Papers - All

Erwin Bulte, John A List, Mark Strazicich

Cited by*: 17 Downloads*: 2

Recent empirical work suggests that (i) incomes are converging through time, and (ii) income and pollution levels are linked. This paper weds these two literatures by examining the spatial and temporal distribution of pollution. After establishing that theoretical predictions about whether pollution will converge are critically linked to certain structural parameters, we explore pollution convergence using state-level data on two important pollutants-nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides-from 1929 to 1999. We find stronger evidence of converging emission rates during the federal pollution control years (1970-1999) than during the local control years (1929-1969). These results suggest that income convergence alone may not be sufficient to induce convergence of pollutant emissions.

Pascaline Dupas

Cited by*: 5 Downloads*: 10

An information campaign that provided Kenyan teenagers in randomly selected schools with the information that HIV prevalence was much higher among adult men and their partners than among teenage boys led to a 65% decrease in the incidence of pregnancies by adult partners among teenage girls in the treatment group relative to the comparison. This suggests a large reduction in the incidence of unprotected cross-generational sex. The information campaign did not increase pregnancies among teenage couples. These results suggest that the behavioral choices of teenagers are responsive to information on the relative risks of different varieties of a risky activity. Policies that focus only on the elimination of a risky activity and do not address risk reduction strategies may be ignoring a margin on which they can have substantial impact.

Bradley J Ruffle, Richard Sosis

Cited by*: 24 Downloads*: 13

No abstract available

Abhijit Banerjee, Shawn Cole, Esther Duflo, Leigh Linden

Cited by*: 25 Downloads*: 14

This paper presents the results of two randomized experiments conducted in schools in urban India. A remedial education program hired young women to teach students lagging behind in basic literacy and numeracy skills. It increased average test scores of all children in treatment schools by 0.28 standard deviation, mostly due to large gains experienced by children at the bottom of the test-score distribution. A computer-assisted learning program focusing on math increased math scores by 0.47 standard deviation. One year after the programs were over, initial gains remained significant for targeted children, but they faded to about 0.10 standard deviation.

Uri Gneezy, Moshe Hoffman, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 0

We therefore agree with the sentiments of Bailey et al. (1) and Daly (2): Our study should not be viewed as the definitive study on this topic but as a proof of concept, which should propel researchers to exploit this unique sample to its fullest advantage. Further research using noncognitive measures, as well as alternative spatial measures would prove invaluable in addressing some of the shortcomings pointed out by Bailey et al. (1) and Daly (2). Moreover, such research would reveal the generality of our results and could focus activist efforts on traits that are most amenable to nurture. Also, if the measures are chosen to be more or less gender-dimorphic and more or less influenced by motivation, stereotype threat, and training, for example, this research, in addition to addressing some of the astute criticisms of Bailey et al. (1) and Daly (2), could also reveal mechanism, which would likewise be invaluable for focusing activists' efforts. We welcome collaboration with psychologists and anthropologists, such as the experts to whom this letter replies, to help us develop such measures of spatial and nonspatial cognitive abilities that are easy to explain and quick to implement, to take full advantage of this unique sample.

Eliot Abrams, Jonathan Libgober, John A List

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

The past few decades have ushered in an experimental revolution in economics whereby scholars are now much more likely to generate their own data. While there are virtues associated with this movement, there are concomitant difficulties. Several scientific disciplines, including economics, have launched research registries in an effort to attenuate key inferential issues. This study assesses registries both empirically and theoretically, with a special focus on the AEA registry. We find that over 90% of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in economics do not register, only 50% of the RCTs that register do so before the intervention begins, and the majority of these preregistrations are not detailed enough to significantly aid inference. Our empirical analysis further shows that using other scientific registries as aspirational examples is misguided, as their perceived success in tackling the main issues is largely a myth. In light of these facts, we advance a simple economic model to explore potential improvements. A key insight from the model is that removal of the (current) option to register completed RCTs could increase the fraction of trials that register. We also argue that linking IRB applications to registrations could further increase registry effectiveness.

