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on Experimental Economics |
| By: | Yulia Evsyukova; Felix Rusche; Wladislaw Mill |
| Abstract: | We assess the impact of discrimination on Black individuals’ job networks across the U.S. using a two-stage field experiment with 400+ fictitious LinkedIn profiles. In the first stage, we vary race via AI-generated images only and find that Black profiles’ connection requests are 13 percent less likely to be accepted. Based on users’ CVs, we find widespread discrimination across social groups. In the second stage, we exogenously endow Black and White profiles with the same networks and ask connected users for career advice. We find no evidence of direct discrimination in information provision. However, when taking into account differences in the composition and size of networks, Black profiles receive substantially fewer replies. Our findings suggest that gatekeeping is a key driver of Black-White disparities. |
| Keywords: | discrimination, job networks, labor markets, field experiment |
| JEL: | J71 J15 C93 J46 D85 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11433 |
| By: | Alexander M. Danzer; Helen Zeidler |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates time inconsistencies in food consumption based on a field experiment at a college canteen where participants repeatedly select and consume lunch menus. The design features a convex non-monetary budget in a natural environment and satisfies the consume-on-receipt assumption. Leveraging 3, 666 choices of different food healthiness, we find no time inconsistency at the meal level. Utility weight estimates at the dish level reveal that consumers balance healthiness between food categories. Individuals who exert self-control take up a commitment device as soon as available, while non-committers are present-biased. Dynamic inconsistencies in food and money choices are independent. |
| Keywords: | field experiment, dynamic inconsistency, commitment, food consumption |
| JEL: | D12 D01 C93 D91 I12 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11454 |
| By: | Teevrat Garg; Ryan Hanna; Jeffrey Myers; Sebastian Tebbe; David G. Victor |
| Abstract: | To minimize the environmental costs of electric vehicles (EVs) and support decarbonizing electric grids, drivers must charge their EVs when renewable energy generation is abundant. To induce a shift in charging behavior toward daytime hours with ample solar energy, we conducted a field experiment (n = 629) at a large workplace to measure the influence of environmental nudges and financial incentives on the usage and timing of workplace charging. Environmental nudges led drivers to shift from early to later morning charging, whereas discounts to charge at work increased total workplace charging and prompted a shift from daytime to early morning and overnight charging. We identify three clusters of mechanisms explaining these temporal shifts: the utilization and reliability of the charging network, concerns about charger scarcity, and driver characteristics. Finally, we compute the societal effects of CO2 emissions and marginal electricity costs of these shifts in workplace charging sessions. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11445 |
| By: | Jana S. Hamdan; Tim Kaiser; Lukas Menkhoff; Yuanwei Xu |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of scaling up a financial- and business education program in a randomized saturation experiment in Uganda. We randomly assign the program at the cluster-level, and then randomize the share of treated individuals within treated clusters. 15 months later, we find that treated entrepreneurs are more likely to use mobile money savings accounts and payments, increase their mobile money and bank savings at the intensive and extensive margins, and invest more. We find little evidence of spillovers on untreated peers, but as the share of treated entrepreneurs increases, beneficial effects on the treated decline. |
| Keywords: | scaling, business training, financial literacy, micro-entrepreneurs, mobile money, spillover effects, saturation effects |
| JEL: | C93 D14 G53 O12 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11431 |
| By: | Alex Armand (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Britta Augsburg (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Antonella Bancalari (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Kalyan Kumar Kameshwara (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Date: | 2023–12–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:23/39 |
| By: | Wang Zhijian; Shan Lixia; Yao Qinmei; Wang Yijia |
| Abstract: | We conducted a laboratory experiment involving human subjects to test the theoretical hypothesis that equilibrium selection can be impacted by manipulating the games dynamics process, by using modern control theory. Our findings indicate that human behavior consists with the predictions derived from evolutionary game theory paradigm. The consistency is supported by three key observations: (1) the long-term distribution of strategies in the strategy space, (2) the cyclic patterns observed within this space, and (3) the speed of convergence to the selected equilibrium. These findings suggest that the design of controllers aimed at equilibrium selection can indeed achieve their theoretical intended purpose. The location of this study in the knowledge tree of evolutionary game science is presented. |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2411.06847 |
