nep-exp New Economics Papers
on Experimental Economics
Issue of 2015‒05‒02
23 papers chosen by



  1. Tax Compliance and Information Provision: A Field Experiment with Small Firms By Doerrenberg, Philipp; Schmitz, Jan
  2. Market Design and Moral Behavior By Kirchler, Michael; Huber, Jürgen; Stefan, Matthias; Sutter, Matthias
  3. The sound of others: suprising evidence of conformist behavior By Crosetto, P.; Filippin, A.
  4. Strong intrinsic motivation By Dessi, Roberta; Ristichini, Aldo
  5. Tax salience: an experimental investigation By Morone, Andrea; Nemore, Francesco
  6. The Impact of Social Information on the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods: A Replication Study By James J. Murphy; Nomin Batmunkh; Ben Nilsson; Samantha Ray
  7. Integrating Mobile Phone Technologies into Labor-Market Intermediation: A Multi-Treatment Experimental Design By Dammert, Ana C.; Galdo, Jose C.; Galdo, Virgilio
  8. Giving and Probability By Christian Keller; David Reinstein; Gerhard Riener; Michael Sanders
  9. Click'n'Roll: No evidence of illusion control By Filippin, A.; Crosetto, P.
  10. Time spent on New Songs: Word-of-Mouth and Price Effects on Teenager Consumption By Noémi Berlin; Anna Bernard; Guillaume Fürst
  11. The Role of Bounded Rationality and Imperfect Information in Subgame Perfect Implementation: An Empirical Investigation By Aghion, Philippe; Fehr, Ernst; Holden, Richard; Wilkening, Tom
  12. Curbing adult student attrition. Evidence from a field experiment By Raj Chande; Michael Luca; Michael Sanders; Zhi Soon; Oana Borcan; Netta Barak-Corren; Elizabeth Linos; Elspeth Kirkman
  13. Price Leadership and Unequal Market Sharing: Collusion in Experimental Markets By Dijkstra, Peter T.
  14. Unintended Negative Consequences of Rewards for Student Attendance: Results from a Field Experiment in Indian Classrooms By Melody M. Chao; Rajeev Dehejia; Anirban Mukhopadhyay; Sujata Visaria
  15. Does Time Pressure Impair Performance? An Experiment on Queueing Behavior By Anna Conte; Marco Scarsini; Oktay Sürücü
  16. Deconstructing Giving: Donor Types and How They Give By Lata Gangadharan; Philip J. Grossman; Kristy Jones
  17. Financing Smallholder Agriculture: An Experiment with Agent-Intermediated Microloans in India By Pushkar Maitra; Sandip Mitra; Dilip Mookherjee; Alberto Motta; Sujata Visaria
  18. Fair Shares between Worker and Investor:Economic Experiments on Functional Income Distribution By Natsuka Tokumaru; Hiroyuki Uni
  19. Give and You Shall Receive: The Emergence of Welfare-Reducing Reciprocity By Murray, Cameron K.; Frijters, Paul; Vorster, Melissa
  20. Fanning-Out or Fanning-In? Continuous or Discontinuous? Estimating Indifference Curves Inside the Marschak-Machina Triangle using Certainty Equivalents. By Kontek, Krzysztof
  21. Discrimination against migrants in Austria An experimental study By Doris Weichselbaumer
  22. Individuals’ behaviour with respect to parking alternatives: a laboratory experiment By Bergantino, Angela Stefania; De Carlo, Angela; Morone, Andrea
  23. The Evolution of a "Kantian Trait": Inferring from the Dictator Game By Lorenzo Cerda Planas

  1. By: Doerrenberg, Philipp (ZEW Mannheim); Schmitz, Jan (University of Lausanne)
    Abstract: We study a field experiment on tax compliance in Slovenia. Small accounting companies were randomly assigned to an untreated control group and two treatment groups. Companies in the first treatment group received a letter that highlighted the importance of paying taxes and informed about the likelihood of becoming subject to an audit. In the second treatment group, tax officers from the tax authorities handed out in person the same letter that companies in the first treatment group received by post. The results indicate that such letters can increase compliance, and trigger even more compliance if handed over in person. These findings are in line with the theoretical predictions that we derive to rationalize the experiment.
