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on Experimental Economics |
| By: | Claudia Soucek (Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf - Institute for Health Services Research and Health Economics, Moorenstr. 5, 40225 Duesseldorf, Germany); Tommaso Reggiani (Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia; IZA, Bonn, Germany); Nadja Kairies-Schwarz (Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf - Institute for Health Services Research and Health Economics, Moorenstr. 5, 40225 Duesseldorf, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Background. In hospitals, decisions are often made under time pressure. There is, however, little evidence on how time pressure affects the quality of treatment and the documentation behavior of physicians. Setting. We implemented a controlled laboratory experiment with a healthcare framing in which international medical students in the Czech Republic treated patients in the role of hospital physicians. We varied the presence of time pressure and a documentation task. Results. We observed worse treatment quality when individuals were faced with a combination of a documentation task and time pressure. In line with the concept of the speed-accuracy trade-off, we showed that quality changes are likely driven by less accuracy. Finally, we showed that while documentation quality was relatively high overall, time pressure significantly lowered the latter leading to a higher hypothetical profit loss for the hospital. Conclusions. Our results suggest that policy reforms aimed at increasing staffing and promoting novel technologies that facilitate physicians' treatment decisions and support their documentation work in the hospital sector might be promising means of improving the treatment quality and reducing inefficiencies potentially caused by documentation errors. |
| Keywords: | physician incentives; work motivation; time pressure; laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | C91 I11 M50 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mub:wpaper:2025-01 |
| By: | Fitzgerald, Jack (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | Recent studies showing that some outcome variables do not statistically significantly differ between real-stakes and hypothetical-stakes conditions have raised methodological challenges to experimental economics' disciplinary norm that experimental choices should be incentivized with real stakes. I show that the hypothetical bias measures estimated in these studies do not econometrically identify the hypothetical biases that matter in most modern experiments. Specifically, traditional hypothetical bias measures are fully informative in 'elicitation experiments' where the researcher is uninterested in treatment effects (TEs). However, in 'intervention experiments' where TEs are of interest, traditional hypothetical bias measures are uninformative; real stakes matter if and only if TEs differ between stakes conditions. I demonstrate that traditional hypothetical bias measures are often misleading estimates of hypothetical bias for intervention experiments, both econometrically and through re-analyses of three recent hypothetical bias experiments. The fact that a given experimental outcome does not statistically significantly differ on average between stakes conditions does not imply that all TEs on that outcome are unaffected by hypothetical stakes. Therefore, the recent hypothetical bias literature does not justify abandoning real stakes in most modern experiments. Maintaining norms that favor completely or probabilistically providing real stakes for experimental choices is useful for ensuring externally valid TEs in experimental economics. |
| Date: | 2025–02–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:metaar:j5nmf_v1 |
| By: | Beknazar-Yuzbashev, George (Columbia University); Ichiba, Sota (Tilburg University); Stalinski, Mateusz (University of Warwick and CAGE) |
| Abstract: | Despite being often discussed both in practice and academic circles, the sunk cost effect remains empirically elusive. Our model based on reference point dependence suggests that the traditional way of testing it—by assigning discounts—may not produce the desired effect. Motivated by this, we evaluate it across the gain-loss divide in two pre-registered experiments. In an online study, we randomize the price (low, medium, or high) of a ticket to enter a real-effort task and observe its effect on play time. Despite varying the sunk cost by $2 for a 14-minute task and the sample size of N=1, 806, we detect only a small effect (0.09 SD or 1.1 minutes). We further explore the economic applications of the effect in a field experiment on YouTube with N=11, 328 videos in which we randomize whether the time until a pre-video ad becomes skippable is shortened (0 s), default (5 s), or extended (10 s). The intervention has an overall insignificant effect on video engagement. This is driven by a sizable negative effect on the extensive margin, a channel which is not present in the online study. Specifically, more users leave before the video starts in the extended treatment (5.2 pp. or 28% more relative to the shortened treatment). Taking the results of both studies together, we offer a cautionary tale that applying even the most intuitive behavioral effects in policy settings can prove challenging. |
| Keywords: | sunk cost, sunk cost fallacy, loss aversion, mental accounting, regret, digital platforms JEL Classification: C91, C93, D04, D11, D12, D90, M31, M37 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:746 |
| By: | Melchior Clerc (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Adrien Gosselin-Pali (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Eliot Wendling (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne) |
| Abstract: | Elisa Macchi (2023) investigates the impact of obesity on the perceived wealth of individuals using primary data collected in Kampala, Uganda. The study includes two complementary experiments: a beliefs experiment and a credit experiment. In the beliefs experiment, individuals assess the wealth of others based on weight-manipulated portraits, while in the credit experiment, loan officers evaluate creditworthiness using similar portraits. In this paper, we reproduce the author's results using the freely accessible replication package. Additionally, we test the robustness of the findings by (1) proposing different nutritional status categorizations, (2) applying alternative estimation strategies via ordered probit/logit models, (3) using different levels of clustering, and (4) excluding extreme values. Overall, our findings supports the main conclusions of the original paper. |
| Date: | 2024–08–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04840748 |
| By: | Gerard van den Berg; Barbara Hofmann; Gesine Stephan (Active Labor Market Policy - Institute for Employment Research); Arne Uhlendorff (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Abstract Integration agreements (IAs) are contracts between the employment agency and the unemployed, nudging the latter to comply with rules on search behavior. We designed and implemented a randomized controlled trial involving thousands of newly unemployed workers, randomizing at the individual level both the timing of the IA and whether it is announced in advance. Administrative records provide outcomes. Novel theoretical and methodological insights provide tools to detect anticipation and suggest estimation by individual baseline employability. The positive effect on entering employment is driven by individuals with adverse prospects. For them, early IA increase reemployment within a year from 53% to 61%. |
