nep-exp New Economics Papers
on Experimental Economics
Issue of 2017‒01‒29
23 papers chosen by



  1. An experimental investigation of intra-household resource allocation in rural India By Savita Kulkarni; Anirudh Tagat; Hansika Kapoor
  2. Incentives for Effort or Outputs? A Field Experiment to Improve Student Performance By Sarojini Hirshleifer
  3. Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma By Matthew Embrey; Guillaume R. Frechette; Sevgi Yuksel
  4. 'Acting Wife': Marriage Market Incentives and Labor Market Investments By Leonardo Bursztyn; Thomas Fujiwara; Amanda Pallais
  5. Targeted Remedial Education: Experimental Evidence from Peru By Juan Saavedra; Emma Näslund-Hadley; Mariana Alfonso
  6. Preference for women but less preference for indigenous women: A lab-field experiment of loan discrimination in a developing economy By Rolando Gonzales; Gabriela Aguilera-Lizarazu; Andrea Rojas-Hosse; Patricia Aranda
  7. Risk taking and risk sharing: does responsibility matter? (RM/13/045-revised-) By Cettolin, Elena; Tausch, Franziska
  8. Mathematics self-confidence and the "prepayment effect" in riskless choices By Lian Xue; Stefania Sitzia; Theodore L. Turocy
  9. Gender Diversity is Detrimental to Team Performance: Evidence from a Field Experiment By Bernd Frick; Anica Rose; André Kolle
  10. Individualism, Collectivism, and Trade By Aidin Hajikhameneh; Erik O. Kimbrough
  11. Symmetric information bubbles: Experimental evidence By Yasushi Asako; Yukihiko Funaki; Kozo Ueda; Nobuyuki Uto
  12. Prices versus Standards and Firm Behavior: Evidence from an Artefactual Field Experiment By Hennlock, Magnus; Löfgren, Åsa; Wollbrant, Conny
  13. Implicit Motivation Makes the Brain Grow Younger: Improving Executive Functions of Older Adults By Shira Cohen-Zimerman; Ran R. Hassin
  14. Long-run expectations in a Learning-to-Forecast Experiment By Colasante, Annarita; Alfarano, Simone; Camacho-Cuena, Eva; Gallegati, Mauro
  15. Identity, Perceptions and Institutions: Caste Differences in Earnings from Self-Employment in India By Deepti Goel; Ashwini Deshpande
  16. Do Anti-Poverty Programs Sway Voters? Experimental Evidence from Uganda By Christopher Blattman; Mathilde Emeriau; Nathan Fiala
  17. Strategy Revision Opportunities and Collusion By Matthew Embrey; Friederike Mengel; Ronald Peeters
  18. "Strategic" Behavior in a Strategy-Proof Environment By Avinatan Hassidim; Assaf Romm; Ran I. Shorrer
  19. The Behavioral Effect of Pigovian Regulation: Evidence from a Field Experiment By Bruno Lanz; Jules-Daniel Wurlod; Luca Panzone; Timothy Swanson
  20. Young Food Consumers: How do Children Respond to Point-of-Purchase Interventions? By Cash, Sean B.; McAlister, Anna R.
  21. Environmental Art and Environmental Beliefs: the Case of Plastic Bag Pollution in Oceans By Turner, Robert
  22. Do talented women shy away from competition? By Britta Hoyer; T.M. van Huizen; L.M. Keijzer; T. Rezaei Khavas; S. Rosenkranz; B. Westbrock
  23. Reserve Prices in Auctions with Entry when the Seller in Risk Averse By Wooders, John; Moreno, Diego

  1. By: Savita Kulkarni; Anirudh Tagat; Hansika Kapoor
    Abstract: This study aims to investigate intra-household bargaining outcomes elicited in an artefactual field experiment design where participants completed a purchase task of real commodities. Married couples separately expressed their initial preferences over commodities. The bargaining process in the experiment was exogenously introduced by sharing information about partners’ preferences in the treatment group. We hypothesized that the spouse with weaker bargaining position at the household level would consider the information of their partner’s preferences while making own consumption decisions more compared to their partner. Therefore, they may deviate from their own preferences when purchasing commodities. More than 230 married couples from two villages in the Tamil Nadu state of India participated in the experiment. It was observed that information about partners’ spending preferences resulted in reduced final allocations for female participants. However, the deviation was not significantly different from the original intention to spend. Therefore, information about partners’ preferences may not be an effective medium to elicit bargaining power in the context of jointly-consumed household commodities. Subgroup analyses were performed to identify any heterogeneous treatment effects.