Kuan-Ming Chen, Min Ding, John A List, Magne Mogstad

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Recent changes in labor arrangements have increased interest in estimating and understanding the value of job flexibility. We leverage a large natural field experiment at Uber to create exogenous variation in expected market wages across individuals and over time. Combining this experiment with high frequency panel data on wages and individual work decisions, we document how labor supply responds to exogenous changes in expected market wages in a setting with virtually no restrictions on drive labor allocation. We find that there is i) systematic heterogeneity in labor supply responses both across drivers and within a driver over time, ii) significant fixed costs of beginning a shift, and iii) high rider demand when it is costly for drivers to work. These three findings motivate a model of labor supply with heterogeneous preferences over work schedules, adjustment costs, and statistical dependence between market wages and the costs of driving. We recover the labor supply elasticities and reservation wages of this dynamic labor supply model via a combination of experimental estimates and other data moments. We then perform counterfactual analyses that allow us to examine how preference heterogeneity and adjustment costs influence the responses of workers' to wage incentives as well as infer drivers' willingness to pay for the ability to customize and adjust their work schedule. We also show that a static approach to the driver's dynamic problem delivers materially different estimates of workers' labor supply elasticities and their value of job flexibility.

Sarah Lichtenstein, Paul Slovic

Cited by*: 37 Downloads*: 43

The present report describes an expanded replication of the previous experiments in a nonlaboratory real-play setting unique to the experimental literature on decision processes - a casino in downtown Las Vegas.

Juan-Camilo Cardenas

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 22

No abstract available

Paul Glewwe, Michael Kremer, Sylvie Moulin, Eric Zitzewitz

Cited by*: 42 Downloads*: 16

This paper compares retrospective and prospective analyses of the effect of flip charts on test scores in rural Kenyan schools. Retrospective estimates that focus on subjects for which flip charts are used suggest that flip charts raise test scores by up to 20 percent of a standard deviation. Controlling for other educational inputs does not reduce this estimate. In contrast, prospective estimators based on a study of 178 schools, half of which were randomly selected to receive charts, provide no evidence that flip charts increase test scores. One interpretation is that the retrospective results were subject to omitted variable bias despite the inclusion of control variables. If the direction of omitted variable bias were similar in other retrospective analyses of educational inputs in developing countries, the effects of inputs may be even more modest than retrospective studies suggest. Bias appears to be reduced by a differences-in-differences estimator that examines the impact of flip charts on the relative performance of students in flip chart and other subjects across schools with and without flip charts, but it is not clear that this approach is applicable more generally.

Fulya Ersoy

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

While distance learning has become widespread, causal estimates regarding returns to effort in technology-assisted learning environments are scarce due to high attrition rates and endogeneity of effort. In this paper, I manipulate effort by randomly assigning students different numbers of lessons in a popular online language learning platform. Using administrative data from the platform and the instrumental variables strategy, I find that completing 9 Duolingo lessons, which corresponds to approximately 60 minutes of studying, leads to a 0.057-0.095 standard deviation increase in test scores. Comparisons to the literature and back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that distance learning can be as effective as in-person learning for college students for an introductory language course

Peter Bohm

Cited by*: 17 Downloads*: 25

No abstract available

Jonathan E Alevy, Oscar Cristi, Oscar Melo

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 12

Field experiments were conducted with farmers in the Limari Valley of Chile to test extant theory on right-to-choose auctions. Water volumes that differed by reservoir source and time of availability were offered for sale by the research team. The auctions were supplemented by protocols to elicit risk and time preferences of bidders. We find that the right-to-choose auctions raise significantly more revenue than the benchmark sequential auction. Risk attitudes explain a substantial amount of the difference in bidding between auction institutions, consonant with received theory. The auction bidding revealed distinct preferences for water types, which has implications for market re-design.

Uri Gneezy, Kenneth Leonard, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

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.

William T Harbaugh, Kate Krause, Lise Vesterlund

Cited by*: 77 Downloads*: 13

In this paper we examine how risk attitudes change with age. We present participants from age 5 to 65 with choices between simple gambles and the expected value of the gambles. The gambles are over both gains and losses, and vary in the probability of the non-zero payoff. Surprisingly, we find that many participants are risk seeking when faced with high-probability prospects over gains and risk averse when faced with small-probability prospects. Over losses we find the exact opposite. Children's choices are consistent with the underweighting of low-probability events and the overweighting of high-probability ones. This tendency diminishes with age, and on average adults appear to use the objective probability when evaluating risky prospects.