| Date: | 2024–11–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04793414 |
| By: | Ceballos, Francisco; Chugh, Aditi; Kramer, Berber |
| Abstract: | The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has heightened interest in digital models to strengthen agricultural extension. Such tools could help provide personalized advisories tailored to a farmer's unique conditions at scale and at a low cost. This study evaluates the fundamental assumption that personalized crop advisories are more effective than generic ones. By means of a large-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT), we assess the impact of personalized picture-based advisories on farmers’ perceptions, knowledge and adoption of recommended inputs and practices, and other downstream outcomes. We find that personalizing advisories does not significantly improve agricultural outcomes compared to generic ones. While farmers who engage relatively more with advisories (i.e., those who receive and read a substantial number of messages based on self-reports) tend to achieve better outcomes, this is irrespective of whether the advisories they receive are tailored to their specific situation or not. We conclude that investments in digital extension tools should aim to enhance engagement with advisories rather than focusing solely on personalization. |
| Keywords: | agricultural extension; artificial intelligence; farmers; inputs; Asia; Southern Asia; Africa; Eastern Africa; India; Kenya |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2322 |
| By: | Trachtman, Carly; Kramer, Berber; do Nascimento Miguel, Jérémy |
| Abstract: | Investments in R&D are often made under ambiguity about the potential impacts of various projects. High-quality, systematic market research could help reduce that ambiguity, including in investments in agricultural research-for-development, such as plant breeding. Using an online framed artefactual experiment with a diverse sample of breeding experts working in various disciplines across the world, we ask how market information and information quality influences breeding experts’ investments in prospects with ambiguous returns, and how the quality and source of information affect willingness to pay for market information. We find that providing market information leads participants to make more prioritized (rather than diversified) decisions. However, participants do not consider differences in information quality, instead over extrapolating from noisy and biased information signals. Finally, while most participants are willing to use experimental funds to purchase market information, around half prefer lower quality information even if higher quality information is available at the same price. We conclude that prioritizing R&D projects with greater impact opportunities will require better awareness among decision-makers of quality issues in various types of market research. |
| Keywords: | agricultural research for development; plant breeding; experimental design; market research |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2314 |
| By: | Nicolas Jacquemet (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Stéphane Luchini; Jason Shogren; Adam Zylbersztejn |
| Abstract: | Under incomplete contracts, the mutual belief in reciprocity facilitates how traders create value through economic exchange. Creating such beliefs among strangers can be challenging even when they are allowed to communicate, because communication is cheap. In this paper, we first extend the literature showing that a truth-telling oath increases honesty to a sequential trust game with pre-play, fixed-form, and cheap-talk communication. Our results confirm that the oath creates more trust and cooperative behavior thanks to an improvement in communication; but we also show that the oath induces selection into communication -it makes people more wary of using communication, precisely because communication speaks louder under oath. We next designed additional treatments featuring mild and deterrent fines for deception to measure the monetary equivalent of the non-monetary incentives implemented by a truth-telling oath. We find that the oath is behaviorally equivalent to mild fines. The deterrent fine induces the highest level of cooperation. Altogether, these results confirm that allowing for interactions under oath within a trust game with communication creates significantly more economic value than the identical exchange institutions without the oath. |
| Keywords: | Trust game, cooperation, communication, commitment, deception, fine, oath |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04722343 |
| By: | Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Narayanan, Sudha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Ray, Soumyajit |
| Abstract: | We explore the impacts of exposing women to female role models and providing skills training on outcomes related to women’s aspirations and engagement in demanding assets under India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)—the largest public works program in the world, which solicits citizen input on which assets to build and where. While the role model treatment exposes women to a video with stories of female role models from neighboring districts who successfully demanded assets, the skills training shows women how to identify individual and group needs for assets, frame their demands, and articulate them to public functionaries. In a randomized controlled trial spanning 94 villages and involving approximately 2, 600 women, we find that exposure to role models alone has limited impacts, but when combined with skills training, there are strong positive impacts on women’s aspirations and engagement in demanding assets. This reveals that even a light-touch training can significantly benefit women’s voice and agency in village decision-making. |
| Keywords: | civil society; decision making; gender; training; women's empowerment; Asia; Southern Asia; India |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2315 |
| By: | Iuliia Alekseenko; Dmitry Dagaev; Sofia Paklina; Petr Parshakov |
| Abstract: | A Keynesian beauty contest is a wide class of games of guessing the most popular strategy among other players. In particular, guessing a fraction of a mean of numbers chosen by all players is a classic behavioral experiment designed to test iterative reasoning patterns among various groups of people. The previous literature reveals that the level of sophistication of the opponents is an important factor affecting the outcome of the game. Smarter decision makers choose strategies that are closer to theoretical Nash equilibrium and demonstrate faster convergence to equilibrium in iterated contests with information revelation. We replicate a series of classic experiments by running virtual experiments with modern large language models (LLMs) who play against various groups of virtual players. We test how advanced the LLMs' behavior is compared to the behavior of human players. We show that LLMs typically take into account the opponents' level of sophistication and adapt by changing the strategy. In various settings, most LLMs (with the exception of Llama) are more sophisticated and play lower numbers compared to human players. Our results suggest that LLMs (except Llama) are rather successful in identifying the underlying strategic environment and adopting the strategies to the changing set of parameters of the game in the same way that human players do. All LLMs still fail to play dominant strategies in a two-player game. Our results contribute to the discussion on the accuracy of modeling human economic agents by artificial intelligence. |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2502.03158 |
