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on Neuroeconomics |
| By: | Marco Caliendo (Director of Research at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn and affiliated with DIW Berlin and IAB - Director of Research at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn and affiliated with DIW Berlin and IAB); Deborah Cobb-Clark; Juliana Silva-Goncalves; Arne Uhlendorff (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how locus of control operates through people's preferences and beliefs to influence their decisions. Using the principal–agent setting of the delegation game, we test four key channels that conceptually link locus of control to decision-making: (i) preference for agency, (ii) optimism and (iii) confidence regarding the return to effort, and (iv) illusion of control. Knowing the return and cost of stated effort, principals either retain or delegate the right to make an investment decision that generates payoffs for themselves and their agents. Extending the game to the context in which the return to stated effort is unknown allows us to explicitly study the relationship between locus of control and beliefs about the return to effort. We find that internal locus of control is linked to the preference for agency, an effect that is driven by women. We find no evidence that locus of control influences optimism and confidence about the return to stated effort, or that it operates through an illusion of control. |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04793394 |
| By: | Renske Stans (Netherlands Court of Audit); Laura Ehrmantraut (Federal Statistical Office, Germany); Malin Siemers (University of Bonn & IZA); Pia Pinger (University of Cologne & IZA) |
| Abstract: | Do employers seek to attract individuals with more education because it enhances human capital or because it signals higher levels of pre-existing traits? We experimentally vary master's degree completion rates on applicant résumés and examine how this influences candidates' desirability and employer perceptions of their productive characteristics. Our findings show that while a completed master's degree increases desirability, an incomplete master's degree is perceived by human resource managers as less favorable than a bachelor's degree. This suggests that employers prefer candidates with higher education mainly because they view the degree as a signal of pre-existing productive traits. Consistent with this, employers perceive both cognitive and non-cognitive traits as stronger in master graduates but non-cognitive traits as weaker in master dropouts compared to bachelor's degree holders. Overall, perceived cognitive and non-cognitive traits play a larger role in determining a candidate's attractiveness than expertise. This paper thus provides causal evidence on the origins of the education premium. |
| Keywords: | Returns to education, beliefs, labor demand, labor productivity, signaling, wages |
| JEL: | I23 I26 J23 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:356 |
| By: | Clémentine Bouleau (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Nicolas Jacquemet (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Maël Lebreton (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, UNIGE - Université de Genève = University of Geneva) |
| Abstract: | Whether individuals feel confident about their own actions, choices, or statements being correct, and how these confidence levels differ between individuals are two key primitives for countless behavioral theories and phenomena. In cognitive tasks, individual confidence is typically measured as the average of reports about choice accuracy, but how reliable is the resulting characterization of within-and between-individual confidence remains surprisingly undocumented. Here, we perform a large-scale resampling exercise in the Confidence Database to investigate the reliability of individual confidence estimates, and of comparisons across individuals' confidence levels. Our results show that confidence estimates are more stable than their choice-accuracy counterpart, reaching a reliability plateau after roughly 50 trials, regardless of a number of task design characteristics. While constituting a reliability upper-bound for task-based confidence measures, and thereby leaving open the question of the reliability of the construct itself, these results characterize the robustness of past and future task designs. |
| Keywords: | Confidence, Accuracy, Reliability, Design of experiments, Multiple trials |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04893009 |
| By: | Andrew E Clark (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Rong Zhu (Flinders University [Adelaide, Australia], IZA - Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit - Institute of Labor Economics) |
| Abstract: | We use nationally representative panel data from Australia to consider the impact of retirement on individual locus of control, a socio-emotional skill that has substantial explanatory power for a broad range of life outcomes. We establish causality via cohort-specific eligibility age for the Australian Age Pension. We show that retirement leads to increased internal locus of control. This greater sense of internal control can explain around one-third and one-fifth of the positive effects of retirement on health and subjective well-being, respectively. The impact of retirement on control beliefs varies along the distribution of locus of control, with the positive influence being most pronounced for men with a relatively high sense of internal control and for women with a relatively high sense of external control. Last, we provide evidence that locus of control is much more malleable at retirement than the other socio-emotional skills of the Big-Five personality traits, risk and time preferences, and trust. |
| Keywords: | Retirement, Locus of control, Socio-emotional skills, Public pensions |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04335808 |
| By: | Fernando Perez-Cruz; Hyun Song Shin |
| Abstract: | Multimodal large language models (LLMs), trained on vast datasets are becoming increasingly capable in many settings. However, the capabilities of such models are typically evaluated in narrow tasks, much like standard machine learning models trained for specific objectives. We take a different tack by putting the latest LLM agents through their paces in general tasks involved in solving three popular games - Wordle, Face Quiz and Flashback. These games are easily tackled by humans but they demand a degree of self-awareness and higher-level abilities to experiment, to learn from mistakes and to plan accordingly. We find that the LLM agents display mixed performance in these general tasks. They lack the awareness to learn from mistakes and the capacity for self-correction. LLMs' performance in the most complex cognitive subtasks may not be the limiting factor for their deployment in real-world environments. Instead, it would be important to evaluate the capabilities of AGI-aspiring LLMs through general tests that encompass multiple cognitive tasks, enabling them to solve complete, real-world applications. |
| Keywords: | AI Agents, LLMs evaluation |
| JEL: | C88 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:1245 |