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on Experimental Economics |
| By: | Cullen, Claire (University of Oxford); Joshi, Sarthak (University of Warwick); Vecci, Joseph (University of Gothenburg); Talbot-Jones, Julia (Victoria University of Wellington) |
| Abstract: | Public spending on gender equality and women's empowerment is rising rapidly in many countries. However, the unintended consequences of women's empowerment is rarely measured and remains poorly understood. We study the impact of female empowerment programs on male backlash through a series of experiments involving 1, 007 households in rural India. The paper has four key parts. First, we use an experiment to measure backlash, observing men's decisions to financially penalize women who participated in empowerment programs. We find that men pay to punish empowered women at double the rate of women in an otherwise identical control group (17 percent versus 8 percent). We also show that men engaging in backlash tend to hold more conservative gender attitudes and are more likely to accept or commit intimate partner violence. Second, we test multiple theories on the conditions that trigger backlash and find that backlash occurs regardless of how women become empowered. Third, we examine social image concerns as a potential behavioral mechanism and find that 18 percent of men are willing to pay to conceal their household's involvement in empowerment programs. Those who choose to conceal are more likely to engage in backlash, suggesting that reputational concerns play a key role in driving this behavior. Finally, we test several policies to reduce backlash and find that reframing empowerment programs to emphasize broader community benefits can help mitigate backlash. |
| Keywords: | male backlash, female empowerment, social image, norms, experiments |
| JEL: | C93 J12 J16 O12 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17450 |
| By: | Belguise, Margot; huang, yuchen; Mo, Zhexun |
| Abstract: | Recent experimental evidence contends that meritocratic ideals are mainly a Western phenomenon. Intriguingly, the Chinese public does not appear to differentiate between merit- and luck-based inequalities, despite China’s historical emphasis on meritocratic institutions. We propose that this phenomenon could be due to the Chinese public’s greater reluctance to make an active choice in real-stake redistribution decisions. We run an incentivized redistribution experiment with elite university students in China and France, by varying the initial split of payoffs between two real-life workers to redistribute from. We show that, compared to French respondents, Chinese respondents consistently and significantly choose more non-redistribution across both highly unequal and relatively equal status quo scenarios. Additionally, we also find that Chinese respondents do differentiate between merit- and luck-based inequalities, and do not redistribute less than the French, excluding the individuals who engage in non-redistribution choices. Chinese respondents are also as reactive as the French towards scenarios with noisy signals of merit, such as inequalities of opportunities. Ultimately, we contend that the reluctance to make an active choice is indicative of diminished political agency to act upon redistribution decisions with real-life stakes, rather than apathy, inattention, having benefited from the status quo in Chinese society or libertarian preferences among the Chinese. Notably, our findings show that Chinese individuals’ reluctance to make a choice is particularly pronounced among those from families of working-class and farming backgrounds, while it is absent among individuals whose families have closer ties to the private sector. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper) |
| Date: | 2024–11–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vcuzp |
| By: | Yokoo, Hide-Fumi (Hitotsubashi University); KUBO, Takahiro (National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)); Kunii, Daisuke; Sasaki, Hiroki |
| Abstract: | If a government highlighted the first producer to adopt green technology, how would the remaining producers react? This study is the first attempt to evaluate the impact of a message sent by the government to an industry about a first mover in climate action. Among 374 wineries in Japan, randomly selected half received a message mentioning the winery that was an early adopter of renewable energy. We then observed whether other wineries participated in webinars on carbon footprint measurement to collect information. We find that this message about climate leadership did not encourage the wineries to participate in the webinar, and it even had a negative effect on nearby wineries. We interpret these results as reflecting both the strategic decisions of competing wineries and the adverse psychological effects of the message. This preregistered experiment suggests that we must be cautious when designing policies to honor first movers on the supply side. |
| Date: | 2024–11–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:hbzun |
| By: | Alex Armand (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Britta Augsburg (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Antonella Bancalari (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Maitreesh Ghatak (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Date: | 2023–11–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:23/37 |
| By: | Tung, Hans |
| Abstract: | Experimental studies on political behavior are on the rise in economics and political science. Especially, apart from traditional forms of political participation such as voting and petitions, we have also seen a burgeoning literature on protests, a non-institutional and contentious form of political participation. Despite various ethical concerns with recreating artificially contentious environments for conducting experiments, this burgeoning literature is robust and still growing to cover all analytic issues about the genesis and effects of protests. This essay provides a comprehensive framework and a critical review for the recent experimental literature on protests in social sciences. |
| Date: | 2024–11–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:czgeb |
| By: | Tung, Hans |
| Abstract: | Experimental studies on political behavior are on the rise in economics and political science. Especially, apart from traditional forms of political participation such as voting and petitions, we have also seen a burgeoning literature on protests, a non-institutional and contentious form of political participation. Despite various ethical concerns with recreating artificially contentious environments for conducting experiments, this literature is robust and still growing to cover all analytic issues about the genesis and effects of protests. This essay provides a comprehensive framework and a critical review for the recent experimental literature on protests in social sciences. |
| Date: | 2024–11–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:85mjs |
| By: | Jason A. Aimone; Sheryl Ball; Esha Dwibedi; Jeremy J. Jackson; James E. West |
| Abstract: | We combine societal-level institutional measures from 51 countries between 1996 and 2017 with individual decision-making outcome data from 1, 126 laboratory experiments in six meta-analyses to evaluate the effects of within-country institutional change on pro-social and Nash behavior. We find that government effectiveness and regulatory freedom positively correlate with pro-social behavior. We find that freedom from each of the following components of regulation; interest rate controls, binding minimum wages, worker dismissal protections, conscription, and administrative requirements; are correlated with prosocial behavior and are inversely correlated with Nash behavior. These results suggest the importance of considering spillover effects in pro-social behavior when designing government policy. |
| JEL: | C91 H1 P5 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33129 |