| By: | Feldhaus, Christoph (Ruhr University Bochum); Reinhardt, Lukas (University of Oxford); Sutter, Matthias (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) |
| Abstract: | In a democracy, it is essential that citizens accept rules and laws, regardless of which party is in power. We study why citizens in polarized societies resist rules implemented by political opponents. This may be due to the rules' specific content, but also because of a general preference against being restricted by political opponents. We develop a method to measure the latter channel. In our experiment with almost 1, 300 supporters and opponents of Donald Trump, we show that polarization undermines rule-following behavior significantly, independent of the rules' content. Subjects perceive the intentions behind (identical) rules as much more malevolent if they were imposed by a political opponent rather than a political ally. |
| Keywords: | political polarization, social identity, outgroup, economic preferences, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D90 D91 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17448 |
| By: | Tanmoy Das; Dohyeon Lee; Arnab Sinha |
| Abstract: | In industry, online randomized controlled experiment (a.k.a A/B experiment) is a standard approach to measure the impact of a causal change. These experiments have small treatment effect to reduce the potential blast radius. As a result, these experiments often lack statistical significance due to low signal-to-noise ratio. To improve the precision (or reduce standard error), we introduce the idea of trigger observations where the output of the treatment and the control model are different. We show that the evaluation with full information about trigger observations (full knowledge) improves the precision in comparison to a baseline method. However, detecting all such trigger observations is a costly affair, hence we propose a sampling based evaluation method (partial knowledge) to reduce the cost. The randomness of sampling introduces bias in the estimated outcome. We theoretically analyze this bias and show that the bias is inversely proportional to the number of observations used for sampling. We also compare the proposed evaluation methods using simulation and empirical data. In simulation, evaluation with full knowledge reduces the standard error as much as 85%. In empirical setup, evaluation with partial knowledge reduces the standard error by 36.48%. |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2411.03530 |
| By: | Minahil Asim; Ronak Jain; Vatsal Khandelwal |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of communicating student-specific teacher expectations on academic performance. We randomize whether students (a) receive high-performance expectations, (b) are additionally paired with a classmate for encouragement, (c) receive information about past performance, or (d) receive no message. Expectations increase math scores by 0.19σ, with especially large effects among students who randomly received ambitious expectations and were predicted to performpoorly. Information provision has comparably large effects (0.16σ), particularly in schools with low parental literacy. However, pairing students only improves scores when peers have similar characteristics. Our findings highlight low-cost, sustainable ways of leveraging teachers to improve performance. |
| Keywords: | Expectations, information, peer effects, motivation, performance |
| JEL: | D91 D84 I24 I25 C93 D83 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:454 |
| By: | Anup Malani (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Cynthia Kinnan (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Gabriella Conti (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Kosuke Imai (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Morgen Miller (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Shailender Swaminathan (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Alessandra Voena (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Bartosz Woda (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Date: | 2024–03–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:24/04 |
| By: | Pedro Carneiro; Yyannu Cruz Aguayo; Francesca Salvati; Norbert Schady |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of classroom rank on children’s learning using a unique experiment from Ecuador. Within each school, students were randomly assigned to classrooms in every grade between kindergarten and 6th grade. Students with the same ability can have different classroom ranks because of the (random) peer composition of their classroom. Children with higher beginning-of-grade classroom rank have significantly higher test scores at the end of that grade. The impact of classroom rank is larger for younger children and grows over time. Higher classroom rank also improves executive function, child happiness, and teacher perceptions of student ability. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11456 |
| By: | Sihui Zhao; Xinbo Wang; Lin Liu; Xin Zhang |