| By: | Roberto Galbiati (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Emeric Henry (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Nicolas Jacquemet (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Formal enforcement punishing defectors can sustain cooperation by changing incentives. In this paper we introduce a second effect of enforcement: it can also affect the capacity to learn about the group's cooperativeness. Indeed, in contexts with strong enforcement, it is difficult to tell apart those who cooperate because of the threat of fines from those who are intrinsically cooperative types. Enforcement can then potentially have a negative dynamic impact on cooperation when it prevents learning. We provide theoretical and experimental evidence in support of this mechanism. Using a lab experiment with independent interactions and random rematching, we observe that, in early interactions, having faced an environment with fines in the past decreases current cooperation. We further show that this results from the interaction between enforcement and learning: the effect of having met cooperative partners has a stronger effect on current cooperation when this happened in an environment with no enforcement. |
| Keywords: | Enforcement, social values, cooperation, learning, spillovers, repeated games, experiments |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04800439 |
| By: | Duncan Webb (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Individual-level discrimination is often attributed to deep-seated prejudice that is difficult to change. But at the societal level, we sometimes observe rapid reductions in discriminatory preferences, suggesting that social interactions and the communication they entail might drive such shifts. I examine whether discrimination can be reduced by two types of communication about a minority: (i) horizontal communication between majority-group members, or (ii) top-down communication from agents of authority (e.g., the legal system). I run a field experiment in urban India (N=3, 397) that measures discrimination against a marginalized community of transgender people. Non-transgender participants are highly discriminatory: in a control condition, they sacrifice 1.9x their daily food expenditure to avoid hiring a transgender worker to deliver groceries to their home. But horizontal communication between participants sharply reduces discrimination: participants who were earlier involved in a group discussion with two of their neighbors no longer discriminate on average, even when making private post-discussion choices. This effect is 1.7x larger than the effect of top-down communication that informs participants about the legal rights of transgender people. The discussion's effects are not driven by virtue signaling or correcting a misperceived norm. Instead, participants appear to persuade each other to be more pro-trans, partly because pro-trans participants are the most vocal in discussions. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination, Communication, Social interactions, Transgender, Legal rights, Persuasion |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04524393 |
| By: | Boehm, Johannes; Fize, Étienne; Jaravel, Xavier |
| Abstract: | We present five facts from an experiment on the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) out of transitory transfers: (1) the one-month MPC on a cash-like transfer is 23 percent; (2) it is substantially higher (61 percent) on a transfer administered via a card where remaining funds expire after three weeks, inconsistent with money fungibility; (3) the consumption response is concentrated in the first three weeks; (4) MPCs vary with household characteristics but are high even for the liquid wealthy; (5) unconditional MPC distribution exhibits large variation. Our findings inform the design of stimulus policies and pose challenges to existing macroeconomic models. |
| JEL: | D12 D91 E21 G00 I38 |
| Date: | 2025–01–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126550 |
| By: | Itzhak Rasooly (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we design and implement an experiment aimed at testing the level-k model of auctions. We begin by identifying (simple) environments that optimally disentangle the predictions of the level-k model from the natural benchmark of Bayes-Nash equilibrium. We then implement these environments within a virtual laboratory in order to see which theory can best explain observed bidding behaviour. Overall, our findings suggest that, despite its notable success in predicting behaviour in other strategic settings, the level-k model (and its close cousin, cognitive hierarchy) cannot explain behaviour in auctions. |
| Keywords: | Auction, Behavioural game theory, Experimental design, Level-k models |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04328602 |
| By: | Barboni, Giorgia (Warwick Business School, Warwick University); de Roux, Nicolás (Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia); Perez-Cardona, Santiago (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | We conducted a telephonic survey experiment with 2, 115 Venezuelan migrants to examine how their perceptions of Colombian’s social acceptance influence their engagement with the financial system. We find that 66% of the subjects we interviewed underestimate the extent to which natives are open towards migrants. We then show that providing accurate information reduces belief errors by 23 percentage points. This correction increases migrants’ willingness to interact with the financial system. In particular, individuals who initially underestimated Colombian’s acceptance of migrants are 15% more likely to visit a bank and request financial information in the next two months relative to the control group. These individuals also show a 12% increase in the willingness to open a digital wallet and an 18% increase in the willingness to open a savings account. These effects are concentrated among individuals who have not experienced episodes of discrimination in Colombia. We find no effects on the willingness to apply for a loan or an insurance product, consistent with the idea that supply barriers play a significant role for the financial inclusion of vulnerable populations. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we show that the increased willingness to engage with the financial system is driven by belief updating. In a short follow-up survey six months later, we find that belief corrections persist over time, and while we are underpowered to detect significant behavioral effects, the patterns remain consistent with the baseline results. Our findings highlight that misperceptions about native’s social acceptance of migrants can drive self-exclusion from the financial system. |
| Keywords: | Financial Inclusion, Migration, Beliefs, Social Acceptance JEL Classification: G51, D91, F22, D83 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:745 |
| By: | Laura Castell (INSEE - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE)); Marc Gurgand (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Clément Imbert (Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris); Todor Tochev (IPP - Institut des politiques publiques) |
