desired outcomes when faced with LLM agents. We address this question by replicating seminal economic experiments, replacing human subjects with LLM agents. We place agents in a double auction environment, which is a widely-used market mechanism. We check whether such a market is able to deliver an efficient allocation of resources, thereby testing a novel dimension of alignment of LLM agents -- their compatibility with a fundamental market mechanism. We find that markets populated by LLM agents exhibit slower or no convergence towards market equilibrium, thus providing less efficient allocations than markets populated by humans. We then analyze agents' individual trading decisions and find substantial heterogeneity both across model families and market roles. We also run a lexical analysis of Chain-of-Thought (CoT) traces generated by the agents. We find that the decision to execute a trade rather than continue incrementally adjusting prices is associated with a shift from strategic considerations toward urgency. We publicly release our testing framework, which can be used for future evaluations. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.02580 |
| By: | Louise Devos; Louis Lippens; Stijn Baert |
| Abstract: | interventions aimed at improving workers’ mental well-being. Specifically, it examines which types of interventions are effective for which aspects of mental well-being, both in the short and long term. To this end, we identify 125 randomised controlled trials comprising 147 interventions that vary in their objectives (prevention, treatment, or reintegration), targets (workers or work), methods (cognitive, meditation-based, physical, ergonomic, organisational, or multimethod) and delivery channels (offline, online or hybrid). Mental well-being outcomes are classified as biological and self-reported indicators of the three components of subjective mental well-being (evaluative, affective, and eudaimonic well-being). Overall, we find that, for preventing and treating early mental health symptoms, cognitive or meditation-based interventions targeting personal coping resources appear most promising. In contrast, successful reintegration seems to require a combination of cognitive and organisational interventions, with the latter addressing job demands and resources. |
| Keywords: | religion, hiring, discrimination, factorial survey experiment |
| JEL: | C83 J61 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:26/1151 |