    Keywords: intra-household bargaining, gender, artefactual field experiment, women’s empowerment, welfare schemes
    JEL: C93 D13 J12 J16 O15
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:piercr:2016-20&r=exp
  2. By: Sarojini Hirshleifer (Department of Economics, University of California Riverside)
    Abstract: One key choice in designing an incentive is whether to reward outcomes directly (outputs) or to reward the actions and behaviors that lead to those outcomes (effort/inputs). I conduct a novel direct test of an input incentive designed to increase student effort against both an output incentive and a control that does not receive an incentive. The interventions were implemented in a classroom-level randomized experiment with school children in India. A math software curriculum is implemented in all classrooms regardless of which activity is incentivized. It includes learning modules (the incentivized input) that are completed throughout a unit as well as a test at the end of the unit (the incentivized output). The two incentives are both piecerate and announced at the beginning of each unit. Students who receive an input incentive perform .57 standard deviations better than the control group on a non-incentivized outcome test. This performance is statistically significantly larger than the impact of the output incentive (which .24 standard deviations and not significant relative to the control). The input incentive is also almost twice as cost-effective as the output incentive. These results provide evidence that there can be large returns to directly inducing student effort in the classroom. The input incentive works better for present-biased students along an incentive-compatible measure of time preferences collected at baseline, which provides evidence to support the hypothesis that more frequent payments can address time inconsistency. This study also provides direct evidence that piecerate input incentives can be more effective than piecerate output incentives.
    JEL: C93 D99 I21 M52 O15
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucr:wpaper:201701&r=exp
  3. By: Matthew Embrey (University of Sussex); Guillaume R. Frechette (NYU); Sevgi Yuksel (UCSB)
    Abstract: More than half a century after the first experiment on the finitely repeated prisoner's dilemma, evidence on whether cooperation decreases with experience - as suggested by backward induction - remains inconclusive. This paper provides a meta-analysis of prior experimental research and reports the results of a new experiment to elucidate how cooperation varies with the environment in this canonical game. We describe forces that affect initial play (formation of cooperation) and unraveling (breakdown of cooperation). First, contrary to the backward induction prediction, the parameters of the repeated game have a significant effect on initial cooperation. We identify how these parameters impact the value of cooperation - as captured by the size of the basin of attraction of Always Defect – to account for an important part of this effect. Second, despite these initial differences, the evolution of behavior is consistent with the unraveling logic of backward induction for all parameter combinations. Importantly, despite the seemingly contradictory results across studies, this paper establishes a systematic pattern of behavior: subjects converge to use threshold strategies that conditionally cooperate until a threshold round; and conditional on establishing cooperation, the first defection round moves earlier with experience. Simulation results generated from a learning model estimated at the subject level provide insights into the long-term dynamics and the forces that slow down the unraveling of cooperation.
    Keywords: repeated games, prisoners dilemma, threshold strategies, basin of attraction
    JEL: C73 C92
    Date: 2016–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sus:susewp:08616&r=exp
  4. By: Leonardo Bursztyn; Thomas Fujiwara; Amanda Pallais
    Abstract: Do single women avoid career-enhancing actions because these actions could signal personality traits, like ambition, that are undesirable in the marriage market? We answer this question through two field experiments in an elite U.S. MBA program. Newly-admitted MBA students filled out a questionnaire on job preferences and personality traits to be used by the career center in internship placement; randomly-selected students thought their answers would be shared with classmates. When they believed their classmates would not see their responses, single and non-single women answered similarly. However, single women reported desired yearly compensation $18,000 lower and being willing to travel seven fewer days per month and work four fewer hours per week when they expected their classmates would see their answers. They also reported less professional ambition and tendency for leadership. Neither men nor non-single women changed their answers in response to peer observability. A supplementary experiment asked students to make choices over hypothetical jobs before discussing their choices in their career class small groups; we randomly varied the groups' gender composition. Single women were much less likely to select career-focused jobs when their answers would be shared with male peers, especially single ones. Two results from observational data support our experimental results. First, in a new survey, almost three-quarters of single female students reported avoiding activities they thought would help their career because they did not want to appear ambitious. They eschewed these activities at higher rates than did men and non-single women. Second, while unmarried women perform similarly to married women in class when their performance is kept private from classmates (on exams and problem sets), they have significantly lower participation grades.