| Abstract: | We report on two nationwide experiments with job seekers in France. We first show that a meeting with social services to assess eligibility and help with application to social benefits increased new benefit take-up by 31 %. By contrast, an online simulator that gave personalized information on benefit eligibility did not increase take-up. Marginal treatment effects show that individuals who benefit the most from the meetings are the least likely to attend. Overall, without ruling out information frictions, our results suggest that transaction costs represent the main obstacle to applying for benefits or accessing government's assistance to help apply. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04720989 |
| By: | Hunt Allcott; Juan Camilo Castillo; Matthew Gentzkow; Leon Musolff; Tobias Salz |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the economic forces that contribute to Google’s large market share in web search. We develop a model of search engine demand in which consumer choices are influenced by switching costs, quality beliefs, and inattention, and estimate it using a field experiment with US desktop internet users. We find that (i) requiring Google users to make an active choice among search engines increases Bing’s market share by only 1.1 percentage points, implying that switching costs play a limited role; (ii) Google users who accept our payment to try Bing for two weeks update positively about its relative quality, with 33 percent preferring to continue using it; and (iii) after changing the default from Google to Bing, many users do not switch back, consistent with persistent inattention. In our model, correcting beliefs and removing choice frictions would increase Bing’s market share by 15 percentage points and increase consumer surplus by $6 per consumer-year. Policies that expose users to alternative search engines lower Google’s market share more than those requiring active choice. We then use Microsoft search logs to assess the impact of additional data on search result relevance. The results suggest that sharing Google’s click-and-query data with Microsoft may have a limited effect on market shares. |
| JEL: | L4 L86 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33410 |
| By: | Ying, Xiangji; Vorland, Colby J.; Qureshi, Riaz; Brown, Andrew William (Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington); Kilicoglu, Halil; Saldanha, Ian; DeVito, Nicholas J; Mayo-Wilson, Evan |
| Abstract: | Background: Selective non-reporting of studies and study results undermines trust in randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Changes to clinical trial outcomes are sometimes associated with bias. Manually comparing trial documents to identify changes in trial outcomes is time consuming. Objective: This study aims to assess the capacity of the Generative Pretrained Transformer 4 (GPT-4) large language model in detecting and describing changes in trial outcomes within ClinicalTrials.gov records. Methods: We will first prompt GPT-4 to define trial outcomes using five elements (i.e., domain, specific measurement, specific metric, method of aggregation, and time point). We will then prompt GPT-4 to identify outcome changes between the prospective versions of registrations and the most recent versions of registrations. We will use a random sample of 150 RCTs (~1, 500 outcomes) registered on ClinicalTrials.gov. We will include “Completed” trials categorized as “Phase 3” or “Not Applicable” and with results posted on ClinicalTrials.gov. Two independent raters will rate GPT-4’s judgements, and we will assess GPT-4’s accuracy and reliability. We will also explore the heterogeneity in GPT-4’s performance by the year of trial registration and trial type (i.e., applicable clinical trials, NIH-funded trials, and other trials). Discussion: We aim to develop methods that could assist systematic reviewers, peer reviewers, journal editors, and readers in monitoring changes in clinical trial outcomes, streamlining the review process, and improving transparency and reliability of clinical trial reporting. |
| Date: | 2024–02–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:metaar:npvwr_v1 |
| By: | Ramachandran, Rajesh (Monash University Malaysia); Rustagi, Devesh (University of Warwick); Soldani, Emilia (OECD) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether discrimination by teachers explains the large gap in educational outcomes between students from marginalized and non-marginalized groups. Using the context of India, we start with a correspondence study to show that teachers assign 0.29 standard deviations lower grade to an exam of equal quality but with a lower caste surname. We then conduct incentivized surveys, behavioral experiments, and vignettes to highlight some of the invisible elements that are critical to understanding discrimination. We find that teachers hold biased attitudes and beliefs about lower caste individuals, which are associated with poor grading outcomes. We conduct a mechanism intervention based on invoking empathy among teachers to mitigate discrimination. We find that discrimination disappears in the treatment group, and the effect is largest for teachers with higher baseline empathy. These findings are not due to social desirability. Our findings offer a proof-of-concept to understand mental processes that could be instrumental in designing policies to mitigate discrimination. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination, Correspondence study, Caste, Attitudes, Beliefs, Empathy, India JEL Classification: C90, I24, J15, J16, Z13 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:743 |
| By: | Nicolas Jacquemet (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Céline Launay (CLLE - Cognition, langues, langage, ergonomie - EPHE - École Pratique des Hautes Études - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - UT2J - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès - UT - Université de Toulouse - UBM - Université Bordeaux Montaigne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - TMBI - Toulouse Mind & Brain Institut - UT2J - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès - UT - Université de Toulouse - UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier - UT - Université de Toulouse); Stéphane Luchini (AMU - Aix Marseille Université, EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales); Danica Mijovic-Prelec (MIT Sloan - Sloan School of Management - MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Drazen Prelec (MIT Sloan - Sloan School of Management - MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Jacques Py (CLLE - Cognition, langues, langage, ergonomie - EPHE - École Pratique des Hautes Études - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - UT2J - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès - UT - Université de Toulouse - UBM - Université Bordeaux Montaigne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - TMBI - Toulouse Mind & Brain Institut - UT2J - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès - UT - Université de Toulouse - UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier - UT - Université de Toulouse); Julie Rosaz (BSB - Burgundy School of Business (BSB) - Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Dijon Bourgogne (ESC)); Jason F. Shogren (UW - University of Wyoming) |
| Abstract: | Eyewitness testimony is the most powerful form of evidence in a court of law. Eyewitnesses affect both the odds of conviction and the severity of sentences of the guilty. But eyewitnesses also lie, and false testimony is the primarily cause of wrongful convictions. Most of the extant literature focuses on eyewitness reliability and credibility assessment, but very little is known about the efficiency of the main mechanism used in-field to foster eyewitness honesty: a solemn truth-telling oath-the most ancient and worldwide institution used in the solemn legal ceremony underpinning criminal cases. Herein we examine how the truth-telling oath actually affects the level of eyewitness deception. Using a controlled experimental test designed to address this question, we show that an eyewitness who is exogenously incentivized to lie and takes a solemn oath is significantly less likely to use deception. In contrast with the related literature focusing on the detection of lies, we show that an oath actually works to improve truth-telling. The oath is not just ceremonial, it plays a key role in improving efficiency within the court. |
