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on Experimental Economics |
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Issue of 2023‒08‒28
27 papers chosen by |
| By: | Columbus, Simon (University of Copenhagen); Feld, Lars P. (University of Freiburg); Kasper, Matthias (Walter Eucken Institute, Freiburg); Rablen, Matthew D. (University of Sheffield) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effects of unfair enforcement of institutional rules on public good contributions, personal and social norms, and trust. In a preregistered online experiment (n = 1, 038), we find that biased institutions reduce rule compliance compared to fair institutions. However, rule enforcement – fair and unfair – reduces norm polarisation compared to no enforcement. We also find that social heterogeneity lowers average trust and induces ingroup favouritism in trust. Finally, we find consistent evidence of peer effects: higher levels of peer compliance raise future compliance and spillover positively into norms and trust. Our study contributes to the literature on behavioural responses to institutional design and strengthens the case for unbiased rule enforcement. |
| Keywords: | public goods, compliance, social norms, trust, audits, biased rule enforcement, polarisation |
| JEL: | H41 C72 C91 C92 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16346&r=exp |
| By: | Trieu, Chi |
| Abstract: | When affirmative action policies target more than one disadvantaged group, they contain uncertainty as to whether an individual who belongs to one of these groups was actually favored. In a laboratory experiment, we study how this feature affects outcomes of affirmative action in the form of quotas, and compare it with two other conditions, namely affirmative action with a certain favored group and no affirmative action. We find that when a group is favored with certainty and the social identity that triggers affirmative action is made salient, affirmed individuals are wrongly perceived as less competent, both by themselves and by others. Consequently, their willingness to compete does not increase and they are selected less for teamwork post competition. Affirmative action with uncertain favored groups does not distort belief in competence, and thus does not induce such unintended consequences. In contrast, it increases competition entry of the affirmed groups and enhances their chances of being selected for teamwork. |
| Keywords: | Affirmative action, Competition, Uncertainty, Identity, Experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D02 J71 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:405&r=exp |
| By: | Mariana Blanco; Darwin Cortés; Amalia Rodríguez-Valencia |
| Abstract: | We propose a laboratory experiment to understand how social exclusion affects the participants of this antisocial interaction in terms of performance and reported emotions. We adopt a widely used ostracism manipulation from psychology and take it to an experimental economics laboratory. We find that social exclusion events only affect lightly excluded participants and that this effect is explained by the emotions generated after exclusion. In addition, the victims of exclusion report reductions in the valence dimension of emotions, as do those who have the option to exclude but decide not to. The possibility of bystanders punishing potential offenders, the generalized disapproval of exclusion, and an extended approval of inclusion reduce the incidence of exclusion. This reduction comes at the cost of negative changes in the reported emotions of most participant types, but it does not translate into changes in performance in a task. Last, we find that previous exclusion increases the decision of former victims to ostracize |
| Date: | 2023–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:020803&r=exp |
| By: | Comola, Margherita (Paris School of Economics); Prina, Silvia (Northeastern University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how formal financial access affects network-based financial arrangements. We use a field experiment that granted access to a savings account to a random subset of households in 19 Nepalese villages. Exploiting a unique panel dataset that follows all bilateral informal financial transactions before and after the intervention, we show that households that were offered access to an account increased their loans and total transfers to others, independent of the treatment status of the receiver. The increase seemed to be driven by treatment households with more assets and greater financial inclusion at baseline. |
| Keywords: | financial access, savings, networks, financial arrangements |
| JEL: | C93 D14 G21 O16 O17 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16303&r=exp |
| By: | Anna Schwarz; Philipp Warum (Austrian Institute of Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | This article presents a novel explanation why demand for redistribution on average does not respond to information on low intergenerational mobility. Building on insights from behavioural economics, we expect that incentives to update perceptions of intergenerational mobility change along the income distribution. Empirically, we conduct a survey experiment in Austria and show that the average treatment effect of information on perceptions is mostly driven by higher income individuals while low-income respondents hardly react. We replicate this result for the United States and Germany using data from two closely related survey experiments (Alesina et al., 2018; Fehr et al., 2022). Thus, the frequently observed unresponsiveness of demand for redistribution may result because the group which drives the effect on beliefs does not increase demand for redistribution and may even decrease it. Indeed, despite the strong perception shift in the high-income group, the treatment effects on its preferences are mostly zero and even negative for certain policies. At the same time, the group with the clearest incentives to change its redistributive preferences, the low-income group, is systematically less inclined to update its perceptions and thus their redistributive preferences are mostly unaffected and only partially increased in response to the treatment. We suggest that different responses to information could be due to motivated beliefs, since high social mobility implies for low-income earners that effort is more likely to pay off. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility, Beliefs, Survey experiment, Redistributive preferences |