    JEL: C93 J12 J16 Z10
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23043&r=exp
  5. By: Juan Saavedra; Emma Näslund-Hadley; Mariana Alfonso
    Abstract: An outstanding challenge in education is improving learning among low-achieving students. We present results from the first randomized experiment of an inquiry-based remedial science-education program for low-performing elementary students in the setting of a developing country. At 48 low-income public elementary schools in Lima, Peru and surrounding areas, third-grade students scoring in the bottom half of their science classes were selected at random to receive up to 16 remedial sessions of 90 minutes each during the school year. Control-group compliance with assignment (no extra tutoring) was close to perfect. Treatment-group compliance was roughly 40 percent, or five to six remedial sessions—a 4 to 5 percent increase in total science instruction time over the school year. Despite the low-intensity treatment, students assigned to the remedial sessions scored 0.12 standard deviations higher on a science endline test. But all improvements were concentrated among boys, for whom gains were 0.22 standard deviations. Remedial education does not produce within-student spillovers to math, or spillovers on other students.
    JEL: I21 I25 O15 O54
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23050&r=exp
  6. By: Rolando Gonzales; Gabriela Aguilera-Lizarazu; Andrea Rojas-Hosse; Patricia Aranda
    Abstract: A field experiment was performed in a controlled laboratory setting to evaluate whether credit officers reject micro-loan applications based on the ethnicity/gender of potential borrowers. Point estimates of a mixed-effects logistic regression suggest that, compared to non-indigenous men, non-indigenous women have two times more chance of loan approval, and indigenous women have 1.5 more chance of loan approval. The interval results regarding ethnic discrimination are inconclusive, however some evidence of taste-based discrimination in credit lending that was favorable for non-indigenous women was found.
    Keywords: Credit access, gender gaps, indigenous peoples, discrete choice, Bayesian analysis
    JEL: G21 J15 C25 C11
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:piercr:2016-24&r=exp
  7. By: Cettolin, Elena (university tilburg); Tausch, Franziska (max planck institute for research on collective goods bonn)
    Abstract: Risk sharing arrangements diminish individuals’ vulnerability to probabilistic events that negatively affect their financial situation. This is because risk sharing implies redistribution, as lucky individuals support the unlucky ones. We hypothesize that responsibility for risky choices decreases individuals’ willingness to share risk by dampening redistribution motives, and investigate this conjecture with a laboratory experiment. Responsibility is created by allowing participants to choose between two different risky lotteries before they decide how much risk they share with a randomly matched partner. Risk sharing is then compared to a treatment where risk exposure is randomly assigned. We find that average risk sharing does not depend on whether individuals can control their risk exposure. However, we observe that when individuals are responsible for their risk exposure, risk sharing decisions are systematically conditioned on the risk exposure of the sharing partner, whereas this is not the case when risk exposure is random.
    JEL: D81 C91
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2016018&r=exp
  8. By: Lian Xue (University of East Anglia); Stefania Sitzia (University of East Anglia); Theodore L. Turocy (University of East Anglia)
    Abstract: We extend the analysis of a riskless choice experiment reported recently by Hochman et al. (2014). Participants select from among sets of standard playing cards valued by a simple formula. In some sessions, participants are given a prepayment associated with some of the cards, which need not be the earnings-maximizing ones. Hochman et al. find that participants choose an earnings-maximizing card less frequently when another card is prepaid. We replicate this result under the original instructions, but not with instructions which explain the payment process more explicitly. Participants who state they do not consider themselves good at mathematics make earnings-maximizing choices much less frequently. Prior experience with economics experiments in general improves performance only modestly. The results suggest that even when comparisons among choices require only simple quantitative reasoning steps, market designers and regulators may need to pay close attention to how the terms of offers are expressed, explained, and implemented.
    Keywords: loss aversion, prepayment, replication, mathematics self-confidence, lab rats
    JEL: C91 D83
    Date: 2016–09–20
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uea:wcbess:15-20r&r=exp
  9. By: Bernd Frick (Paderborn University); Anica Rose (Paderborn University); André Kolle (Paderborn University)
    Abstract: We contribute to the inconclusive empirical research on the relationship between team gender diversity and team performance by investigating the returns to gender diversity in academia. Using a unique sample with 164 randomly formed student teams, we show that gender heterogeneity adversely affects team performance in a business strategy game. Both all-female and all-male teams outperform gender-heterogeneous teams in terms of financial success. We find evidence for the detrimental gender diversity effect to increase with task complexity. Our findings suggest that all-men and all-women teams do not differ in their strategic management behavior.