| Keywords: | Eye-witness testimony, Truth-telling oath, Controlled experiment |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04855141 |
| By: | Philippe Gagnepain (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Sébastien Massoni (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Alexandre Mayol (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Carine Staropoli (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of different public transport pricing schemes on daily commuting habits. Psychological inertia, car stickiness, complexity aversion, or skewed perception of prices are expected to influence decisions. We build a controlled experiment, where participants make transport decisions and face various public transport tariffs. Our findings indicate that players are rational as they reach the Nash predictions of our model, but cognitive biases inherent to users are also present. Peak/off-peak and two-part tariffs prove to be more successful in encouraging public transit use than flat fare subscriptions, possibly due to a preference for flexibility and the ability to take past experiences into account (congestion and incident) in future travel choices. Thus, this paper suggests that well designed pricing strategies are useful tools to promote public transit use and reduce road congestion. |
| Keywords: | Public transport pricing, Private car, Congestion, Experiment |
| Date: | 2024–06–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04607716 |
| By: | Burnitt, Christopher (University of Warwick); Gars, Jared (University of Florida and JILAEE); Stalinski, Mateusz (University of Warwick and CAGE) |
| Abstract: | Addressing rising political polarization has become a focal point for policy makers. Yet, there is little evidence of its economic impacts, especially in contexts where partisan- ship cannot be easily hidden. To fill this gap, we study a novel channel: the perception of out-group partisan oversight of independent civil service reduces trust in regulation, affecting key markets (e.g., food and medicine). First, we motivate it by demonstrating the salience of the association between the president and expert regulators in US media reporting. Second, in a pre-registered experiment with 5, 566 individuals, we test the channel by exploiting an alignment in the way that the EPA under Trump and Biden defended the safety of spraying citrus crops with antibiotics. This enabled us to randomize the partisanship of the administration, holding the scientific arguments constant. Despite the EPA’s independence, out-group administration reduces support for the spraying by 26%, lowers trust in the EPA’s evaluation, and increases donations to an NGO opposing the spraying by 15%. We find no overall effect on the willing- ness to pay for citrus products, measured in an obfuscated follow-up survey. However, we document significant differences in effects for elastic vs. inelastic consumers. Taken together, polarization has the potential to affect economic decisions. However, a reduction in trust might not translate into lower demand, especially for inelastic consumers. |
| Keywords: | political polarization, civil service, trust in regulation, trust in science, food policy, partisan identity, consumer demand JEL Classification: D12, D83, P16, Q11, Q13, Q18, Z18 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:744 |
| By: | Clémentine Bouleau (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Nicolas Jacquemet (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Maël Lebreton (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, UNIGE - Université de Genève = University of Geneva) |
| Abstract: | Whether individuals feel confident about their own actions, choices, or statements being correct, and how these confidence levels differ between individuals are two key primitives for countless behavioral theories and phenomena. In cognitive tasks, individual confidence is typically measured as the average of reports about choice accuracy, but how reliable is the resulting characterization of within-and between-individual confidence remains surprisingly undocumented. Here, we perform a large-scale resampling exercise in the Confidence Database to investigate the reliability of individual confidence estimates, and of comparisons across individuals' confidence levels. Our results show that confidence estimates are more stable than their choice-accuracy counterpart, reaching a reliability plateau after roughly 50 trials, regardless of a number of task design characteristics. While constituting a reliability upper-bound for task-based confidence measures, and thereby leaving open the question of the reliability of the construct itself, these results characterize the robustness of past and future task designs. |
| Keywords: | Confidence, Accuracy, Reliability, Design of experiments, Multiple trials |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04893009 |
| By: | Andrew Dillon; Nicolo Tomaselli |
| Abstract: | We study the design of auctions in a low-income country where business licenses for new markets are auctioned to private firms. The field experiment varies two auction design choices: the auction mechanism and the type of information provided to bidders. The results suggest that: i) open auctions, in which bidders implicitly share information with their peers, have up to 61 percent lower mean bid prices and up to 67 percent lower bid variance than closed auctions, in which bidders bid secretly; ii) bidding behavior is influenced by the pre-bid license information provided by the auctioneer as much as by bidders’ ex-ante beliefs; and iii) auctions with real stakes reduce bids by a factor of five relative to non-incentivized auctions. These results underscore the importance of auction design for pricing innovations and the challenges inherent in creating markets in low-income countries where returns to innovations are highly uncertain. |
| Keywords: | Auctions; Asymmetric and Private Information, Mechanism Design, Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Input Markets |
| JEL: | D44 D82 Q12 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2025_03.rdf |
| By: | Pataranutaporn, Pat (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Powdthavee, Nattavudh (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore); Maes, Pattie (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether artificial intelligence can address the peer review crisis in economics by analyzing 27, 090 evaluations of 9, 030 unique submissions using a large language model (LLM). The experiment systematically varies author characteristics (e.g., affiliation, reputation, gender) and publication quality (e.g., top-tier, mid-tier, low-tier, AI-generated papers). The results indicate that LLMs effectively distinguish paper quality but exhibit biases favoring prominent institutions, male authors, and renowned economists. Additionally, LLMs struggle to differentiate high-quality AI-generated papers from genuine top-tier submissions. While LLMs offer efficiency gains, their susceptibility to bias necessitates cautious integration and hybrid peer review models to balance equity and accuracy. |
| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence, peer review, large language model (LLM), bias in academia, economics publishing, equity-efficiency trade-off |
| JEL: | A11 C63 O33 I23 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17659 |
| By: | Philippe Gagnepain (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Sébastien Massoni (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Alexandre Mayol (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Carine Staropoli (UNIROUEN - Université de Rouen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of different public transport pricing schemes on daily commuting habits. Psychological inertia, car stickiness, complexity aversion, or skewed perception of prices are expected to influence decisions. We build a controlled experiment, where participants make transport decisions and face various public transport tariffs. Our findings indicate that players are rational as they reach the Nash predictions of our model, but cognitive biases inherent to users are also present. Peak/offpeak and two-part tariffs prove to be more successful in encouraging public transit use than flat fare subscriptions, possibly due to a preference for flexibility and the ability to take past experiences into account (congestion and incident) in future travel choices. Thus, this paper suggests that well designed pricing strategies are useful tools to promote public transit use and reduce road congestion. |
| Keywords: | Public transport pricing, Private car, Congestion, Experiment |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04610702 |
| By: | Marco Caliendo (Director of Research at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn and affiliated with DIW Berlin and IAB - Director of Research at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn and affiliated with DIW Berlin and IAB); Deborah Cobb-Clark; Juliana Silva-Goncalves; Arne Uhlendorff (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how locus of control operates through people's preferences and beliefs to influence their decisions. Using the principal–agent setting of the delegation game, we test four key channels that conceptually link locus of control to decision-making: (i) preference for agency, (ii) optimism and (iii) confidence regarding the return to effort, and (iv) illusion of control. Knowing the return and cost of stated effort, principals either retain or delegate the right to make an investment decision that generates payoffs for themselves and their agents. Extending the game to the context in which the return to stated effort is unknown allows us to explicitly study the relationship between locus of control and beliefs about the return to effort. We find that internal locus of control is linked to the preference for agency, an effect that is driven by women. We find no evidence that locus of control influences optimism and confidence about the return to stated effort, or that it operates through an illusion of control. |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04793394 |
| By: | Broman, Karl W (University of Wisconsin–Madison) |
| Abstract: | Identifying the genetic loci responsible for variation in traits which are quantitative in nature (such as the yield from an agricultural crop or the number of abdominal bristles on a fruit fly) is a problem of great importance to biologists. The number and effects of such loci help us to understand the biochemical basis of these traits, and of their evolution in populations over time. Moreover, knowledge of these loci may aid in designing selection experiments to improve the traits. We focus on data from a large experimental cross. The usual methods for analyzing such data use multiple tests of hypotheses. We feel the problem is best viewed as one of model selection. After a brief review of the major methods in this area, we discuss the use of model selection to identify quantitative trait loci. Forward selection using a BIC-type criterion is found to perform quite well. Simulation studies are used to compare the performance of the major approaches. In addition, we present the analysis of data from a real experiment. |
| Date: | 2023–06–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:thesis:5m8jg_v1 |
| By: | Dorian Jullien (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Alexandre Truc (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur) |
| Abstract: | Existing histories of behavioral and experimental economics (BE-XP) are mostly focused on the intellectual and institutional developments of these approaches in the United States of America -and to a lesser extent in Germany. While a seminal contribution to these approaches was produced in the early 1950s in France by Maurice Allais, the literature is rather silent on how BE-XP developed subsequently in France. We propose to fill this gap by comparing the history of BE-XP in France to international trends previously identified in the literature. We show that after an ambivalent influence of the work of Allais ( 1953) on BE-XP in France during the 1980s, that influence rapidly faded. BE-XP in France then largely follows international trends. We nevertheless identify some heterogeneity across the French territory and the development of at least two national specificities on the measurement of utility and the modeling of social preferences. |
| Keywords: | Scientometrics, Behavioral economics, Experimental economics, History of economics |
| Date: | 2024–11–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04810987 |
| By: | Andrea Diem; Christian Gschwendt; Stefan C. Wolter |
| Abstract: | A university degree is a risky investment because of the non-negligible risk of having to drop out of university without graduating. However, the costs of this risk are controversial, as it is often argued that even an uncertified year of study has a value in the labor market. To determine this value causally, however, alternatives to studying must also be considered, which is done here with the help of a discrete choice experiment with a representative sample of over 2, 500 HR recruiters. The result is that dropping out of university with a major closely related to an advertised job leads to similar labor market outcomes as if someone had not studied at all. Without a direct link to a job, however, dropping out of university significantly reduces lifetime earnings. Furthermore, HR recruiters clearly prefer applicants who have used the years without studying for human capital accumulation in an alternative way, for example in the form of a traineeship. |
| Keywords: | Dropouts, hiring decisions, discrete choice experiment, sheepskin effect, willingness to pay, tertiary education |
| JEL: | I26 J23 J24 J31 M51 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0235 |
| By: | Thiemo Fetzer (University of Warwick [Coventry]); Pedro Souza (QMUL - Queen Mary University of London); Oliver Vanden Eynde (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Austin Wright (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | How domestic constituents respond to signals of weakness in foreign wars remains an important question in international relations. This paper studies the impact of battlefield casualties and media coverage on public demand for war termination. To identify the effect of troop fatalities, we leverage the timing of survey collection across respondents from nine members of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Quasi‐experimental evidence demonstrates that battlefield casualties increase the news coverage of Afghanistan and the public demand for withdrawal. Evidence from a survey experiment replicates the main results. To shed light on the media mechanism, we leverage a news pressure design and find that major sporting matches occurring around the time of battlefield casualties drive down subsequent coverage, and significantly weaken the effect of casualties on support for war termination. These results highlight the role that media play in shaping public support for foreign military interventions. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04815986 |