| Date: | 2023–08–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2023:i:665&r=exp |
| By: | Diego Aycinena; Mariana Blanco |
| Abstract: | In this paper we report results from an online experiment conducted with over 1, 000 participants from Colombia’s general population. The experiment is designed to examine the impact of exposition to a COVID priming and a negative economic shock on trusting behavior. Overall, we find that participants under the neutral prime who are exposed to a negative economic shock become less trusting. In addition, we find that trustors who receive the shock become more trusting, increasing the proportion of the endowment they transfer. This result is not an artifact of the modification of the trsutor’s action set due to the negative shock received, and is consistent with beliefs of higher returned amount and stronger normative expectations of reciprocity, as well as general pro-sociality. |
| Keywords: | Trust; Inequality; Social Preferences; Dictator game |
| Date: | 2023–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:020802&r=exp |
| By: | Han Wang |
| Abstract: | We study the design of contracts that incentivize a researcher to conduct a costly experiment, extending the work of Yoder (2022) from binary states to a general state space. The cost is private information of the researcher. When the experiment is observable, we find the optimal contract and show that higher types choose more costly experiments, but not necessarily more Blackwell informative ones. When only the experiment result is observable, the principal can still achieve the same optimal outcome if and only if a certain monotonicity condition with respect to types holds. Our analysis demonstrates that the general case is qualitatively different than the binary one, but that the contracting problem remains tractable. |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2307.07629&r=exp |
| By: | Stefano Piasenti; Marica Valente; Roel van Veldhuizen; Gregor Pfeifer; Gregor-Gabriel Pfeifer |
| Abstract: | How do men and women differ in their persistence after experiencing failure in a competitive environment? We tackle this question by combining a large online experiment (N=2, 086) with machine learning. We find that when losing is unequivocally due to merit, both men and women exhibit a significant decrease in subsequent tournament entry. However, when the prior tournament is unfair, i.e., a loss is no longer necessarily based on merit, women are more discouraged than men. These results suggest that transparent meritocratic criteria may play a key role in preventing women from falling behind after experiencing a loss. |
| Keywords: | competitiveness, gender, fairness, machine learning, online experiment |
| JEL: | C90 D91 J16 C14 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10572&r=exp |
| By: | Lara Marie Berger; Anna Kerkhof; Felix Mindl; Johannes Münster |
| Abstract: | We conduct a randomized survey experiment to compare the short- and longer-term effects of fact checking to a brief media literacy intervention. We show that the impact of fact checking is limited to the corrected fake news, whereas media literacy helps to distinguish between false and correct information more generally, both immediately and two weeks after the intervention. A plausible mechanism is that media literacy enables participants to critically evaluate social media postings, while fact checking fails to enhance their skills. Our results promote media literacy as an effective tool to fight fake news, that is cheap, scalable, and easy-to-implement. |
| Keywords: | Covid, Facebook, fact checking, fake news, media literacy, misinformation, nutrition, social media, supplements, survey experiment, vaccine |
| JEL: | L51 L82 Z18 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10576&r=exp |
| By: | Dickinson, David L. (Appalachian State University) |
| Abstract: | Dark personality traits have been linked to behaviors commonly understood as unethical, such as fraud, bribe-taking, and marital infidelity. Presumably, more "light" personality traits may be associated with lesser tendencies to be unethical, but many individuals also possess both light and dark trait characteristics. This paper reports results from a preregistered study of over 2400 participants who completed validated short-form personality instruments to assess dark and light personality trait measures—the dark tetrad and a light "triad" of 3 personality dimensions were measured. Furthermore, participants completed 3 tasks of interest that contribute to an understanding or one's ethics: a task assessing prosociality, a task that presents a monetary temptation to be dishonest, and a hypothetical moral dilemma task. The results overall support the hypotheses that dark personality traits predict lower levels of prosociality, higher likelihood of dishonesty, and an increased willingness to make immoral choices overall. Potential mechanisms and implications are examined. |
| Keywords: | ethics, dark personality, moral choice, experiments |
| JEL: | C91 D91 D63 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16338&r=exp |