    Keywords: tax compliance, audits, randomized field experiment, tax authority, information provision
    JEL: H20 H32 H50 C93
    Date: 2015–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9013&r=exp
  2. By: Kirchler, Michael (University of Innsbruck); Huber, Jürgen (University of Innsbruck); Stefan, Matthias (University of Innsbruck); Sutter, Matthias (University of Cologne)
    Abstract: In an experiment with 739 subjects we study whether and how different interventions might have an influence on the degree of moral behavior when subjects make decisions that can generate negative externalities on uninvolved parties. Particularly, subjects can either take money for themselves or donate it to UNICEF for measles vaccines. By considering two fairly different institutional regimes – one with individual decision making, one with a double-auction market – we expose the different interventions to a kind of robustness check. We find that the threat of monetary punishment promotes moral behavior in both regimes. Getting subjects more involved with the traded good has no effect, though, in both regimes. Only the removal of anonymity, thus making subjects identifiable, has different effects across regimes, which we explain by different perceptions of responsibility.
    Keywords: morals, market design, experiment
    JEL: C91 C92
    Date: 2015–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8973&r=exp
  3. By: Crosetto, P.; Filippin, A.
    Abstract: It has been shown that subjects tend to follow others’ behavior even when the external signals are uninformative. In this paper we go one step further, showing that conformism occurs even when the choices of others are not even presented to the subjects, but just indirectly perceived. We use the “Click” version of the Bomb Risk Elicitation Task, in which subjects can infer the behavior of others only from the mass of clicks heard. This signal is payoff-irrelevant and largely uninformative about the actual choices of the other participants. Moreover, it is never mentioned in the instructions and therefore it must be spontaneously (and possibly unconsciously) perceived in order to be used. We control the exposure of subjects to clicks by implementing treatments with and without earmuffs. Moreover, we test whether the introduction of a minimal form of commonality, i.e., facing a common rather than individual resolution of uncertainty, makes conformism more likely to emerge. We find strong evidence of conformist behavior even in such an adverse environment. Simply hearing the others clicking affects subjects’ behavior. Introducing a common random draw results in a further dramatic shift of the average choices, in particular by women.
    Keywords: CONFORMISM;RISK ATTITUDE;EXPERIMENT
    JEL: C81 C91 D81
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gbl:wpaper:2015-07&r=exp
  4. By: Dessi, Roberta; Ristichini, Aldo
    Abstract: A large literature in psychology, and more recently in economics, has argued that monetary rewards can reduce intrinsic motivation. We investigate whether the negative impact persists when intrinsic motivation is strong, and test this hypothesis experimentally focusing on the motivation to undertake interesting and challenging tasks, informative about individual ability. We find that this type of task can generate strong intrinsic motivation, that is impervious to the effect of monetary incentives, particularly when the individual is "racing against himself". In our experiments, monetary incentives have no significant impact on performance. In a second experiment using the same kind of task but a setting designed to weaken intrinsic motivation, monetary incentives do have a significant, positive, effect on performance. This result confirms that our experimental setup may, with appropriate conditions, replicate the known crowding out effects.
    Date: 2015–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ide:wpaper:29268&r=exp
  5. By: Morone, Andrea; Nemore, Francesco
    Abstract: A basic principle in public finance is tax incidence equivalence (well known as Liability Side Equivalence Principle, LES). This principle holds that the burden of a unit tax on buyers and sellers is independent of who actually pays the tax. Moreover, economic theory assumes an individual behaviour model in which subjects act as if they have to fully optimize changes in tax policies by correctly processing information in their possession. However, a wide empirical literature focused on some psychological issues that have as yet not been considered theoretically. It is easy to assume that the introduction of tax-inclusive prices and tax-exclusive prices could lead to price misperception. This means that individuals could not perceive the exact burden of a tax when it is not salient (as it could be in the case of tax-exclusive prices). We conduct a laboratory experiment that attempts to answer two relevant questions: (1) Do subjects’ behaviour change with a less salient tax? (2) Is tax incidence independent of the responsibility to pay a more or less salient tax? Based on the results of Mann-Whitney U tests, concerning the first question we conclude that, in accordance to the theory of tax incidence, subjects’ behaviour is not affected by salience. On the other hand, concerning the second question, contrary to theoretical predictions, we report evidence of stark differences in average trading prices for LSE principle analysis. Most notably, we observe that tax-on-seller treatment prices are systematically higher, thus revealing a plausible tax-shifting phenomenon.
