Papers - All

Omar Al-Ubaydli, John A. List

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

The A/B testing approach invites promising early results that are unlikely to be realized in a larger setting. We argue that within the social sciences, a fundamentally different approach is needed; we call it option C thinking. Put simply, a twenty-first-century team of civil servants and social scientists should lead with experiments that anticipate likely causes of failure at scale, even if doing so requires more time, effort, and resources initially.

Robert Berrens , Alok Bohara, Joe Kerkvliet, John A List

Cited by*: 22 Downloads*: 1

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Junsoo Lee, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 4

Despite its growth in other areas of economics,time series econometric methods have not been widespread in the area of environmental and resource economics. We illustrate one use of time series methods by examining the time path of US nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission data over the period 1900-1994. The analysis highlights that proper time series methods can aid in optimal regulatory policy as well as developing empirical verification of theories put forth to explain economic phenomena. In addition, several interesting results emerge. First, we find that the emissions series contains both a permanent and random component. Second, if one attributed all of the emissions reductions to regulatory policy, intervention analysis suggests that the 1970 Clean Air Act(CAA) did not merely have transitory effects,but permanently influenced the NOx emission path. In terms of total regulatory impact, an upper bound on the emissions saved due to the 1970 CAA is in the range of 27%-48%.

Dean S Karlan, Jonathan Zinman

Cited by*: 5 Downloads*: 17

Expanding access to commercial credit is a key ingredient of financial development strategies. There is less consensus on whether expanding access to consumer credit helps borrowers, particularly when loans are extended at high interest rates. Popular skepticism about "unproductive," "usurious" lending is fueled by research highlighting behavioral biases that may induce overborrowing. We estimate the impacts of expanding access to consumer credit at a 200% annual percentage rate (APR) using a field experiment and follow-up data collection. The randomly assigned marginal loans produced significant net benefits for borrowers across a wide range of outcomes. There is also some evidence that the loans were profitable.

James Andreoni, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 0

No abstract available

Ty Feldkamp, Jayson L Lusk, Ted C Schroeder

Cited by*: 57 Downloads*: 47

Despite increased use of experimental auctions, a myriad of different procedures are being employed without formal consideration of how the procedures might affect results. The study investigates the effect of several procedural issues on valuation estimates from experimental auctions. Results indicate the second price auction generates higher valuations than English, Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM), and random nth price auctions, especially in latter bidding rounds, and that random nth price auction yields lower valuations than English and BDM auctions. We find that endowing subjects with a good prior to eliciting bids can have an impact on valuationsk, but the effect varies across auction mechanism.

John A. List

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

This document is meant to introduce my forthcoming book, titled "Experimental Economics: Theory and Practice," which is to be published in 2025 by The University of Chicago Press. The document first contains the book's outline followed by a Preface, which summarizes my inspiration for writing the book and my goals and aspirations for choosing the content contained in the book.

David H Reiley

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

This paper tests the empirical predictions of recent theories of the endogenous entry of bidders in auctions. Data come from a field experiment, involving sealed-bid auctions for collectible trading cards over the Internet. Manipulating the reserve prices in the auctions as an experimental treatment variable generates several results. First, observed participation behavior indicates that bidders consider their bid submission to be costly, and that bidder participation is indeed an endogenous decision. Second, the participation is more consistent with a mixed-strategy entry equilibrium than with a deterministic equilibrium. Third, the data reject the prediction that the profit- maximizing reserve price is greater than or equal to the auctioneer's salvage value for the good, showing instead that a zero reserve price provides higher expected profits in this case.

John A List

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

This review summarizes the historical place of the seminal contribution of Kahneman et al. (1990), from origins to theory to catalyst of an entire area of scholarship. This new literature has produced evidence both in concert with the original KKT conclusions as well as evidence refuting certain insights from KKT. The general theme of my summary is that even imperfect papers can have deep impact, both within and outside the academy; a lesson that today's critics should consider as young experimentalists continue to fight the tyranny of the top 5.