| By: | Piasenti, Stefano (Humboldt University Berlin); Valente, Marica (University of Innsbruck); van Veldhuizen, Roel (Lund University); Pfeifer, Gregor (University of Sydney) |
| Abstract: | How do men and women differ in their persistence after experiencing failure in a competitive environment? We tackle this question by combining a large online experiment (N=2, 086) with machine learning. We find that when losing is unequivocally due to merit, both men and women exhibit a significant decrease in subsequent tournament entry. However, when the prior tournament is unfair, i.e., a loss is no longer necessarily based on merit, women are more discouraged than men. These results suggest that transparent meritocratic criteria may play a key role in preventing women from falling behind after experiencing a loss. |
| Keywords: | competitiveness, gender, fairness, machine learning, online experiment |
| JEL: | C90 D91 J16 C14 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16324&r=exp |
| By: | Cars Hommes; Julien Pinter; Isabelle Salle |
| Abstract: | We conduct an information-provision experiment within a large-scale household survey on public finance in France, The Netherlands and Italy. We elicit prior opinions via open-ended questions and introduce a measure of macroeconomic policy literacy. A central bank (CB) educational blogpost explaining the mechanics of CB money preceded by a short video clip on public finance can persistently induce less support for monetary-financed proposals and more for fiscal discipline and CB independence, no matter the respondents’ level of policy literacy. However, prior beliefs matter and contradictory information may be polarizing. Additional analysis of our data shows that information affects the respondents’ views by shifting their inflation and tax expectations associated to these policies. |
| Keywords: | large-scale household survey, information-provision experiment, RCT, central bank communication, expectations |
| JEL: | E70 E60 E62 E58 G53 H31 C83 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10574&r=exp |
| By: | Yuehao Bai; Hongchang Guo; Azeem M. Shaikh; Max Tabord-Meehan |
| Abstract: | This paper studies inference for the local average treatment effect in randomized controlled trials with imperfect compliance where treatment status is determined according to "matched pairs." By "matched pairs, " we mean that units are sampled i.i.d. from the population of interest, paired according to observed, baseline covariates and finally, within each pair, one unit is selected at random for treatment. Under weak assumptions governing the quality of the pairings, we first derive the limiting behavior of the usual Wald (i.e., two-stage least squares) estimator of the local average treatment effect. We show further that the conventional heteroskedasticity-robust estimator of its limiting variance is generally conservative in that its limit in probability is (typically strictly) larger than the limiting variance. We therefore provide an alternative estimator of the limiting variance that is consistent for the desired quantity. Finally, we consider the use of additional observed, baseline covariates not used in pairing units to increase the precision with which we can estimate the local average treatment effect. To this end, we derive the limiting behavior of a two-stage least squares estimator of the local average treatment effect which includes both the additional covariates in addition to pair fixed effects, and show that the limiting variance is always less than or equal to that of the Wald estimator. To complete our analysis, we provide a consistent estimator of this limiting variance. A simulation study confirms the practical relevance of our theoretical results. We use our results to revisit a prominent experiment studying the effect of macroinsurance on microenterprise in Egypt. |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2307.13094&r=exp |
| By: | Pedro Carneiro; Yyannú Cruz-Aguayo; Norbert Schady; Francesca Salvati |
| 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: | 2023–08–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:azt:cemmap:19/23&r=exp |
| By: | Farré, Lídia (University of Barcelona); Felfe, Christina (University of Würzburg); Gonzalez, Libertad (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Schneider, Patrick (University of Würzburg) |
| Abstract: | Social norms are an important barrier to gender convergence. We show that public policy designed to promote gender equality at home can pave the way towards gender convergence by shaping gender norms in the next generation. We combine the introduction of paternity leave in Spain with a large-scale lab-in-the field experiment in secondary schools. Following a local difference-in-differences approach, we show that children born after the policy change exhibit more gender egalitarian attitudes and perceive less stereotypical social norms. They are also more likely to engage in counter-stereotypical day-to-day behaviors and to deviate from the male-breadwinner model in the future. |
| Keywords: | gender equality, gender norms, paternity leave permits |
| JEL: | J08 J13 J16 J18 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16341&r=exp |