    Keywords: Gender; Diversity; Teams; Performance; Business strategy game
    JEL: J16 C93
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdn:dispap:23&r=exp
  10. By: Aidin Hajikhameneh (Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics and Society, Chapman University); Erik O. Kimbrough (Simon Fraser University)
    Abstract: While economists recognize the important role of formal institutions in the promotion of trade, there is increasing agreement that institutions are typically endogenous to culture, making it difficult to disentangle their separate effects. Lab experiments that assign institutions exogenously and measure and control individual cultural tendencies can allow for clean identification of these effects. We focus on cultural tendencies toward individualism/collectivism, which social psychologists highlight as an important determinant of many behavioral differences across groups and people. We design an experiment to explore the relationship between subjects’ dispositions to individualism/collectivism and their willingness to engage in impersonal trade under enforcement institutions of varying strength. Overall, we find that individualists tend to engage in trade more often than collectivists. This effect is mitigated somewhat as the effectiveness of enforcement institutions increases. That is, the detrimental impact on future trade of having been cheated in the past is reduced. Nevertheless we see that cultural dispositions shape the decision to engage in impersonal trade, regardless of institutional environment.
    Keywords: individualism, collectivism, exchange, trust, experiments
    JEL: C7 C9
    Date: 2017–01–23
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp17-01&r=exp
  11. By: Yasushi Asako; Yukihiko Funaki; Kozo Ueda; Nobuyuki Uto
    Abstract: This study experimentally analyses traders’choices, with and without asymmetric information, based on the riding-bubble model. While asymmetric information has been necessary to explain a bubble in past theoretical models, our experiments show that traders have an incentive to hold a bubble asset for longer, thereby expanding the bubble in a market with symmetric, rather than asymmetric information. This finding implies a possibility that information symmetry promotes cooperation. However, when traders are more experienced, the size of the bubble decreases, in which case bubbles do not arise, even with symmetric information.
    Keywords: riding bubbles, crashes, asymmetric information, experiment, clock game
    JEL: C72 D82 D84 E58 G12 G18
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2017-05&r=exp
  12. By: Hennlock, Magnus (Policy and Economy, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute,); Löfgren, Åsa (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Wollbrant, Conny (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)
    Abstract: We conduct an artefactual field experiment in which 164 managers and senior advisors recruited from Swedish industry were presented with a task of maximizing net revenue from abatement investments under three different but equally stringent environmental policy regimes. We find that investment decisions are strongly influenced by type of policy instrument. Economic instruments and performance standards cause different attentional and judgment biases that are inconsistent with standard economic theory. Inconsistencies are larger with economic policy instruments (tax and subsidy) than with performance standards even though subjects’ attention to cost minimization was greater with economic instruments than under performance standards.
    Keywords: artefactual field experiment; bounded rationality; attentional bias; investment inefficiencies; firm; regulation; policy
    JEL: C93 H32 L20
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0687&r=exp
  13. By: Shira Cohen-Zimerman; Ran R. Hassin
    Abstract: The dominant view of cognitive aging holds that while controlled processes (e.g., working memory and executive functions) decline with age, implicit (automatic) processes do not. In this paper we challenge this view by arguing that high-level automatic processes (e.g., implicit motivation) decline with age, and that this decline plays an important and as yet unappreciated role in cognitive aging. Specifically, we hypothesized that due to their decline, high-level automatic processes are less likely to be spontaneously activated in old age, and so their subtle, external activation should have stronger effects on older (vs. younger) adults. In two experiments we used different methods of implicitly activating motivation, and measured executive functions of younger and older adults via the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. In Experiment 1 we used goal priming to subtly increase achievement motivation. In Experiment 2 motivation was manipulated by subtly increasing engagement in the task. More specifically, we introduce the Jerusalem Face Sorting Test (JFST), a modified version of the WCST that uses cards with faces instead of geometric shapes. In both experiments, implicitly induced changes in motivation improved older- but not younger- adults’ executive functioning. The framework we propose is general, and it has implications as to how we view and test cognitive functions. Our case study of older adults offers a new look at various aspects of cognitive aging. Applications of this view to other special populations (e.g., ADHD, schizophrenia) and possible interventions are discussed.
