Papers - All

Michal Krawczyk

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

This study makes use of an unusual opportunity to manipulate framing of a simple decision under uncertainty: whether or not to answer an exam question when unsure which answer is correct and a missing response is scored higher than an incorrect one. Two treatments were compared in a natural field experiment: one in which the decision was framed in terms of losses, and the other - in terms of gains. Some alternative theories of decision making under risk, notably prospect theory, propose that individuals display reflection effect, i.e. tend to be more risk-seeking in losses than gains. No such evidence was found: subjects were generally risk-averse and this disposition was not affected by treatment.

Fuhai Hong, Tanjim Hossain, John A List

Cited by*: 3 Downloads*: 35

Exploiting findings that losses loom larger than gains, studies have shown that framing manipulations can increase productivity of workers. Using a natural field experiment that exogenously manipulates wage bonuses within contests in a Chinese high-tech manufacturing facility, we show that how loss aversion affects worker behavior critically depends on the incentive scheme as well as the framing manipulation. Four sets of two identical teams competed against each other to win a bonus given to the team, within a set, with the higher average hourly productivity over the week. In each set, the bonus was framed as a reward or gain for one team and as a punishment or loss for the other. Average weekly productivity was slightly higher under the loss treatment, but this increase was statistically insignificant. However, the team under the loss treatment was at least 35% more likely to win the contest. As teams' payoffs are based on relative productivity under a contest, framing effect is much stronger in terms of relative productivity. Finally, workers seemingly responded to the bonus by increasing the quality of production as well as quantity-defect rate fell as productivity increased.

Maria De Paola, Francesca Gioia, Vincenzo Scoppa

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

We investigate whether and how social ties affect performance in teams by implementing a field experiment in which a sample of undergraduate students are randomly assigned either to teams composed by friends or to teams composed by individuals not linked by friendship relationships. Students undertake an intermediate exam divided into two parts: one graded on the basis of individual performance and the other graded on the basis of team performance. We find that students assigned to socially connected teams perform significantly better than control students in both the team part and the individual part of the exam, suggesting that social ties are relevant both for solving free-riding problems and for inducing knowledge spillovers among teammates. The positive effect of friendship persists over time: treated students obtain better grades also after the conclusion of the experiment.

Marco Haan, Peter Kooreman

Cited by*: 16 Downloads*: 11

A wealth of experimental literature studies the effect of repetition and group size on the extent of free riding in the provision of public goods. In this paper, we use data from honor systems for candy bars in 166 firms to test whether such effects can be found outside the laboratory. We find that free riding increases with repetition, and weak evidence that free riding decreases with group size.

Maria De Paola, Vincenzo Scoppa

Cited by*: 9 Downloads*: 9

We carry out a randomized experiment involving undergraduate students enrolled at an Italian University attending two introductory economics classes to evaluate the impact on achievement of examination frequency and interim feedback provision. Students in the treated group were allowed to undertake an intermediate exam and were informed about the results obtained, while students in the control group could only take the final exam. The results show that students undertaking the intermediate exam perform better both in terms of the probability of passing the exams and of grades obtained. High ability students appear to benefit more from the treatment. The experiment design allows us to disentangle "workload division or commitment" effects from "feedback provision" effects. We find that the estimated treatment impact is due exclusively to the first effect, while the feedback provision has no positive effect on performance. Finally, the better performance of treated students in targeted examinations seems not to be obtained at the expenses of results earned in other examinations.

John A List

Cited by*: 4 Downloads*: 3

This study examines data drawn from the game show Friend or Foe?, which is similar to the classic prisoner's dilemma tale: partnerships are endogenously determined, players work together to earn money, after which, they play a one-shot prisoner's dilemma game over large stakes: varying from $200 to (potentially) more than $22,000. If one were to conduct such an experiment in the laboratory, the cost to gather the data would be well over $350,000. The data reveal several interesting insights; perhaps most provocatively, they suggest that even though the game is played in front of an audience of millions of viewers, there is some evidence consistent with a model of discrimination. The observed patterns of social discrimination are unanticipated, however. For example, there is evidence consistent with the notion that certain populations have a general "distaste" for older participants.

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

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 35

The experimental literature has shown the tendency for experimental trading markets to converge to neoclassical predictions. Yet, the extent to which theory explains the equilibrating forces in markets remains under-researched, especially in the developing world. We set up a laboratory in 94 villages in rural Sierra Leone to mimic a real market. We implement several treatments, varying trading partners and the anonymity of trading. We find that when trading with co-villagers average efficiency is somewhat lower than predicted by theory (and observed in different contexts), and markets do not fully converge to theoretical predictions across rounds of trading. When participants trade with strangers efficiency is reduced more. Anonymizing trade within the village does not affect efficiency. This points to the importance of behavioral norms for trade. Intra-village social relationships or hierarchies, instead, appear less important as determinants of trading outcomes. This is confirmed by analysis of the trader-level data, showing that individual earnings in the experiment do not vary with one's status or position in local networks.

