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on Cognitive and Behavioural Economics |
| By: | Arndt Reichert; Harald Tauchmann |
| Abstract: | We analyze the eff ect of job insecurity on psychological health. We extend the group of people being aff ected to employees who have insecure jobs to account for a broader measure of the mental health consequences of potential unemployment. Using panel data with staff reductions in the company as an exogenous source of job insecurity, we fi nd that an increase in fear of unemployment substantially decreases the mental health status of employees. Quantile regression results yield particularly strong eff ects for individuals of already poor mental health. |
| Keywords: | Fear of unemployment; mental health; job insecurity; labor market dynamics |
| JEL: | I10 I18 J28 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rwi:repape:0266&r=cbe |
| By: | Werner Güth (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group); Anastasios Koukoumelis (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group); M. Vittoria Levati (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group) |
| Abstract: | We compare, on the basis of a procedurally fair "provision point" mechanism, bids for a public project from which some gain and some lose with bids for a less efficient public project from which all gain. In the main treatment, participants independently decide which one, if any, of the public projects should be implemented. We also run control treatments where only one of the two projects can be implemented. We find that (a) mixed feelings per se do not affect bidding behavior, and (b) the provision frequency of the project that raises mixed feelings declines significantly when it faces competition from the public good. |
| Keywords: | Public project, Bidding behavior, Procedural fairness |
| JEL: | C72 C92 D63 H44 |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2011-034&r=cbe |
| By: | C. Bram Cadsby (Department of Economics and Finance, University of Guelph); Maros Servatka (Department of Economics and Finance, University of Canterbury); Fei Song (Ted Rogers School of Business Management, Ryerson University) |
| Abstract: | We develop and test experimentally the argument that gender/family and/or professional identities, activated through psychological priming, may influence preference for competition. We focus on female professionals for whom these identities may conflict and male professionals for whom they may be reinforcing. We primed MBA-student participants by administering questionnaires that concerned either gender/family or professional issues. Subsequently, participants undertook a real-effort task and chose between piece-rate and competitive-tournament compensation. Identity priming, moderated by gender, significantly affected preference for competitive pay. This relationship was partially mediated by beliefs about oneÕs performance ranking. The implications of our results are profound. The decision to avoid competition made by many female professionals may be driven not by lack of ability, but rather by the increased salience of gender/family identity, influenced by marriage and motherhood over time. Indeed, activation of internalized identities might not only drive the experimental results, but also have strong implications for career choices and job performance of women, thus contributing to the observed gender and motherhood wage gaps. |
| Keywords: | Experiment; Gender; Competitiveness; Identity; Priming; Family; Tournament |
| JEL: | C91 J16 J33 M52 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gue:guelph:2011-08.&r=cbe |
| By: | Gerhard Riener (GSBC-EIC - The Economics of Innovative Change, University of Jena); Simon Wiederhold (GSBC-EIC - The Economics of Innovative Change, University of Jena) |
| Abstract: | Controlling employees can have severe consequences in situations that are not fully contractible. However, the perception of control may be contingent on the nature of the relationship between principal and agent. We, therefore, propose a principal-agent model of control that takes into account social identity (in the sense of Akerlof and Kranton, 2000, 2005). From the model and previous literature, we conclude that a shared social identity between the principal and agent has both a cognitive, that is, belief-related, and a behavioral, that is, performance-related, dimension. We test these theoretical conjectures in a labor market experiment with perfect monitoring. Our ndings confirm that social identity has important implications for the agent's decision-making. First, agents who are socially close to the principal (in-group) perform, on average, more on behalf of the principal than socially distant (no-group) agents. Second, social identity shapes the agent's subjective expectations of the acceptable level of control. In-group agents expect to experience less control than no-group agents. Third, an agent's reaction to the monitoring level she eventually faces also depends on social identity. If the experienced level of control is lower than the expected control level, that is, the agent faces a positive sensation, the increase in performance is less pronounced for in-group agents than for no-group agents. In the case of a negative sensation, however, in-group agents react stronger than no-group agents. Put differently, being socially distant from the principal amplies the performance-enhancing effect of a positive control surprise and mitigates the detrimental performance effect of a negative surprise. |
| Keywords: | Control, Identity, Employee motivation, Principal-agent theory, Lab experiment |
| JEL: | C92 M54 |
| Date: | 2011–08–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2011-035&r=cbe |
| By: | Bolle, Friedel; Breitmoser, Yves; Otto, Philipp E. |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes two generalization of the core and evaluates them on experimental data of assignment games (workers and firms negotiate wages and matching). The generalizations proposed allow for social utility components (e.g. altruism) and random utility components (e.g. logistic perturbations). These generalizations are well-established in analyses of non-cooperative games, and they prove to be both descriptive and predictive in the assignment games analyzed here. The "logit core" allows us to define a "stochastically more stable" relation on the outcome set, which has intuitive implications, and it fits better than alternative approaches such as random behavior cores and regression modeling. |
| Keywords: | cooperative games; core; random utility; social preferences; laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | C71 C90 D64 |
| Date: | 2011–08–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32918&r=cbe |
| By: | Christian Rusche |
| Abstract: | The direct evolutionary approach according to Leininger (2003) states that players in a two player Tullock rent-seeking contest within a fi nite population behave „as if“ they were relative payoff maximizers. Accordingly contest expenditures are higher than in Nash equilibrium. The indirect evolutionary approach also predicts more aggressive behavior by the players since negatively interdependent preferences are evolutionary stable. Both players are willing to harm themselves in material terms just to harm their opponent even more. I consider that every player in the contest has to contract a delegate either using a relative contract or a no-win-nopay contract. I show that delegation once introduced is able to overcompensate all negative eff ects of negatively interdependent objective functions. But as in the case without delegation a commitment on more aggressive behavior is a dominant strategy. Nevertheless delegation endows principals with a material payoff that is equal to the payoff an individualistic player facing another individualistic player would get. |
| Keywords: | Contest; strategic delegation; spite; agency theory |
| JEL: | C72 D72 M52 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rwi:repape:0270&r=cbe |
| By: | Keisaku Higashida (School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University); Kenta Tanaka (Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University); Shunsuke Managi (Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University) |
| Abstract: | Marine resource depletion is a critical concern for humankind. Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) regimes are among the most effective measures to tackle this problem. Employing an experimental approach, this study examines the rationality of fishers under an ITQ regime. In particular, this study focuses on the case where fishers can change their own vessel scales in the beginning of each period in each experiment. We find that the higher the quota price is, the more irrationally fishers behave. Moreover, vessel scales and initial allocations can influence the rationality of fishers. |
| Keywords: | Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), experiment, rational behavior |
| JEL: | C91 Q22 Q28 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kgu:wpaper:73&r=cbe |