    Keywords: Tax incidence; Tax salience; Liability Side Equivalence; choice behaviour; laboratory
    JEL: C91 H2 H21 H30
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:63814&r=exp
  6. By: James J. Murphy (University of Alaska Anchorage, Nankai University, Chapman University); Nomin Batmunkh (University of Alaska Anchorage); Ben Nilsson (University of Alaska Anchorage); Samantha Ray (University of Alaska Anchorage)
    Abstract: Shang and Croson (2009) found that providing information about the donation decisions of others can have a positive impact on individual donations to public radio. In this study, we attempted to replicate their results, however, we found no evidence of that social comparisons affected donation decisions. Most of our donors were renewing members, a group which Shang and Croson also found were not influenced by social information.
    Keywords: Charitable giving; field experiment; philanthropy; public goods; social information; social comparison
    JEL: D64 H41 C93
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:15-08&r=exp
  7. By: Dammert, Ana C. (Carleton University); Galdo, Jose C. (Carleton University); Galdo, Virgilio (World Bank)
    Abstract: This study investigates the causal impacts of integrating mobile phone technologies into traditional public labor-market intermediation services on employment outcomes. By providing faster, cheaper and up-to-date information on job vacancies via SMS, mobile phone technologies might affect the rate at which offers arrive as well as the probability of receiving a job offer. We implement a social experiment with multiple treatments that allows us to investigate both the role of information channels (digital versus non-digital) and information sets (restricted [public] versus unrestricted [public/private]). The results show positive and significant short-term effects on employment for public labor-market intermediation. While the impacts from traditional labor-market intermediation are not large enough to be statistically significant, the unrestricted digital treatment group shows statistically significant short-term employment effects. As for potential matching efficiency gains, the results suggest no statistically significant effects associated with either information channels or information sets.
    Keywords: mobile phones, labor-market intermediation, ICT, field experiments, Peru
    JEL: I3 J2
    Date: 2015–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9012&r=exp
  8. By: Christian Keller; David Reinstein; Gerhard Riener; Michael Sanders
    Abstract: When and how should a fundraiser ask for a donation from an individual facing an uncertain bonus income? A standard model of expected utility over outcomes predicts that the individual’s before choice – her ex-ante commitment conditional on her income – will be the same as her choice after the income has been revealed. Deciding “if you win, how much will you donate?” involves a commitment (i) over a donation for a state of the world that may not be realized and (ii) over uncertain income. Models involving reference-dependent utility, tangibility, and self-signaling predict more giving before, while theories of affect predict more giving after. In our online field experiment at a UK university, as well as in our laboratory experiments in Germany, charitable giving was significantly larger in the Before treatment than in the After treatment for male subjects, with a significant gender differential.
    JEL: D64 C91 L30 D01 D84
    Date: 2015–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:15/336&r=exp
  9. By: Filippin, A.; Crosetto, P.
    Abstract: Evidence of Illusion of Control – the fact that people believe to have control over pure chance events – is a recurrent finding in experimental psychology. Results in economics find instead little to no support. In this paper we test whether this dissonant result across disciplines is due to the fact that economists have implemented only one form of illusory control. We identify and separately tests in an incentive-compatible design two types of control: a) over the resolution of uncertainty, as usually done in the economics literature, and b) over the choice of the lottery, as sometimes done in the psychology literature but without monetary payoffs. Results show no evidence of illusion of control, neither on choices nor on beliefs about the likelihood of winning, thus supporting the hypotheses that incentives crowd out illusion of control.