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp705&r=exp
  14. By: Colasante, Annarita; Alfarano, Simone; Camacho-Cuena, Eva; Gallegati, Mauro
    Abstract: We conduct a Learning to Forecast Experiment (LtFE) using a novel setting in which we elicit subjects' short and long-run expectations on the future price of an asset. We find that: (i) the rational expectations equilibrium (REE) is not a meaningful description for subjects' expectations, (ii) which are, instead, better described by an adaptive learning scheme. (iii) Subjects exhibit a higher degree of inertia when revising long-run expectations vis-a-vis short-run expectations.
    Keywords: Experiment, Expectations, Coordination
    JEL: D84 E37 G12
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75621&r=exp
  15. By: Deepti Goel (Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India); Ashwini Deshpande (Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India)
    Abstract: Using data from two rounds of the Employment-Unemployment Survey of the National Sample Survey for 2004-5 and 2009-10, we investigate the relationship between social identity, specifically caste identity in India, and perceptions of self-worth as measured by the amounts that individuals consider as remunerative earnings from self-employment. We also investigate if institutional change (e.g. a policy intervention such as an employment guarantee program, or change in the ruling party in power) mitigates this relationship. Finally, we examine the relationship between caste identity and actual earnings, and how institutional change can influence it. Our main finding is that caste identity in contemporary India does shape perceptions of self-worth. Among the fully self-employed, we find that controlling for other characteristics, lower-ranked groups earn lower amounts and perceive lower amounts as being remunerative. Further, institutional factors alter self-perceptions differentially for different caste groups, but in more nuanced ways than our ex-ante beliefs.
    Keywords: Caste Discrimination, Remunerative Earnings, Political Economy
    JEL: J15 O15 P16
    Date: 2016–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cde:cdewps:259&r=exp
  16. By: Christopher Blattman; Mathilde Emeriau; Nathan Fiala
    Abstract: A Ugandan government program allowed groups of young people to submit proposals to start skilled enterprises. Among 535 eligible proposals, the government randomly selected 265 to receive grants of nearly $400 per person. Blattman et al. (2014) showed that, after four years, the program raised employment by 17% and earnings 38%. This paper shows that, rather than rewarding the government in elections, beneficiaries increased opposition party membership, campaigning, and voting. Higher incomes are associated with opposition support, and we hypothesize that financial independence frees the poor to express political preferences publicly, being less reliant on patronage and other political transfers.
    JEL: C93 D72 F35 O12
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23035&r=exp
  17. By: Matthew Embrey (University of Sussex); Friederike Mengel (University of Essex and Maastricht University); Ronald Peeters (Maastricht University)
    Abstract: This paper studies whether and how strategy revision opportunities affect levels of collusion in indefinitely repeated two-player games. Consistent with standard theory, we find that such opportunities do not affect strategy choices, or collusion levels, if the game is of strategic substitutes. In contrast, there is a strong and positive effect for games of strategic complements. Revision opportunities lead to more collusion. We discuss alternative explanations for this result.
    Keywords: strategy revision opportunities, cooperation, repeated games, complements vs. substitutes
    JEL: C73 C92 D43
    Date: 2016–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sus:susewp:08716&r=exp
  18. By: Avinatan Hassidim; Assaf Romm; Ran I. Shorrer
    Abstract: We present direct field evidence of preference misrepresentation under deferred acceptance. The high-stakes admission process to graduate studies in psychology in Israel was centralized using the applicant-proposing version of deferred acceptance. Yet, a large fraction of these highly educated individuals, who had been informed about the strategy-proof nature of the mechanism in numerous ways, failed to play truthfully. Out of 704 rank-ordered lists that included a non-funded position in a program that offered funded positions, we found that in 137 (over 19%) the non-funded position was ranked higher (or the funded position was not ranked at all). This is despite the fact that the applicants had been informed that rank-ordered lists are never made public, funding is considered a positive signal of ability, and funding comes with no strings attached. Preference misrepresentation is associated with weaker applicants. We provide evidence from a laboratory experiment of a strong, causal, negative relationship between applicants? expected desirability and preference misrepresentation.
    Date: 2016–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qsh:wpaper:413411&r=exp
  19. By: Bruno Lanz (University of Neuchâtel, Department of Economics and Business; ETH Zurich, Chair for Integrative Risk Management and Economics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.); Jules-Daniel Wurlod (Boston Consulting Group, Geneva, Switzerland.); Luca Panzone (Newcastle University, School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, UK.); Timothy Swanson (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Centre for International Environmental Studies, Switzerland.)