| Abstract: | Higher-Order Influence Functions (HOIF), developed in a series of papers over the past twenty years, is a fundamental theoretical device for constructing rate-optimal causal-effect estimators from observational studies. However, the value of HOIF for analyzing well-conducted randomized controlled trials (RCT) has not been explicitly explored. In the recent US Food \& Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medical Agency (EMA) guidelines on the practice of covariate adjustment in analyzing RCT, in addition to the simple, unadjusted difference-in-mean estimator, it was also recommended to report the estimator adjusting for baseline covariates via a simple parametric working model, such as a linear model. In this paper, we show that an HOIF-motivated estimator for the treatment-specific mean has significantly improved statistical properties compared to popular adjusted estimators in practice when the number of baseline covariates $p$ is relatively large compared to the sample size $n$. We also characterize the conditions under which the HOIF-motivated estimator improves upon the unadjusted estimator. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a novel debiased adjusted estimator proposed recently by Lu et al. is, in fact, another HOIF-motivated estimator under disguise. Finally, simulation studies are conducted to corroborate our theoretical findings. |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2411.08491 |
| By: | Villarraga-Orjuela, Alexander (Universidad del Norte); Hasselbrinck-Macias, Paul Joseph (Universidad del Norte); Rodríguez, Sandra (Universidad del Norte); Cuenca-Cora, María Esperanza (Universidad del Norte); Schmutzler-de Uribe, Jana (Universidad del Norte); De Castro-Correa, Alberto Mario (Universidad del Norte); Madariaga-Orozco, Camilo Alberto (Universidad del Norte); Ferro-Casa, Juan Pablo (Universidad del Norte); Zapata, Luis (Universidad del Norte); Vecchio-Camargo, Carolina Mercedes (Universidad del Norte) |
| Abstract: | Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, effective public communication became of utmost importance. This is especially true for the time after the easing of lockdowns, which meant an increased emphasis on personal responsibility and adoption of self-care measures. We conducted an experiment that tested three behavioral tools for communication —framing, population targeting, and social norms— to assess behavioral biases that pose a barrier to effective communication efforts and provide useful information for governments to use in crisis situations. In order to measure the effectiveness of the various communication features, we relied on an Attitudes Scale developed and tested for this purpose. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral biases; crisis communication; COVID-19; framing; population targeting; social norms; Attitudes Scale |
| JEL: | C91 D83 D90 D91 I12 |
| Date: | 2024–09–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000418:021228 |
| By: | Morales, Manuel |
| Abstract: | By repeating what had been done twice before, I developed a method to test if events are predetermined – commonly known as destiny or otherwise known as superdeterminism. This method obtained unambiguous empirical evidence, thus eliminating the need for statistical inference or the speculation of the inclusion of everything, nonexistence and existence, as a theory. The goal of this article is to address the questions received about how I used artwork to conduct a science experiment by leading the reader through the lessons I learned and the steps taken while also addressing why scientists could not make the same discovery. Moreover, I have provided an experiment for the entire human race to confirm my findings for themselves by testing nature’s fundamental law that nonexistence (motion) creates existence. In addition, I will discuss the ramifications of this discovery as well as how the findings can help advance science. |
| Date: | 2024–11–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:zmpfy |
| By: | Laura Cappellucci; Lan Ha; Jeremy Honig; Christopher R. Knittel; Amy Vetter; Richard Wilner |
| Abstract: | We designed and conducted three randomized control trials in partnership with a large biopharmaceutical company operating over 160 plasma donation centers, with the aim of promoting sustainable behaviors in a workplace setting. Specifically, we focused on reducing operational errors that led to dropped collection materials, long freezer door open times, and improper recycling practices. To achieve these goals, we employed social norms to nudge employees towards 1) reducing wasted collection materials, 2) minimizing the duration of freezer door openings, and 3) improving recycling practices. We found an average reduction of roughly 70 percent in plastic waste from dropped collection materials and the costs associated with these materials. The frequency of freezer door alarms decreased by over 80 percent, and the duration of alarms decreased by over 45 percent, depending on the empirical specification. We also observed a roughly 40 percent reduction in uncollapsed cardboard, with no statistically significant results for other types of contaminants. Importantly, for each of the interventions, we do not find evidence that the treatment effects waned over time or affected business operations. Our study provides significant implications for promoting sustainable behaviors in a workplace setting, filling an important gap in the literature on the effectiveness of nudges in the workplace. |