    Keywords: ILLUSION OF CONTROL;EXPERIMENT;RISK ELICITATION;HYPOTHETICAL BIAS
    JEL: B49 C91 D81
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gbl:wpaper:2015-06&r=exp
  10. By: Noémi Berlin (School of Economics, University of Edinburgh); Anna Bernard (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne - Ecole d'Economie de Paris); Guillaume Fürst (Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva)
    Abstract: The stardom system characterizes creative industries: the demand and revenues are concentrated on a few bestselling books, movies or music. In this paper, we study the demand structure between bestsellers and new artists' productions in the music industry. We set up an experiment where participants face real choices situations. We crate three treatments to isolate the effect of information and incentives on diversity. In a first treatment, music is consumed for free without information. In a second one, subjects receive a prior information on others' evaluation of songs to study the effect of word-of-mouth. Finally, in a thrid one, a real market is introduced and music is bought. Significant evidence shows that word-of-mouth lowers diversity, while price incentives tend to lift it. In both treatments, subjects also react to the information or incentives nature
    Keywords: Experimental economics; Cultural Goods; Music industry; Stardom System
    JEL: D04 C9 Z1
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:15027&r=exp
  11. By: Aghion, Philippe (Harvard University); Fehr, Ernst (University of Zurich); Holden, Richard (University of New South Wales); Wilkening, Tom (University of Melbourne)
    Abstract: In this paper we conduct a laboratory experiment to test the extent to which Moore and Repullo's subgame perfect implementation mechanism induces truth-telling in practice, both in a setting with perfect information and in a setting where buyers and sellers face a small amount of uncertainty regarding the good's value. We find that Moore-Repullo mechanisms fail to implement truth-telling in a substantial number of cases even under perfect information about the valuation of the good. This failure to implement truth-telling is due to beliefs about the irrationality of one's trading partner. Therefore, although the mechanism should – in theory – provide incentives for truth-telling, many buyers in fact believe that they can increase their expected monetary payoff by lying. The deviations from truth-telling become significantly more frequent and more persistent when agents face small amounts of uncertainty regarding the good's value. Our results thus suggest that both beliefs about irrational play and small amounts of uncertainty about valuations may constitute important reasons for the absence of Moore-Repullo mechanisms in practice.
    Keywords: implementation theory, incomplete contracts, experiments
    JEL: D23 D71 D86 C92
    Date: 2015–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8971&r=exp
  12. By: Raj Chande; Michael Luca; Michael Sanders; Zhi Soon; Oana Borcan; Netta Barak-Corren; Elizabeth Linos; Elspeth Kirkman
    Abstract: Roughly 20% of adults in the OECD lack basic numeracy and literacy skills. In the UK, many colleges offer fully government subsidized adult education programs to improve these skills. Constructing a unique dataset consisting of weekly attendance records for 1179 students, we find that approximately 25% of learners stop attending these programs in the first ten weeks and that average attendance rates deteriorate by 20% in that time. We implement a large-scale field experiment in which we send encouraging text messages to students. Our initial results show that these simple text messages reduce the proportion of students that stop attending by 36% and lead to a 7% increase in average attendance relative to the control group. The effects on attendance rates persist through the three weeks of available data following the initial intervention.
    Date: 2015–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:15/335&r=exp
  13. By: Dijkstra, Peter T. (Groningen University)
    Abstract: We consider experimental markets of repeated homogeneous price-setting duopolies. We investigate the effect on collusion of sequential versus simultaneous price setting. We also examine the effect on collusion of changes in the size of each subject's market share in case both subjects set the same price.<br/>Our results show that sequential price setting compared with simultaneous price setting facilitates collusion, if subjects have equal market shares or if the follower has the larger market share.<br/>With sequential price setting, we find more collusion if subjects have equal market shares rather than unequal market shares. We observe more collusion if the follower has the larger market share than if the follower has the smaller market share.