| By: | Aga Kasperska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Anna Matysiak (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Work from home (WFH) has been a part of the professional landscape for over two decades, yet it was the COVID-19 pandemic that has substantially increased its prevalence. The impact of WFH on careers is rather ambiguous, and a question remains open about how this effect is manifested in the current times considering the recent extensive and widespread use of WFH during the pandemic. In an attempt to answer these questions, this article investigates whether managerial preferences for promotion, salary increase and training allowance depend on employee engagement in WFH. We also explore the heterogeneity of the effects of WFH on careers across different populations by taking into account the employee’s gender, parenthood status, frequency of WFH as well as the prevalence of WFH in the team. An online discrete choice experiment was run on a sample of over 1, 000 managers from the United Kingdom. The experiment was conducted between July and December 2022, and thus after the extensive use of this working arrangement during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings indicate that employees who WFH are less likely to be considered for promotion, salary increase and training than on-site workers. The pay and promotion penalties for WFH are particularly true for men (both fathers and non-fathers) and childless women, but not mothers. We also find that employees operating in teams with a higher prevalence of WFH do not experience negative career effects when working from home. The findings underline the importance of individual factors and familiarisation as well as social acceptance of flexible working arrangements in their impact on careers. |
| Keywords: | career, experiment, family, gender, promotion, work from home |
| JEL: | J12 J13 J16 J21 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2023-16&r=exp |
| By: | Kopsacheilis, Orestis (Technical University of Munich); Goerg, Sebastian J. (Technische Universität München) |
| Abstract: | Having an accurate account of preferences help governments design better policies for their citizens, organizations develop more efficient incentive schemes for their employees and adjust their product to better suit their clients' needs. The plethora of elicitation methods most commonly used can be broadly distinguished between methods that rely on people self-assessing and directly stating their preferences (qualitative) and methods that are indirectly inferring such preferences through choices in some task (quantitative). Alarmingly, the two approaches produce systematically different conclusions about preferences and, therefore, survey designers often include both quantitative and qualitative items. An important methodological question that is hitherto unaddressed is whether the order in which quantitative and qualitative items are encountered affects elicited preferences. We conduct three, pre-registered, studies with a total of 3, 000 participants, where we elicit preferences about risk, time-discounting and altruism in variations of two conditions: 'Quantitative First' and 'Qualitative First'. We find significant and systematic order effects. Eliciting preferences through qualitative items first boosts inferred patience and altruism while using quantitative items first increases the cross-method correlation for risk and time preferences. We explore how monetary incentivization and introducing financial context modulates these results and discuss the implications of our findings in the context of nudging interventions as well as our understanding of the nature of preferences. |
| Keywords: | preferences, qualitative vs. quantitative measures, risk, altruism, patience |
| JEL: | C83 C91 D01 D91 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16343&r=exp |
| By: | Daniel Priolo (EPSYLON - Dynamique des capacités humaines et des conduites de santé - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3); Isabelle Milhabet (LAPCOS - Laboratoire d'Anthropologie et de Psychologie Cliniques, Cognitives et Sociales - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur); Marilena Bertolino (LAPCOS - Laboratoire d'Anthropologie et de Psychologie Cliniques, Cognitives et Sociales - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur); Tom Juille (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur); Dorian Jullien (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Guilhem Lecouteux (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur); Ismaël Rafaï (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur); Pierre Thérouanne (LAPCOS - Laboratoire d'Anthropologie et de Psychologie Cliniques, Cognitives et Sociales - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to replicate the effect of a nudge on behavior (efficiency) and acceptability in a natural field experiment. The nudge in our study consists in setting zero sugars as the default level of sugar in hot drinks–vending machines in a French university. We compared Campus A (default option set to 0 sugars) to Campus B (default option set to 3 sugars). We measured the efficiency of this default option by observing the level of sugar actually chosen by the participants, and we measured acceptability through a questionnaire. We hypothesized a high level of efficiency for the nudge and a higher acceptability in Campus A (default option set to 0 sugars) compared to Campus B (default option set to 3 sugars). Our results show that participants with the default option set to zero sugars (Campus A) consumed less sugar than those with the default option set to 3 sugars (Campus B). We also found a high level of acceptability on both campuses, though with no difference between Campus A (where the nudge was implemented) and Campus B (where a future nudge would be implemented). The discussion addresses the applied perspectives and ethical implications of these results. |
| Keywords: | behavioral policy, nudge, efficiency, default option, acceptability |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04160334&r=exp |
| By: | Wayne Aaron Sandholtz |
