|
on Experimental Economics |
| By: | Jared Gars (University of Florida); Laura Prada (University of Southern California); Santiago Borda (Istintivo); Egon Tripodi (Hertie School) |
| Abstract: | A large share of the global workforce lacks access to employer-sponsored retire- ment plans. In Colombia, where labor informality is high, the government introduced the Beneficios Económicos Periódicos (BEPS) program to promote voluntary retirement savings. However, many enrollees fail to contribute regularly. We conduct a randomized controlled trial with 2, 819 BEPS users, assigning them to different planning and monthly reminder treatments, where reminders are tailored in their timing. We find that personalized reminders significantly increase both the frequency and amount of savings, with individuals who recognize their forgetfulness more likely to demand reminders. Our findings highlight the role of reminders tailored to individuals’ preferred timing in sustaining engagement in voluntary savings programs. |
| Keywords: | retirement savings; personalized reminders; limited attention; financial inclusion; |
| JEL: | D91 G41 O16 |
| Date: | 2025–03–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:528 |
| By: | Gutmann, Jerg; Brandimarte, Laura; Muehlheusser, Gerd; Weber, Franziska |
| Abstract: | We examine the trade-off between functionality and data privacy inherent in many AI products by conducting a randomized survey experiment with 1, 734 participants from the US and several European countries. Participants' willingness to adopt a hypothetical, AI-enhanced app is measured under three sets of treatments: (i) installation defaults (opt-in vs. opt-out), (ii) salience of data privacy risks, and (iii) regulatory regimes with different levels of data protection. In addition, we study how the willingness to adopt depends on individual attitudes and preferences. We find no effect of defaults or salience, while a regulatory regime with stricter privacy protection increases the likelihood that the app is adopted. Finally, greater data privacy concerns, greater risk aversion, lower levels of trust, and greater skepticism toward AI are associated with a significantly lower willingness to adopt the app. |
| Keywords: | Artificial intelligence, privacy concerns, randomized survey experiment, smart products, technology adoption |
| JEL: | D80 D90 K24 L86 Z10 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ilewps:83 |
| By: | Lott, Yvonne; Wang, Senhu; Chung, Heejung |
| Keywords: | Telearbeit, Erwerbsverlauf, Experiment, Deutschland |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wsipbs:313645 |
| By: | Afridi, Farzana; Dhillon, Amrita; Roy, Sanchari; Sangwan, Nikita |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the role of job search frictions and gender norms in shaping intrahousehold labor market outcomes in developing countries. We conduct a field experiment in Delhi, India where we randomly offer access to a hyper-local digital job search and matching platform either to married couples only (non-network treatment), or together with the wife's peer network (network treatment), or not at all. Approximately one year later, we find that couples in the non-network treatment group exhibit a degree of substitution in labor supply - wives reduce their intensive margin of work, driven by withdrawal from casual labor, while husbands increase theirs. In contrast, husbands in the network treatment group increase their labor supply on both extensive and intensive margins but with no impact on their wives' labor supply on either margin. Instead, wives' occupational structure shifts towards self-employment in the network treatment group. Our findings can be explained by a simple conceptual framework that incorporates gender-differentiated job search frictions, conservative social norms against (married) women's market work and home-production constraints. |
| Keywords: | social networks, social norms, gender, job-matching platforms, employment |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qmsrps:202502 |
| By: | Otis, Nicholas G.; Clarke, Rowan Philip; Delecourt, Solene; Holtz, David (University of California, Berkeley); Koning, Rembrand (Harvard Business School) |
| Abstract: | Scalable and low-cost AI assistance has the potential to improve firm decision-making and economic performance. However, running a business involves a myriad of open-ended problems, making it difficult to know whether recent AI advances can help business owners make better decisions in real-world markets. In a field experiment with Kenyan entrepreneurs, we assessed the impact of AI advice on small business revenues and profits by randomizing access to a GPT-4-powered AI business assistant via WhatsApp. While we are unable to reject the null hypothesis that there is no average treatment effect, we find the treatment effect for entrepreneurs who were high performing at baseline to be 0.27 standard deviations greater than for low performers. Sub-sample analyses show high performers benefited by just over 15% from the AI assistant, whereas low performers did about 8% worse. This increase in performance inequality does not stem from differences in the questions posed to or advice received from the AI, but from how entrepreneurs selected from and implemented the AI advice they received. More broadly, our findings demonstrate that generative AI is already capable of impacting—though in uneven and unexpected ways—real, open-ended, and unstructured business decisions. |
| Date: | 2023–12–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:hdjpk_v1 |
| By: | Santiago Burone;; Lukas Leitner; |
| Abstract: | Willingness to pay (WTP) has become an important tool in economic analysis, despite the difficulty to obtain reliable estimates. This paper investigates the occurrence of starting point bias when eliciting WTP for health, a domain where this phenomenon has received limited attention, and illustrates its effect on equivalent consumption, a preference-based well-being measure. In an online experiment, three experimental groups responded to two dichotomous choice questions, with varying initial bids. The treatment groups then provided exact estimates for their WTP in an open-ended question. We find strong evidence for the existence of the bias using both non-parametric and parametric tests, and estimate a sizeable overall effect. Different parametric specifications yield point estimates between 29 and 43 percent for the first bid, whereas the effect of the second bid, which we estimate using an instrumental variable approach, is not statistically different from zero. We propose two ex post approaches to address this effect when using WTP data for interpersonal well-being comparisons. Although the percentage of rankings reversals is relatively small across all feasible comparisons, it becomes notable when examining comparisons for individuals within the same consumption deciles. |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hdl:wpaper:2501 |
| By: | Maria Laura Alzua (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP & CONICET & PEP); Juan Camilo Cardenas (Universidad de los Andes); Habiba Djebbari (3Aix-Marseille Univ., CNRS, EHESS, Central Marseille, IRD, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | Experts argue that the adoption of healthy sanitation practices, such as hand washing and latrine use, requires focusing on the entire community rather than individual behaviors. According to this view, one limiting factor in ending open defecation lies in the capacity of the community to collectively act toward this goal. Each member of a community bears the private cost of contributing by washing hands and using latrines, but the benefits through better health outcomes depend on whether other community members also opt out of open defecation. We rely on a community-based intervention carried out in Mali as an illustrative example (Community-Led Total Sanitation or CLTS). Using a series of experiments conducted in 121 villages and designed to measure the willingness of community members to contribute to a local public good, we investigate the process of participation in a collective action problem setting. Our focus is on two types of activities: (1) gathering of community members to encourage public discussion of the collective action problem, and (2) facilitation by a community champion of the adoption of individual actions to attain the socially preferred outcome. In games, communication helps raise public good provision, and both open discussion and facilitated ones have the same impact. When a community member facilitates a discussion after an open discussion session, public good contributions increase, but there are no gains from opening up the discussion after a facilitated session. Community members who choose to contribute in the no-communication treatment are not better facilitators than those who choose not to contribute. |
| JEL: | H41 O12 C93 Q56 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0347 |