    Date: 2014
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gro:rugsom:14013-eef&r=exp
  14. By: Melody M. Chao (Department of Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology); Rajeev Dehejia (Wagner School of Public Policy, New York University); Anirban Mukhopadhyay (Department of Marketing, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology); Sujata Visaria (Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Institute for Emerging Market Studies, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
    Abstract: In an experiment in non-formal schools in Indian slums, an incentive for attending a target number of school days increased average attendance when the incentive was in place, but had heterogeneous effects after it was removed. Among students with high baseline attendance, the post-incentive attendance returned to previous levels and test scores were unaffected. Among students with low baseline attendance, post-incentive attendance dropped even below previous levels, and test scores decreased. These students also reported lower interest in school material and lower expectations of themselves. Thus incentives might have unintended negative consequences in the long term for the very students they are most expected to help.
    Keywords: educational economics, incentives, attendance, motivation, experiment
    JEL: I21 I28 O53
    Date: 2015–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hku:wpaper:201522&r=exp
  15. By: Anna Conte (University of Westminster); Marco Scarsini; Oktay Sürücü (Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University)
    Abstract: We experimentally explore the effects of time pressure on decision making. Under different time allowance conditions, subjects are presented with a queueing situation and asked to join one of two queues that differ in length, server speed, and entry fee. The results can be grouped under two main categories. The first one concerns the factors driving customers' decisions in a queueing system. Only a proportion of subjects behave rationally and use the relevant information efficiently. The rest of the subjects seem to adopt a rule of thumb that ignores the information on server speed and follows the shorter queue. The second category is related to the effects of time pressure on decision performance. A significant proportion of the population is not affected by time limitations and shows a consistent behavior throughout the treatments. On the other hand, the majority of subjects' performance is impaired by time limitations. More importantly, this impairment is not due to the stringency of the limitation but mainly due to the fact that being exposed to a time limitation, even to a loose one, brings along stress and panic, and causes subjects to use time inefficiently.
    Keywords: Time pressure, queues with entry fee, join the shortest queue, experimentation, decision times
    JEL: C91 L00 C33 C35
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bie:wpaper:538&r=exp
  16. By: Lata Gangadharan; Philip J. Grossman; Kristy Jones
    Abstract: We examine the extent to which individual donors are warm glow or altruistic givers and whether this distinction motivates giving decisions, particularly paternalism. Results from our experiment suggest that motivations for giving are heterogeneous, ranging from pure altruism to impure altruism to pure warm glow. Of 115 donors, in our setting 30 are purely altruistic givers, 36 are impure givers and up to 17 could be considered pure warm-glow givers. We find that donors are predominantly paternalistic, however the extent of paternalism depends on the donor’s motivations for giving, with pure warm-glow givers significantly less likely to be paternalistic.
    Keywords: Warm Glow; Altruism; Paternalism; Deconstructing giving
    JEL: C91 D64 H40
    Date: 2014–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2014-53&r=exp
  17. By: Pushkar Maitra (Department of Economics, Monash University); Sandip Mitra (Sampling and Ocial Statistics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute); Dilip Mookherjee (Department of Economics, Boston University); Alberto Motta (School of Economics, University of New South Wales); Sujata Visaria (Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Institute for Emerging Market Studies, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
    Abstract: Recent evaluations of traditional microloans have not found significant impacts on borrower production or incomes. We examine whether this can be remedied by delegating selection of borrowers for individual liability loans to local trader-lender agents incentivized by repayment-based commissions. In a field experiment in West Bengal this design (called TRAIL) was offered in randomly selected villages. In remaining villages five-member groups self-formed and applied for joint liability loans (called GBL) with otherwise similar terms. TRAIL loans increased production of potato (a leading cash crop) and farm incomes by 27-37%, whereas GBL loans had insignificant and highly dispersed effects. Both schemes achieved equally high repayment rates, while TRAIL loans had higher take-up rates and lower administrative costs. We argue the results can be partly explained by differences in selection patterns with respect to borrower risk and productivity characteristics.