Greg Allenby, Russell Belk, Catherine Eckel, Robert Fisher, Ernan Haruvy, John A List, Yu Ma, Peter Popkowski Leszczyc, Yu Wang, Sherry Xin Li

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We offer a unified conceptual, behavioral, and econometric framework for optimal fundraising that deals with both synergies and discrepancies between approaches from economics, consumer behavior, and sociology. The purpose is to offer a framework that can bridge differences and open a dialogue between disciplines in order to facilitate optimal fundraising design. The literature is extensive, and our purpose is to offer a brief background and perspective on each of the approaches, provide an integrated framework leading to new insights, and discuss areas of future research.

David J Cooper, John H Kagel, Qing Liang Gu, Wei Lo

Cited by*: 41 Downloads*: 13

We examine strategic interactions between firms and planners in China, comparing behavior between: (i) students and managers with field experience with this situation, (ii) standard versus increased monetary incentives, and (iii) sessions conducted "in context", making explicit reference to interactions between planners and managers, and those without any such references. The dynamics of play are similar across treatments with play only gradually, and incompletely, converging on a pooling equilibrium. A fivefold increase in incentives significantly increases initial levels of strategic play. Games played in context generated greater levels of strategic play for managers, with minimal impact on students.

Timothy R Berry, William T Harbaugh, Kate Krause

Cited by*: 47 Downloads*: 11

In this paper we examine the extent to which consumption choices by 7 and 11-year-old children and college undergraduates satisfy the axioms of revealed preference. We find that choices by even the 7-year-olds are considerably more likely to obey revealed preference axioms than would be true if they were choosing randomly. 11-year-olds do better still, while college students do no better than 11-year-old children. We also find that mathematical ability is not correlated with choosing rationally. We argue that this evidence suggests that the ability to choose rationally is not innate, but that it does develop quickly.

Jeffrey A Flory, Uri Gneezy, Kenneth Leonard, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 88

Research on competitiveness at the individual level has emphasized sex as a physiological determinant, focusing on the gap in preference for competitive environments between young men and women. This study presents evidence that women's preferences over competition change with age such that the gender gap, while large for young adults, disappears in older populations due to the fact that older women are much more competitive. Our finding that tastes for competition appear just as strong among older women as they are among men suggests a simple gender-based view of competitiveness is misleading; age seems just as important as sex. These findings are consistent with one of the most commonly cited views on the deeper origins of gender differences: that they stem at least in part from human evolution.

Uzma Afzal, Giovanna d'Adda, Marcel Fafchamps, Farah Said

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 47

Theoretical and empirical work on intra-household decision making capture empowerment through bargaining weights given to individual preferences, and infer such weights from household consumption allocations. In this paper we test two key hypotheses underlying this work: first, that spousal influence is the same for all private consumption goods; and second, that women have pent up demand for pure agency. We use data from a survey and a novel laboratory experiment implemented with adult couples in Pakistan. We find that women's influence on household decisions is decreasing in the importance of the decision. We find no evidence that women have pent up demand for agency. Instead, women are less willing to pay for agency when facing an unknown man. We interpret this evidence as suggesting that women in our study population have internalized gender norms, and that these norms regulate interactions between genders most strongly outside of the household. We also find little evidence, within our experimental setting, that willingness to pay for agency is affected by the instrumental value of agency.

Uri Gneezy, Aldo Rustichini

Cited by*: 227 Downloads*: 49

No abstract available

Michal Krawczyk, Magdalena Smyk

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Bibliometric studies show that male academics are more productive than their female counterparts and that the gap cannot be explained in terms of difference in abilities. In this project we wish to verify the hypothesis that this tendency is related to the greater support that men receive from their colleagues ("old boys network"). Towards this end we had e-mails sent by a male or female student asking academics for a minor favour. In Study 1 we asked authors of nearly 300 papers in experimental economics to share the raw data used in their study. We observed no difference in response rate or compliance rate between male and female senders. In Study 2 we sent 2775 e-mails to academics affiliated with prestigious schools from ten different fields, asking to either send us a copy of their recent article of meet the sender supposedly interested in pursuing a PhD program. Once again we manipulated gender of the senders but this time we also varied their physical attractiveness. We found a small but significant difference in the Article Treatment: attractive females' requests were honoured less often. No such tendency was found in the Meeting Treatment and no general gender effect was observed. Overall, we find very little support for the claim that early-stage male researchers enjoy greater support than their female colleagues.