    Abstract: Pigovian regulation provides monetary penalties/rewards to incentivize prosocial behavior, and may thereby trigger behavioral effects beyond a more standard response associated with a change in relative prices. This paper quantifies the magnitude of these behavioral effects using data from an experiment on real product choices together with a structural model of consumer behavior. First, we show that information about external effects (products’ embodied carbon emissions) triggers voluntary substitution towards cleaner alternatives, and we estimate that this effect is equivalent to a change in relative prices of GBP30.69-165.15/tCO2. Second, comparing a Pigovian intervention (GBP19/tCO2) with a neutrally-framed price change of the same magnitude, we find a negative behavioral effect associated with regulation. Compensating this bias would require increasing the Pigovian price signal by up to 48.06/tCO2. Finally, based on a cross-product comparison, we show that the magnitude of behavioral effects declines with substitutability between clean and dirty product alternatives, a measure of effort to reduce emissions.
    Keywords: Externalities; Pigovian regulation; Consumer behavior; Information; Field experiments; Environmental policy.
    JEL: C93 D03 D12 H23 Q58
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irn:wpaper:17-01&r=exp
  20. By: Cash, Sean B.; McAlister, Anna R.
    Abstract: We seek to examine how “adult-facing” food price interventions (such as junk food taxes) and warning labels may influence kids who are buying their own snacks. This work, conducted through a series of both laboratory and field experiments, also looks at the cognitive correlates of children’s market behavior. A proper understanding of the development and functioning of children as autonomous consumers has important implications for the role of labelling policies for good nutritional choices on children and the economy.
    Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:assa17:252700&r=exp
  21. By: Turner, Robert (Department of Economics, Colgate University)
    Abstract: This paper reports the results of two experiments exploring the impact of exposure to environmental art on environmental beliefs, using images of plastic bag pollution in oceans. Even though the experimental design investigates only the immediate impact of a brief exposure to artistic images, the design controls well for other factors that might influence changes in environmental beliefs. This study is one of the few to directly estimate the effect of environmental art and it is the first to use elements of the New Ecological Paradigm in that context. Beyond the main research question of whether environmental art has effects on beliefs, the study also investigates whether expected behavior is affected, whether it is art or the information conveyed along with the art that matters, whether other factors influence the effect of exposure to the artwork, and what personal characteristics are associated with pro-environmental behaviors with respect to plastic bags as well as pro-environmental beliefs.
    Keywords: environmental art, environmental beliefs, plastic pollution, New Ecological Paradigm
    Date: 2017–01–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgt:wpaper:2017-1&r=exp
  22. By: Britta Hoyer; T.M. van Huizen; L.M. Keijzer; T. Rezaei Khavas; S. Rosenkranz; B. Westbrock
    Abstract: We study the willingness to compete in a cognitive task among an entire cohort of fresh man business and economics students. Combining data from a lab-in-thefield experiment with university admissions data, we trace the gender gap in competitiveness at different levels of high school performance. Our results confirm that, on average, men choose to compete more often. The gender gap disappears, however, among students with above average high school performance. Female high school top performers are equally competitive as their male counterparts. In fact, the overall gender gap is entirely driven by the group of female high school underperformers who shied away from competition, even when they performed well in our task. Overall, our findings suggest that high school grades are more than just a signal of cognitive abilities, because they seem to influence the receivers selfperception of his or her performance in a competitive environment involved in later on in life.
    Keywords: gender gap, competitiveness, performance feedback, high school grades, lab-in-the-field experiment
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:1606&r=exp
  23. By: Wooders, John; Moreno, Diego
    Abstract: We study optimal public and secret reserve prices for risk averse sellers in second price auctions with endogenous entry. We show that an optimal public reserve price rP (observed by buyers prior to making their entry decisions) is above the seller's cost, c, whereas the secret reserve price rS (observed by buyers only upon entering the auction) is below the revenue maximizing reserve price r0. Thus, risk aversion raises public reserve prices, but lowers secret reserve prices. Further, we show that an optimal public reserve price is smaller than the secret reserve price (i.e., rP
    Keywords: Risk Aversion; Public and secret reserve prices; Endogenous entry; Second-price auctions
    JEL: D44
    Date: 2016–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:23951&r=exp

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