    Keywords: agricultural finance, agent based lending, group lending, selection, repayment
    JEL: D82 O16
    Date: 2015–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hku:wpaper:201523&r=exp
  18. By: Natsuka Tokumaru; Hiroyuki Uni
    Abstract: Declines in labor wage rate accompanied with increases in dividend or stocks are worldwide tendencies since 1980s that designates significant change in functional income distribution between capital and labor. Whereas some empirical studies in macro-level analyzes these changes are caused by institutional changes in recent decades such as financialization, studies on micro-level analysis on functional income distributions are few. However, how workers and investors consider distribution justice may have significant importance for explaining recent changes in functional distribution. If both of workers and investors contributed to a production process in different ways, what is ‘fair’ share for each of them? In this paper we have performed economic experiments, consisting of investment stage, production stage and distribution stage and examined fairness ideals in functional income distribution. In our experiment each subject is pair-matched to constitute a two-player’s team consisting of a worker and an investor. After investment stage by an investor and production stage by a worker, each team member was required to give a proposal to separate a team earning with one’s pair. We have performed two different treatments: a) with-labor treatment in which investors are required to work to earn investment funds; b) without-labor treatment in which investment funds are given to investors as their endowments. We have classified each subject’s distribution proposal into three fairness ideals: selfish; libertarian; and radical egalitarian, and examined what factors are significant for subject’s distribution justice. Our findings are threefold. 1) First, few libertarian-marginalist, who believes one should ‘get according to their production by production measurements they own’ was observed. 2) Second, labor value theory seems to have more impact on fairness ideals of individuals: in with-labor treatment investors have to work for their investment funds, both of investors and workers tend to be unselfish, whereas in without-labor treatment investors do not need to work, both of investors and workers tend to be selfish. 3) Third, investors have significant tendencies to commit libertarian egalitarian, that enable them to hold their rest investment funds as their asset, whereas workers have significant tendencies to adhere radical-egalitarian, that enable them to redistribute investor’s assets. These tendencies may be understood from self-serving bias that both of workers and investors have. Although a difference between libertarian-egalitarian and radical-egalitarian distributions seems to be not so serious for finding a compromise, however, in the case investors’ capitals do not based on their labors, a discrepancy in distribution between workers and investors seems to be created. Our experimental results may partly explain recent declines in labor-wage accompanied with institutional changes: financialization tend to make investors to adhere more selfish distribution whereas weakened collective bargaining power by unions promote those tendencies.
    Keywords: wage gap; Functional Income Distribution, Fairness Ideals, Economic Experiments
    JEL: D33 C91 C92
    Date: 2015–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kue:dpaper:e-15-002&r=exp
  19. By: Murray, Cameron K. (University of Queensland); Frijters, Paul (University of Queensland); Vorster, Melissa (University of Queensland)
    Abstract: We develop a new experiment to study the emergence of welfare-reducing bilateral alliances within larger groups, and the effectiveness of institutional interventions to curtail this reciprocal alliance behaviour. In each of the 25 rounds of our experiments, a player (the 'allocator') nominates one of three others as a co-worker (the 'receiver'), which deter- mines the group production that period to be the productivity of the receiver (which varies by round), but also gives the receiver a bonus and makes them the allocator in the next round. Alliances then form if two individuals keep choosing each other even when their productivities are lower than that of others, causing efficiency losses. Males and business students are found to be more likely to form welfare reducing alliances. Random allocator rotation policies and low bonuses fail to significantly improve overall welfare: rotation policies significantly reduce the rate of formation of new alliances but do not lead to the breakdown of existing alliances, while low bonus policies are only found to be effective when alliances are well established. This points to the importance of the strength of existing alliances for the chances of institutional interventions curtailing welfare reducing reciprocity, i.e. 'back-scratching'.