Steffen Andersen, Seda Ertac, Uri Gneezy, John A List, Sandra Maximiano

Cited by*: 35 Downloads*: 2

Recent literature presents evidence that men are more competitively inclined than women. Since top-level careers usually require competitiveness, competitiveness differences provide an explanation for gender gaps in wages and differences in occupational choice. A natural question is whether women are born less competitive or whether they become so through the process of socialization. To pinpoint when in the socialization process the difference arises, we compare the competitiveness of children in matrilineal and patriarchal societies. We find that while there is no difference at any age in the matrilineal society, girls become less competitive around puberty in the patriarchal society.

Uri Gneezy, Kenneth Leonard, John A List

Cited by*: 243 Downloads*: 41

This study uses a controlled experiment to explore whether there are gender differences in selecting into competitive environments across two distinct societies: the Maasai in Tanzania and the Khasi in India. One unique aspect of these societies is that the Maasai represent a textbook example of a patriarchal society whereas the Khasi are matrilineal. Similar to the extant evidence drawn from experiments executed in Western cultures, Maasai men opt to compete at roughly twice the rate as Maasai women. Interestingly, this result is reversed amongst the Khasi, where women choose the competitive environment more often than Khasi men, and even choose to compete weakly more often than Maasai men. We view these results as potentially providing insights into the underpinnings of the factors hypothesized to be determinants of the observed gender differences in selecting into competitive environments.

Anya Samek

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 54

The gender difference in competitiveness has been cited as an important factor driving the gender gap in labor market outcomes. Using a natural field experiment with 35,000 university students, I explore the impact of compensation scheme on willingness to apply for a job. I find that competitive compensation schemes disproportionately deter women from applying, which cannot be explained by differences in risk preferences alone. I also vary whether the job is introduced as helping a non-profit, which increases application rates, suggesting a role for social preferences in application decisions. Finally, I observe a correlation between competitiveness preferences and career choice.

Peggy Dwyer , James Gilkeson , John A List

Cited by*: 46 Downloads*: 15

Using data from a national survey of nearly 2000 mutual fund investors, we investigate whether investor gender is related to risk taking as revealed in mutual fund investment decisions. Consonant with the received literature, we find that women exhibit less risk-taking than men in their most recent, largest, and riskiest mutual fund investment decisions. More importantly, we find that the impact of gender on risk taking is significantly weakened when investor knowledge of financial markets and investments is controlled in the regression equation. This result suggests that the greater level of risk aversion among women that is frequently documented in the literature can be substantially, but not completely, explained by knowledge disparities.

Shagata Mukherjee, Michael K Price

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 26

This study takes a first step to advance our understanding of the strategic interaction between the constituent components of default in microfinance and how to mitigate them. We conduct controlled microfinance field experiments in rural India to provide a systematic analysis of the relationship between gender, group liability and moral hazard. By varying the contract structure across different microfinance games, our experiment decomposes the two moral hazard (ex-ante and ex-post) channels and find that their effect on default are counteractive rather than additive for women clients. The study facilitates heterogeneity analysis of gender on moral hazard across comparable matrilineal and patrilineal societies in two neighboring states of India. We find that matrilineal women are less risk averse and are more likely to invest in the risky project (ex-ante moral hazard) than women in patrilineal societies. Moreover, we find a reversal of gender effect on strategic default (ex-post moral hazard) across the two societies, suggesting the importance of social norms and gender roles on financial behavior. Our results indicate that policymaking in microfinance should be designed by considering the heterogeneity of diverse societies, gender roles, norms and the underlying socio-economic factors that motivate financial behavior among borrowers.

Gary Charness, Brian Jabarian, John A List

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

We investigate the potential for Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance scientific practice within experimentation by identifying key areas, directions, and implications. First, we discuss how these models can improve experimental design, including improving the elicitation wording, coding experiments, and producing documentation. Second, we discuss the implementation of experiments using LLMs, focusing on enhancing causal inference by creating consistent experiences, improving comprehension of instructions, and monitoring participant engagement in real time. Third, we highlight how LLMs can help analyze experimental data, including pre-processing, data cleaning, and other analytical tasks while helping reviewers and replicators investigate studies. Each of these tasks improves the probability of reporting accurate findings. Finally, we recommend a scientific governance blueprint that manages the potential risks of using LLMs for experimental research while promoting their benefits. This could pave the way for open science opportunities and foster a culture of policy and industry experimentation at scale.