John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 19

No abstract available

Laura Forastiere, Patrizia Lattarulo, Marco Mariani, Fabrizia Mealli, Laura Razzolini

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

This paper revisits results from a field experiment conducted in Florence, Italy to study the effects of incentives offered to high school teens to motivate them to visit art museums and to identify best practices to transform this behavior into a long run cultural consumption. Students belonging to a first group of classes receive a flier with basic information and opening hours of a main museum in Florence, Palazzo Vecchio. Students in a second group of classes receive the flyer and a short presentation conducted by an art expert. Students in a third group of classes, in addition to the flyer and the presentation, receive also a nonfinancial reward in the form of extra-credit points towards their school grade. Taking a Principal Stratification approach, we explore the causal pathways that may lead students to increase their future museum attendance. Within the strata defined by compliance to the three forms of encouragement, we estimate associative and dissociative principal causal effects, that is, effects of the encouragement on the primary outcome, long run cultural consumption, that are associative or dissociative with respect to the effects of the encouragements on the Palazzo Vecchio visit. This analysis allows to interpret these effects as ascribable either to the encouragements, or to the museum visits, or to classroom spillovers. To face identification issues, estimation is performed with Bayesian inferential methods using hierarchical models to account for clustering. The main findings of the analysis are as follows: what seems to matter the most is the motivational incentive (i.e., the presentation), rather than the induced experience, i.e., the Palazzo Vecchio visit.

Roland Fryer , Steven D Levitt, John A List

Cited by*: 9 Downloads*: 4

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John A List, Anya Samek

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 4

An active area of research within economics concerns the underpinnings of why people give to charitable causes. This study takes a new approach to this question by exploring motivations for giving among children aged 3-5. Using data gathered from 122 children, our artefactual field experiment naturally permits us to disentangle pure altruism and warm glow motivators for giving. We find evidence for the existence of pure altruism but not warm glow. Our results suggest pure altruism is a fundamental component of our preferences, and highlight that warm glow preferences found amongst adults likely develop over time. One speculative hypothesis is that warm glow preferences are learned through socialization.

Erwin Bulte, Andreas Kontoleon, John A List, Ty Turley, Maarten Voors

Cited by*: 27 Downloads*: 78

We use a sample of subsistence farmers in Sierra Leone as respondents to compare behavior in a context-free experiment (a standard public goods game) and behavior in the field (a real development intervention). There is no meaningful correlation in behavior across contexts. This casts doubt on the prospect of using lab experiments as "predictors" of behavior in real life.

Shakun Mago, Anya Samek, Roman Sheremeta

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 8

We experimentally investigate the effect of social identification and information feedback on individual behavior in contests. In all treatments we find significant over-expenditure of effort relative to the standard theoretical predictions. Identifying subjects through photo display decreases wasteful effort. Providing information feedback about others' effort does not affect the aggregate effort, but it decreases the heterogeneity of effort and significantly affects the dynamics of individual behavior. A behavioral model which incorporates a non-monetary utility of winning and relative payoff maximization explains significant over-expenditure of effort. It also suggests that decrease in 'social distance' between group members through social identification promotes pro-social behavior and decreases over-expenditure of effort, while improved information feedback decreases the heterogeneity of effort.

Snigdha Gupta, John A List, Lauren Supplee, Dana L Suskind

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Failed to Scale: Embracing the Challenge of Scaling in Early Childhood

Werner Guth, Carsten Schmidt, Matthias Sutter

Cited by*: 21 Downloads*: 21

On 11 May 2001, readers of the Berliner Zeitung were invited to participate in an ultimatum bargaining experiment played in the strategy vector mode: each participant chooses not only how much (s)he demands of the DM1,000 pie but also which of the nine possible offers of DM100, 200, ..., 900 (s)he would accept or reject. In addition, participants were asked to predict the most frequent type of behavior. Three randomly selected proposer-responder pairs were rewarded according to the rules of ultimatum bargaining and three randomly chosen participants of those who predicted the most frequent type of behavior received a prize of DM500. Decisions could be submitted by mail, fax or via the internet. Behavior is described, statistically analyzed and compared to the usual laboratory ultimatum bargaining results.

Erwin Bulte, Simon Levin , John A List, Steven Pacala

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 2

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Amanda Chuan, Anya Samek

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 4

We conducted a field experiment with a charitable group to investigate whether giving the donor an option to write a personal message to the recipient influences giving behavior. Over 1,500 households were approached in a door-to-door campaign and randomized to either a control or a treatment in which donors could include a card for the recipient. We predict that treatment should increase contributions through making the gift more meaningful, but may also decrease contribution rate by increasing the social or other cost of donating. We find evidence in favor of the cost effect, and no evidence of increased giving.

John A List, David H Reiley

Cited by*: 142 Downloads*: 82

Field experiments have grown significantly in prominence over the past decade. In this essay, we provide a summary of the major types of field experiments, explore their uses, and describe a few examples. We show how field experiments can be used for both positive and normative purposes within economics. We also discuss more generally why data collection is useful in science, and more narrowly discuss the question of generalizability. In this regard, we envision field experiments playing a classic role in helping investigators learn about the behavioral principles that are shared across different domains.