Glenn W Harrison, Morten I Lau, Elisabet E Rutstrom

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 10

Randomization to treatment is fundamental to statistical control in the design of experiments. But randomization implies some uncertainty about treatment condition, and individuals differ in their preferences towards taking on risk. Since human subjects often volunteer for experiments, or are allowed to drop out of the experiment at any time if they want to, it is possible that the sample observed in an experiment might be biased because of the risk of randomization. On the other hand, the widespread use of a guaranteed show-up fee that is non-stochastic may generate sample selection biases of the opposite direction, encouraging more risk averse samples into experiments. We undertake a field experiment to directly test these hypotheses that risk attitudes play a role in sample selection. We follow standard procedures in the social sciences to recruit subjects to an experiment in which we measure their attitudes to risk. We exploit the fact that we know certain characteristics of the population sampled, adults in Denmark, allowing a statistical correction for sample selection bias using standard methods. We also utilize the fact that we have a complex sampling design to provide better estimates of the target population. Our results suggest that randomization bias is not a major empirical problem for field experiments of the kind we conducted if the objective is to identify marginal effects of sample characteristics. However, there is evidence that the use of show-up fees may have generated a sample that was more risk averse than would otherwise have been observed.

Abigail Barr

Cited by*: 4 Downloads*: 8

This paper presents rigorous and direct tests of two assumptions relating to limited commitment and asymmetric information that underpin current models of risk pooling. A specially designed economic experiment involving 678 subjects across 23 Zimbabwean villages is used to solve the problems of observability and quantification that have frustrated previous attempts to conduct such tests. I find that more extrinsic commitment is associated with more risk pooling, but that more information is associated with less risk pooling. The first of these results accords with our expectations and assumptions. The second does not. I offer two explanations as to the origin of the second result and discuss their implications for how we view the assumptions made elsewhere in the literature. I also conduct a test of the relevance or external validity of the experimental results to our understanding of real risk pooling behaviour. In four out of the five villages for which the test could be conducted the networks of risk pooling contracts constructed during the experiment and the networks existing in real life were significantly correlated.

Jim Engle-Warnick, Javier Escobal, Sonia Laszlo

Cited by*: 4 Downloads*: 23

No abstract available

James Andreoni, Amalia Di Girolamo, John A List, Claire Mackevicius, Anya Samek

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

We conduct experiments eliciting risk preferences with over 1,400 children and adolescents aged 3-15 years old. We complement our data with an assessment of cognitive and executive function skills. First, we find that adolescent girls display significantly greater risk aversion than adolescent boys. This pattern is not observed among young children, suggesting that the risk gap in risk preferences emerges in early adolescence. Second, we find that at all ages in our study, cognitive skills (specifically math ability) are positively associated with risk taking. Executive functions among children, and soft skills among adolescents, are negatively associated with risk taking. Third, we find that greater risk-tolerance is associated with higher likelihood of disciplinary referrals, which provides evidence that our task is equipped to measure a relevant behavioral outcome. For academics, our research provides a deeper understanding of the developmental origins of risk preferences and highlights the important role of cognitive and executive function skills to better understand the association between risk preferences and cognitive abilities over the studied age range.

Shlomo Benartzi, Richard H Thaler

Cited by*: 298 Downloads*: 146

As firms switch from defined-benefit plans to defined-contribution plans, employees bear more responsibility for making decisions about how much to save. The employees who fail to join the plan or who participate at a very low level appear to be saving at less than the predicted life cycle savings rates. Behavioral explanations for this behavior stress bounded rationality and self-control and suggest that at least some of the low-saving households are making a mistake and would welcome aid in making decisions about their saving. In this paper, we propose such a prescriptive savings program, called Save More Tomorrow (hereafter, the SMarT program). The essence of the program is straightforward: people commit in advance to allocating a portion of their future salary increases toward retirement savings. We report evidence on the first three implementations of the SMarT program. Our key findings, from the first implementation, which has been in place for four annual raises, are as follows: (1) a high proportion (78 percent) of those offered the plan joined, (2) the vast majority of those enrolled in the SMarT plan (80 percent) remained in it through the fourth pay raise, and (3) the average saving rates for SMarT program participants increased from 3.5 percent to 13.6 percent over the course of 40 months. The results suggest that behavioral economics can be used to design effective prescriptive programs for important economic decisions.