    Keywords: reciprocity, corruption, alliance formation, experiment
    JEL: D71 D72 D63
    Date: 2015–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9010&r=exp
  20. By: Kontek, Krzysztof
    Abstract: This paper introduces a new method of estimating indifference curves in the Marschak-Machina triangle. The method involves posing questions about indifference. Contrary to previous attempts, where subjects were required to identify those lotteries to which they were indifferent vis-à-vis a given lottery, the subjects are here required to determine its certainty equivalent. The procedure is repeated for a large number of lotteries inside the triangle. Simple, linear interpolation of certainty equivalent values between adjacent points representing the lotteries under consideration allows any indifference curve inside the triangle to be plotted. The experimental results presented in the paper shed new light on the shape of indifference curves inside the Marschak-Machina triangle, where curve parallelism, fanning-out, fanning-in and boundary effects, including (possibly discontinuous) jumps, are all common. As shown, those decision-making models, which can predict jumps on the triangle legs, offer the best econometric fit of the indifference curves obtained in the study.
    Keywords: Marschak-Machina triangle, indifference curves, fanning-out, fanning-in, models of decision-making under risk, certainty equivalents, Wolfram Mathematica®
    JEL: C14 C81 C88 C91 D81
    Date: 2015–04–28
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:63965&r=exp
  21. By: Doris Weichselbaumer
    Abstract: In this paper, I experimentally examine the employment opportunities of Austrians with and without migration background. Applications of candidates with a Serbian, Turkish, Chinese, Nigerian and no migration background are sent in response to job openings. Previous experiments have indicated ethnicity via the name of an applicant, however employers may not always correctly perceive this signal. Since photographs are a requirement for applications in the German speaking context, this study uses a novel approach to signal ethnic background and employs carefully matched photos as distinct visual cues. While results document employment discrimination for all groups with migration background, it is most pronounced for applicants with an African, i.e. Nigerian, background. To explain why and when discrimination occurs, a battery of firm and job specific characteristics are examined (e.g. whether team or customer contact is part of the job description). However, these help little to explain the actual level of discrimination. Discrimination in Austria therefore seems to be a general phenomenon driven by employers’ preferences that is barely affected by situational variables.
    Keywords: migration, discrimination, hiring, correspondence testing
    JEL: C93 J15 J71
    Date: 2015–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2015_01&r=exp
  22. By: Bergantino, Angela Stefania; De Carlo, Angela; Morone, Andrea
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyse the trade-off between parking space availability and cost, in terms of time saving. This information is pivotal when designing parking policies in terms of fares, investments and regulation. A relevant body of literature has focused on parking behaviour (e.g. travellers’ choice of parking type and location). However, little attention has been devoted to understand how risk and uncertainty influence drivers’ behaviours in parking decision. This paper address the parking choice problem by means of a laboratory experiments, which aims to collect disaggregate data on travellers’ responses to changes in parking attributes and related information. Different components of the parking activity (e.g., general in-vehicle time, parking search time, egress time) are controlled for, in relation to the characteristics of the respondent. In order to avoid heterogeneity in relation to journey purposes we focus on individuals’ mobility. The collected data is used to build simple model of consumer’s choice related to parking decision, taking explicitly into consideration both risk and uncertainty.
    Keywords: parking; risk; uncertainty; choice behaviour; laboratory
    JEL: C9 C91 R4 R41
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:63815&r=exp
  23. By: Lorenzo Cerda Planas (Paris School of Economics - Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne)
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is twofold. Starting from the population dynamics literature, which usually finds the resulting distribution of a trait in a population, according to some parents' preferences, I answer the inverted question: Which preference function would yield into a given trait distribution? I solve this using a continuous trait, instead of finite types of agents. Using this result, I connect this transmission theory of social traits with the well-known results of Dictator Game (DG) experiments. I use a specific definition of a Kantian trait applied to DG results, and determine the distribution of this trait that is commonly found in these experiments. With these two ingredients, I show that homo-oeconomicus parents have a greater' dislike' or disutility of having offspring with different traits from them compared to their Kantian counterparts. This could be a result of myopic empathy being stronger in homo-oeconomicus parents, driving this dislike of difference
    Keywords: Population dynamics; Kantian morale; evolutionary equilibrium
    JEL: C62 C63 C73 C61 D64
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:15032&r=exp

General information on the NEP project can be found at https://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.