| By: | Arroyo-Araujo, María (QUEST center for responsible research); Carneiro, Clarissa França Dias; Piper, Sophie K.; Wilcke, Juliane C. (LMU Munich); Ellenbach, Nicole; Boulesteix, Anne-Laure; Emprechtinger, Robbert; Haller, Bernhard; Ineichen, Benjamin V.; Riecken, Lars Björn |
| Abstract: | Confirmatory multi-lab preclinical trials are a powerful experimental strategy to enable decisions to transition from preclinical to clinical settings. With their complexity, such study designs pose several challenges in analysing and reporting experiments. To address these, we convened an expert group of biostatisticians and biomedical scientists currently involved in such trials to summarise the most common scenarios. Furthermore, we incorporated statistical advice from existing clinical trials’ guidelines and adapted it into recommendations for future preclinical trials. We describe strategies on key topics such as calculating sample sizes, handling of differences between centres, and selecting relevant covariates. Additionally, we give guidance on statistical methods to account for lab effects and proper reporting of analyses. We embed this in a general discussion on remaining open questions to advance the analysis of preclinical confirmatory studies. The provided general, non-case-specific guidance serves as a conversation starter between scientists and statisticians to develop robust statistical analysis strategies for confirmatory multi-lab preclinical trials |
| Date: | 2024–09–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:metaar:cnuh7_v1 |
| By: | Primbs, Maximilian; Dudda, Leonie; Andresen, Pia K. (Utrecht University); Buchanan, Erin Michelle (Harrisburg University of Science and Technology); Peetz, Hannah Katharina; Silan, Miguel Alejandro A.; Lakens, Daniel (Eindhoven University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | We expect that consensus meetings, where researchers come together to discuss their theoretical viewpoints, prioritize the factors they agree are important to study, standardize their measures, and determine a smallest effect size of interest, will prove to be a more efficient solution to the lack of coordination and integration of claims in science than integrative experiments. |
| Date: | 2023–03–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:metaar:3ks6r_v1 |
| By: | Margot Belguise (University of Warwick [Coventry]); Yuchen Huang (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Zhexun Mo (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Recent empirical evidence contends that meritocratic ideals are mainly a Western phenomenon. Intriguingly, the Chinese people appear to not differentiate between merit- and luck-based inequalities, despite their rich historical legacy of meritocratic institutions. We propose that this phenomenon might be due to the Chinese public's greater adherence towards the status quo. In order to test this hypothesis, 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 Chinese respondents consistently and significantly choose more non-redistribution (playing the status quo) across both highly unequal and relatively equal status quo scenarios than our French respondents. Additionally, we also show that the Chinese sample does differentiate between merit- and luck-based inequalities, and does not redistribute less than the French absent status quo conformity. Ultimately, we contend that such a phenomenon is indicative of low political agency rather than apathy, inattention, or libertarian beliefs among the Chinese. Notably, our findings show that Chinese individuals' conformity to the status quo is particularly pronounced among those from families of working-class and farming backgrounds, while it is conspicuously absent among individuals whose families have closer ties to the private sector. |
| Keywords: | Meritocracy, Fairness preferences, Spectator games, China-France comparison, Beliefs, Redistribution, Status quo bias, Market economy in China |
| Date: | 2023–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04423661 |
| By: | Thiemo Fetzer (University of Warwick [Coventry], Universität Bonn = University of Bonn); Pedro Cl Souza (QMUL - Queen Mary University of London); Oliver Vanden Eynde (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Austin L Wright (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | How domestic constituents respond to signals of weakness in foreign wars remains an important question in international relations. In this paper, we study the impact of battlefield casualties and media coverage on public demand for war termination. To identify the effect of troop fatalities, we leverage the otherwise exogenous timing of survey collection across 26, 776 respondents from nine members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Quasi-experimental evidence demonstrates that battlefield casualties increase coverage of the Afghan conflict and public demand for withdrawal, with heterogeneous effects consistent with an original theoretical argument. Evidence from a survey experiment replicates the main results. To shed light on the media mechanism, we leverage a news pressure design and find that major sporting matches occurring around the time of battlefield casualties drive down subsequent coverage, and significantly weaken the effect of casualties on support for war termination. These results highlight the crucial role that media play in shaping public support for foreign military interventions. |
| Keywords: | International security, Public opinion, Political economy, Afghanistan, NATO |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04343919 |
| By: | Shan Huang; Jing Li; Anirban Basu |
| Abstract: | Altruism is a key component of medical professionalism that underlies the physician's role as a representative agent for patients. However, physician behavior can be influenced when private gains enter the objective function. We study the relationship between altruism and physicians' receipt of financial benefits from pharmaceutical manufacturers, as well as the extent to which altruism mitigates physicians' responsiveness to these industry payments. We link data on altruistic preferences for 280 physicians, identified using a revealed preference economic experiment, with administrative information on their receipt of financial transfers from pharmaceutical firms along with drug prescription claims data. Non-altruistic physicians receive industry transfers that are on average 2, 184 USD or 254% higher than altruistic physicians. While industry transfers lead to higher drug spending and prescribing on paid drugs, these relationships are entirely driven by non-altruistic physicians. Our results indicate that altruism is an important determinant of physicians’ relationships with and responses to industry benefits. |
| JEL: | C91 D64 D84 I11 I14 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33439 |
| By: | Ivo Steimanis; Natalie Struwe; Julian Benda; Esther Blanco |