| JEL: | C93 Q40 Q53 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33120 |
| By: | Thorsten Chmura (Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK); Tanvir Khan (North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh); Kim Nguyen (School of Economics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4DT, UK) |
| Abstract: | The principal-agent problem is prevalent in the financial management industry, where financial agents are responsible for managing their clients' payoffs. Although extensive literature examines the risk-taking behavior of agents when making decisions for others, the results remain mixed. We conduct laboratory experiments that investigate situations where agents make decisions for themselves and for others under two incentive structures: fixed incentives, in which agents are responsible only for others' payoffs and welfare, and variable incentives, where agents’ payments align with their principals. Our findings show that agents are most efficient when making decisions for themselves. The performance-based scheme proves to be more efficient for both parties than the fixed incentive scheme. Agents are more likely to trade and engage in risky behaviors, such as speculative trading, under the fixed incentive treatment. Bubble formation is significantly smaller in principal-agent scenarios where agents have sole responsibility under the fixed treatment. Women tend to show greater concern for the welfare of others, even when their own payoff is fixed. Cognitive ability, psychopathy, and the big five personality traits also play significant roles in trading behavior and wealth generation, although these relationships depend on specific environmental conditions. |
| Keywords: | responsibility, decision making for others, speculation, asset markets, bubbles |
| JEL: | C91 D31 G11 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2024013 |
| By: | Awad, Emiel; Judd, Gleason; Riquelme, Nicolas |
| Abstract: | How do interest groups learn about and influence politicians over time? We develop a game-theoretic model where an interest group can lobby a politician while learning about their ideological alignment. Our analysis reveals a fundamental tradeoff: interest groups must balance gathering information against exerting immediate influence, while politicians strategically manage their reputations to shape future interactions. These strategic forces generate systematic dynamics: policies and transfers shift in tandem, with early-career politicians showing greater policy variance and extracting larger rents through reputation management than veterans. Uncertainty about alignment increases policy volatility as groups experiment with offers, while institutional features like committee power and revolving-door incentives systematically alter both learning incentives and influence strategies. Our results shed new light on how interest group influence evolves across political careers and varies with institutional context. |
| Date: | 2024–11–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:834vd |
| By: | Daryl Fairweather; Matthew E. Kahn; Robert D. Metcalfe; Sebastian Sandoval Olascoaga |
| Abstract: | Climate change presents new risks for property in the United States. Due to the high cost and sometimes unavailability of location-specific property risk data, home buyers can greatly benefit from acquiring knowledge about these risks. To explore this, a large-scale nationwide natural field experiment was conducted through Redfin to estimate the causal impact of providing home-specific flood risk information on the behavior of home buyers in terms of their search, bidding, and purchasing decisions. Redfin randomly assigned 17.5 million users to receive information detailing the flood risk associated with the properties they searched for on the platform. Our analysis reveals several key findings: (1) the flood risk information influences every stage of the house buying process, including the initial search, bidding activities, and final purchase; (2) individuals are willing to make trade-offs concerning property amenities in order to own a property with a lower flood risk; (3) the impact of the flood risk information on behavior is more pronounced for users conducting searches in high flood risk areas, but does not differ significantly between buyers in Republican and Democrat Counties; and (4) the information resulted in changes to property prices and altered the market's hedonic equilibrium, providing a new finding that climate adaptation can be forward-thinking and proactive. |
| JEL: | Q54 R2 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33119 |