| Abstract: | Public service reform often entails broad benefits for society and concentrated costs for interest groups. These groups’ political responses determine whether electoral incentives exist to improve public services. This paper examines the electoral effects of a randomized Liberian school reform which increased student learning but antagonized teachers. On average, this policy reduced the incumbent party’s presidential vote share by 3 percentage points (10%). It had no significant impact on legislative races, consistent with correct attribution by voters; information experiments with candidates and voters further suggest a well-informed electorate. The policy also reduced teachers’ job satisfaction by 0.18s and lowered their participation in political activity by 0.22s. I use the policy’s pairwise randomization to study how its electoral effects varied across the (orthogonal) distributions of treatment effects on student learning and teacher political activity. The policy increased vote share more where it caused greater student learning, and reduced vote share more where it caused greater political disengagement of teachers. (Treatment effects on student learning and teacher political involvement were uncorrelated.) Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the policy could have won votes on net if the floor on learning effects had been the 27th percentile, and the floor on teacher political involvement effects had been the 30th percentile. This paper shows empirically that electoral rewards correlate with the size of public service improvements, but that politically feasible reforms must balance voter rewards with the costs of alienating interest groups. |
| Keywords: | Electoral returns; Policy feedback; Public service delivery; Policy experimentation; Education; Political economy; Elections; Randomized controlled trial; Liberia; Information |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notnic:2023-15&r=exp |
| By: | Baert, Stijn (Ghent University); Herregods, Jolien (Ghent University); Sterkens, Philippe (Ghent University) |
| Abstract: | In this study, we present a state-of-the-art scenario experiment which, for the first time in the literature, directly measures the stigma surrounding job candidates with tattoos and piercings using real recruiters. We find that job candidates with body art are perceived as less pleasant to work with, less honest, less emotionally stable, less agreeable, less conscientious and less manageable. This goes hand in hand with lower hireability for men with body art but not for women. Compared to candidates who reveal obesity, a characteristic we also randomise, those with body art score better overall in terms of hireability and rated personality, similar in terms of rated taste to collaborate but worse in terms of rated direct productivity drivers. |
| Keywords: | body art, obesity, stigma, personality, hiring, taste discrimination, statistical discrimination |
| JEL: | C91 J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16311&r=exp |
| By: | Yermone Sargsyan (Charles University, Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic); Salim Turdaliev (Charles University, Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic); Silvester van Koten (UJEP, Faculty of Social and Economic Studies, Usti nad Labem & CERGE-EI Prague, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effectiveness of "nudges" through monthly peer comparison reports on household energy consumption in Yerevan, Armenia. We collected data from 300 households for a total of 8 months. While monthly peer comparison reports show no significant effect on energy consumption, we find strong and statistically significant heterogeneous treatment effects. Specifically, we find that households utilizing electricity as their primary heating source, households where the respondent is an educated female, and households with respondents aged 56 and above experienced a decrease in electricity usage as a result of the peer comparison reports. Moreover, we discover that high electricity consumers reduce their consumption significantly after receiving the reports. However, we also observe a small "boomerang" effect, whereby households in the lower quartile of electricity consumption slightly increase their usage in response to the reports. Furthermore, we find that the bulk of the reduction in electricity consumption comes from daytime consumption when the marginal cost of electricity is higher. Additionally, we explore the heterogeneous treatment effects of nudges on the investment in the physical stock of appliances. |
| Keywords: | demand side management, nudges, household energy consumption, peer comparison, developing country, heterogeneous treatment effects, electrical appliances |
| JEL: | Q4 Q53 Q48 Q58 C93 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2023_23&r=exp |
| By: | Yuehao Bai; Jizhou Liu; Azeem M. Shaikh; Max Tabord-Meehan |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the efficient estimation of a large class of treatment effect parameters that arise in the analysis of experiments. Here, efficiency is understood to be with respect to a broad class of treatment assignment schemes for which the marginal probability that any unit is assigned to treatment equals a pre-specified value, e.g., one half. Importantly, we do not require that treatment status is assigned in an i.i.d. fashion, thereby accommodating complicated treatment assignment schemes that are used in practice, such as stratified block randomization and matched pairs. The class of parameters considered are those that can be expressed as the solution to a restriction on the expectation of a known function of the observed data, including possibly the pre-specified value for the marginal probability of treatment assignment. We show that this class of parameters includes, among other things, average treatment effects, quantile treatment effects, local average treatment effects as well as the counterparts to these quantities in experiments in which the unit is itself a cluster. In this setting, we establish two results. First, we derive a lower bound on the asymptotic variance of estimators of the parameter of interest in the form of a convolution theorem. Second, we show that the n\"aive method of moments estimator achieves this bound on the asymptotic variance quite generally if treatment is assigned using a "finely stratified" design. By a "finely stratified" design, we mean experiments in which units are divided into groups of a fixed size and a proportion within each group is assigned to treatment uniformly at random so that it respects the restriction on the marginal probability of treatment assignment. In this sense, "finely stratified" experiments lead to efficient estimators of treatment effect parameters "by design" rather than through ex post covariate adjustment. |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2307.15181&r=exp |