| Abstract: | Interrelated global crises - climate change, pandemics, loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity - pose risks that demand collective solutions. Uncertainty about others’ behavior, coupled with the dependence on some to take collective efforts to mitigate risks for all (e.g. conservation of natural habitats by those living at wildlife boarders to reduce risk of zoonoses), complicates collective action. We extend the experimental collective risk social dilemma to consider that some individuals (’beneficiaries’) cannot protect themselves and must rely on others (’providers’) for collective protection. Our approach allows to disentangle the relevance of self-interest and uncertainty over the actions of others in explaining self-reliance by providers. Our findings show that reducing strategic uncertainty leads to more collective solutions, with more beneficiaries protected, less resources wasted, and lower inequality. Moreover, we show that institutions inspired by payments for ecosystem services that allow beneficiaries to make compensation transfers to providers of protection are highly effective in fostering collective solutions. Indeed, these voluntary institutions are similarly effective in alleviating the social dilemma as (the hypothetical case of) fully removing strategic uncertainty. Thus, we show that understanding the reasons for self-reliance in collective risk social dilemmas can help develop better institutions to enhance the use of collective solutions, and thereby enhancing social welfare. |
| Keywords: | Collective risk social dilemma, cooperation, mitigation, adaptation, strategic uncertainty, selfinterest, public good, donation, laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | D70 H41 C92 D64 Q54 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2025-02 |
| By: | Pagkratidou, Marianna; Cohn, Neil; Phylactou, Phivos (University of Western Ontario); Papadatou-Pastou, Marietta; Duffy, Gavin |
| Abstract: | The past decades have seen a growing use of comics (i.e., sequential presentation of images and/or text) educational material. However, there are inconsistent reports regarding their effectiveness. In this study, we aim to systematically review empirical studies that have investigated the use of comics in education; and to quantitatively explore these effects using a meta-analysis. To do so, we will search PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Open Grey, and Web of Science for studies employing an experimental design that uses comics education material compared to non-comics education material in general population samples. Our findings will not only shed light on whether comics are equally or more effective education material than texts, but also on the conditions in which comics can foster learning. |
| Date: | 2023–10–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:metaar:ceda3_v1 |
| By: | Karen Macours (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Julieta Vera Rueda (UCL - University College of London [London]); Duncan Webb (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents results from an RCT in 140 schools in Madagascar that targets both hygiene practices and menstrual stigma. First, we show that a bundle of interventions (sanitation infrastructure, menstrual products, and teacher sensitization) leads to substantial (0.15 SD) improvements in learning tests and school marks, without affecting attendance or health. These learning benefits appear to be driven by reduced stress and an improved psychosocial environment in treatment schools, where girls' heart rate at endline is lower (-0.12 SD), severe bullying is less common (-0.08 SD), and a measure of network integration is higher (+0.24 SD). Second, we evaluate the additional effect of nominating and coaching "young girl leaders" - school girls willing to speak out against menstrual stigma - to spread positive messages about hygiene and menstruation. The combined program generates substantial improvements in hygiene knowledge and behavior (0.33-0.56 SD) and in menstrual stigma (0.74 SD), and the Young Girl Leader component significantly increases the impact on all of these dimensions. |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04590500 |
| By: | Philipp Ketz (CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Adam Mccloskey (University of Colorado [Boulder]) |
| Abstract: | We introduce adaptive confidence intervals on a parameter of interest in the presence of nuisance parameters, such as coefficients on control variables, with known signs. Our confidence intervals are trivial to compute and can provide significant length reductions relative to standard ones when the nuisance parameters are small. At the same time, they entail minimal length increases at any parameter values. We apply our confidence intervals to the linear regression model, prove their uniform validity and illustrate their length properties in an empirical application to a factorial design field experiment and a Monte Carlo study calibrated to the empirical application. |
| Date: | 2024–10–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:hal-03388199 |
| By: | Burger, Maximilian Nicolaus; Nilgen, Marco; Vollan, Björn |
| Abstract: | Citizens’ Juries (CJs) are increasingly implemented as a means to engage citizens in deliberation on complex policy challenges, yet their effectiveness can be undermined by cognitive biases and limited value-driven reasoning. This study evaluates the impact of bias alleviation and value activation exercises on deliberative quality and civic engagement in four CJs conducted in Bogotá, Colombia. Two juries incorporated these exercises as treatment interventions, and two served as controls with extended deliberation time. Results reveal that deliberation itself modestly reduced confirmation bias compared to non-participants, while the structured interventions enhanced participants’ awareness of biases and value-based reasoning. However, the interventions did not significantly reduce the occurrence of biases and led to a perceived trade-off with deliberation time. Participation in CJs also showed improved trust in science and political self-efficacy, demonstrating their potential to foster civic engagement. These findings highlight the nuanced benefits and limitations of integrating debiasing interventions into mini-publics to enhance deliberative quality and equity in policymaking. |
| Keywords: | democracy; environmental economics; food systems; participatory research; public participation; sustainability; Americas; South America; Colombia |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2320 |
| By: | Roland Bénabou (Princeton University, NBER - National Bureau of Economic Research [New York] - NBER - The National Bureau of Economic Research, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research, IZA - Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit - Institute of Labor Economics, BREAD); Nikhil Vellodi (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | We study a sequential experimentation model with endogenous feedback. Agents choose between a safe and risky action, the latter generating stochastic rewards. When making this choice, each agent is selfishly motivated (myopic). However, agents can disclose their experiences to a public record, and when doing so are pro-socially motivated (forward-looking). Disclosure is both polarized (only extreme signals are disclosed) and positively biased (no feedback is bad news). The extent of disclosure is non-monotone in prior uncertainty. Subsidizing disclosure costs can paradoxically lead to less disclosure, but more experimentation. |
| Keywords: | Social learning, Experimentation, Dynamic disclosure, Consumer reviews, Time-inconsistent preferences, Motivated beliefs |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04721035 |