| By: | Dmitry A. Koch (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Evgenia E. Fedorova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Dmitry V. Lyusin (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The visual system enables us to quickly recognize different facial expressions despite the high complexity of human faces. This impressive ability to perceive emotions can be biased by social anxiety, which might lead to an overestimation of social threats from individuals. However, it is still under consideration how state anxiety influences our ability to process and summarize information from a group as an ensemble. The current study aims to examine whether state anxiety impairs our ability to assess the mean emotional expression of multiple faces by intensity overestimation of decreased accuracy. The experiment included two sessions, the first one involved no anxiety induction procedure, while the second session included anxiety induction. In both sessions, participants performed an adjustment task estimating the average emotion intensity for either single face or face ensemble condition. The final sample consisted of 46 individuals (mean age: 21±2.97) who successfully exhibited induced anxiety. The results indicated that anxious perceivers overestimated the average emotional intensity not only in the single face condition but also in the ensemble condition. Furthermore, we have shown that the emotion amplification stemmed from a systematic bias of the average emotion intensity, rather than from impaired accuracy. Our results demonstrate that state anxiety is likely to navigate attention to the faces with the most intensive facial expressions and, subsequently, bias their average impression. Exploring the effects of anxiety on ensemble perception is essential for further revealing the complexities of social cognition and how emotional biases can alter group-level information processing |
| Keywords: | ensemble coding, anxiety, summary statistics, emotion, social cognition. |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:140psy2024 |
| By: | Filip Obradovi\'c |
| Abstract: | Recent literature proposes combining short-term experimental and long-term observational data to provide credible alternatives to conventional observational studies for identification of long-term average treatment effects (LTEs). I show that experimental data have an auxiliary role in this context. They bring no identifying power without additional modeling assumptions. When modeling assumptions are imposed, experimental data serve to amplify their identifying power. If the assumptions fail, adding experimental data may only yield results that are farther from the truth. Motivated by this, I introduce two assumptions on treatment response that may be defensible based on economic theory or intuition. To utilize them, I develop a novel two-step identification approach that centers on bounding temporal link functions -- the relationship between short-term and mean long-term potential outcomes. The approach provides sharp bounds on LTEs for a general class of assumptions, and allows for imperfect experimental compliance -- extending existing results. |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2411.04380 |
| By: | O'Dell, Dallas; Contu, Davide; Shreedhar, Ganga |
| Abstract: | Research on degrowth and its policy proposals has rapidly expanded, despite lacking empirical evidence on public perceptions. One conceptual proposition for affluent populations is that lifestyle changes, such as undertaking sufficiency-oriented behaviours, may engender degrowth policy support. Our research empirically investigated U.S. public support for degrowth policies, its relation to sufficiency behaviours, and whether a degrowth framing influenced policy support. In a pre-registered, online discrete choice experiment (N = 1012), we elicited perceptions of four commonly advocated degrowth policies - work time reductions, downscaling fossil fuel production, universal basic services, and advertising restrictions. Analyses revealed significant support for some specification of each alternative policy, especially fossil fuel caps and universal healthcare. We also found a significant positive association between sufficiency engagement and supporting fossil fuel restrictions. However, latent class analysis suggested that the link between behaviour and policy support was less consistent for socially oriented policies, and that those who supported such policies did not engage in sufficiency most frequently. Degrowth framing only significantly influenced preferences for universal healthcare. These findings suggest an appetite for advancing eco-social policies in the United States but point to a nuanced relationship between sufficiency lifestyles and degrowth policy support. |
| Keywords: | sufficiency; behaviour; degrowth; policy support; public acceptability; discrete choice experiment |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–11–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126084 |
| By: | Yuehao Bai; Max Tabord-Meehan |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the sharp testable implications of an additive random utility model with a discrete multi-valued treatment and a discrete multi-valued instrument, in which each value of the instrument only weakly increases the utility of one choice. Borrowing the terminology used in randomized experiments, we call such a setting an encouragement design. We derive inequalities in terms of the conditional choice probabilities that characterize when the distribution of the observed data is consistent with such a model. Through a novel constructive argument, we further show these inequalities are sharp in the sense that any distribution of the observed data that satisfies these inequalities is generated by this additive random utility model. |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2411.09808 |