| By: | Valerio Capraro; Roberto Di Paolo; Veronica Pizziol |
| Abstract: | Generative artificial intelligence holds enormous potential to revolutionize decision-making processes, from everyday to high-stake scenarios. However, as many decisions carry social implications, for AI to be a reliable assistant for decision-making it is crucial that it is able to capture the balance between self-interest and the interest of others. We investigate the ability of three of the most advanced chatbots to predict dictator game decisions across 78 experiments with human participants from 12 countries. We find that only GPT-4 (not Bard nor Bing) correctly captures qualitative behavioral patterns, identifying three major classes of behavior: self-interested, inequity-averse, and fully altruistic. Nonetheless, GPT-4 consistently overestimates other-regarding behavior, inflating the proportion of inequity-averse and fully altruistic participants. This bias has significant implications for AI developers and users. |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2307.12776&r=exp |
| By: | Erminia Florio (University of Rome "Tor Vergata" & HEC Montréal) |
| Abstract: | The research studies the effect of information campaigns on migration on perceptions and intentions to migrate among high school students in Dakar, Senegal. Through a randomized experiment, I analyze the role of expectations, migration perceptions, and intention to migrate and assess if (and, if so, which) actors and information content are effective the most in shaping students’ migration intention and perceptions. I find that students display a high level of distrust in domestic labor markets, and the information treatment with an external expert reduces the misperceptions on some measures of labor market statistics but has no effect on the perception of the illegal journey. In addition, narratives reduce the willingness to migrate illegally, but none of the treatments has impacts on the intention to migrate. The effect of narratives is stronger for students with close family members abroad. |
| Keywords: | Migration intentions, information provision, expectations |
| JEL: | O15 D83 F22 |
| Date: | 2023–07–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:564&r=exp |
| By: | Evan Friedman; Duarte Gon\c{c}alves |
| Abstract: | Quantal response equilibrium (QRE), a statistical generalization of Nash equilibrium, is a standard benchmark in the analysis of experimental data. Despite its influence, nonparametric characterizations and tests of QRE are unavailable beyond the case of finite games. We address this gap by completely characterizing the set of QRE in a class of binary-action games with a continuum of types. Our characterization provides sharp predictions in settings such as global games, the volunteer's dilemma, and the compromise game. Further, we leverage our results to develop nonparametric tests of QRE. As an empirical application, we revisit the experimental data from Carrillo and Palfrey (2009) on the compromise game. |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2307.08011&r=exp |
| By: | Subhasish M. Chowdhury (Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4DT, UK); Matteo M. Marini (Department of Public Economics, Masaryk University Experimental Economics Laboratory, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | We revisit the analyses by Sheremeta (2013) and Chowdhury and Moffatt (2017), who pool experimental data from 30 Tullock contests to explain the phenomenon of overbid- ding. The authors find that the overbidding rate is positively related to the number of contestants and has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the relative endowment. We reuse their data and extend the analysis in the direction of cross-cultural differ- ences, focusing on ethno-linguistic-religious fractionalization as a country-level measure. The results suggest an increased explanatory power of the model, with fractionalization negatively relating to overbidding. In addition, the extended model shows that in the one-shot game the overbidding rate is significantly higher than in the case of repeated interactions. We discuss possible interpretations of our findings. |
| Keywords: | meta-analysis; contests; experiments; overbidding; fractionalization |
| JEL: | C90 D72 D74 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2023016&r=exp |
| By: | Panagiotis Kyriazis; Edmund Lou |
| Abstract: | Coordination facilitation and efficient decision-making are two essential components of successful leadership. In this paper, we take an informational approach and investigate how followers' information impacts coordination and efficient leadership in a model featuring a leader and a team of followers. We show that efficiency is achieved as the unique rationalizable outcome of the game when followers possess sufficiently imprecise information. In contrast, if followers have accurate information, the leader may fail to coordinate them toward the desired outcome or even take an inefficient action herself. We discuss the implications of the results for the role of leaders in the context of financial fragility and crises. |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2307.13841&r=exp |