Papers - All

Eric Bettinger, Robert Slonim

Cited by*: 13 Downloads*: 8

Economic research examining how educational intervention programs affect primary and secondary schooling focuses largely on test scores although the interventions can affect many other outcomes. This paper examines how an educational intervention, a voucher program, affected students' altruism. The voucher program used a lottery to allocate scholarships among low-income applicant families with children in K-8th grade. By exploiting the lottery to identify the voucher effects, and using experimental economic methods, we measure the effects of the intervention on childrens altruism. We also measure the voucher programs effects on parents' altruism and several academic outcomes including test scores. We find that the educational intervention positively affects students' altruism towards charitable organizations but not towards their peers. We fail to find statistically significant effects of the vouchers on parents' altruism or test scores.

Eric Floyd, John A List

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 49

The gold standard in the sciences is uncovering causal relationships. A growing literature in economics utilizes field experiments as a methodology to establish causality between variables. Taking lessons from the economics literature, this study provides an "A-to-Z" description of how to conduct field experiments in accounting and finance. We begin by providing a user's guide into what a field experiment is, what behavioral parameters field experiments identify, and how to efficiently generate and analyze experimental data. We then provide a discussion of extant field experiments that touch on important issues in accounting and finance, and we also review areas that have ample opportunities for future field experimental explorations. We conclude that the time is ripe for field experimentation to deepen our understanding of important issues in accounting and finance.

John A List, Michael K Price

Cited by*: 3 Downloads*: 6

This study showcases the usefulness of field experiments to the study of environmental and resource economics. Our focus pertains to work related to field experiments in the area of 'behavioral' environmental and resource economics. Within this rubric, we discuss research in two areas: those that inform i) benefit cost analysis and ii) conservation of resources. Within each realm, we show how field experiments have been able to test the relevant theories, provide important parameters to construct new theories, and guide policymakers. We conclude with thoughts on how field experiments can be used to deepen our understanding of important areas within environmental and resource economics.

John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 111

Not applicable.

David Lucking-Reiley

Cited by*: 76 Downloads*: 16

William Vickrey's predicted equivalences between first-price sealed-bid and Dutch auctions, and between second-price sealed-bid and English auctions, are tested using field experiments that auctioned off collectible trading cards over the Internet. The results indicate that the Dutch auction produces 30-percent higher revenues than the first-price auction format, a violation of the theoretical prediction and a reversal of previous laboratory results, and that the English and second-price formats produce roughly equivalent revenues.

Omar Al-Ubaydli, Faith Fatchen, John A List

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Field experiments are a useful empirical tool that can be deployed in any sub-discipline - including institutional economics - to enhance the sub-discipline's empirical insights. However, we here argue that there exist fundamental barriers to the use of field experiments in understanding the impact of institutions on economic growth. Despite these obstacles, we present some significant scholarly contributions that merit exposition, while also proposing some future methods for using field experiments within institutional economics. While field experiments may be limited in answering questions in institutional economics with macroeconomic outcomes, there is great potential in employing field experiments to answer micro founded questions.

Damon Clark, David Gill, Victoria Prowse , Mark Rush

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Will college students who set goals for themselves work harder and achieve better outcomes? In theory, setting goals can help present-biased students to mitigate their self-control problem. In practice, there is little credible evidence on the causal effects on goal setting for college students. We report the result of two field experiments that involved almost four thousand college students in total. One experiments asked treated students to set goals for performance in the course; the other asked treated students to set goals for a particular task (completing online practice exams). Task-based goals had robust positive effects on the level of task completion, and task-based goals also increased course performance. We also find that performance-based goals had positive but small effects on course performance. We use a theoretical framework that builds on present bias and loss aversion to interpret our results. Since task-based goal setting is low-cost, scalable and logistically simple, we conclude that our findings have important implications for educational practice and future research.

John A List

Cited by*: 5 Downloads*: 6

This paper pits neoclassical theory against prospect theory by investigating several clean tests of the competing hypotheses. Consistent with previous work, the field experimental data suggest that prospect theory adequately organizes behavior among inexperienced consumers, whereas consumers with intense market experience behave largely in accordance with neoclassical predictions. The data indicate that the convergence in values occurs entirely because of lower Hicksian equivalent surplus values.

Andreas Lange, John A List, Michael K Price

Cited by*: 35 Downloads*: 33

This study explores the economics of charitable fund-raising. We begin by developing theory that examines the optimal lottery design while explicitly relaxing both risk-neutrality and preference homogeneity assumptions. We test our theory using a battery of experimental treatments and find that our theoretical predictions are largely confirmed. Specifically, we find that single and multiple prize lotteries dominate the voluntary contribution mechanism both in total dollars raised and the number of contributors attracted. Moreover, we find that the optimal fund-raising mechanism depends critically on the risk postures of potential contributors and preference heterogeneity.

John A List, Ian Muir, Gregory Sun

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

This study investigates how to use regression adjustment to reduce variance in experimental data. We show that the estimators recommended in the literature satisfy an orthogonality property with respect to the parameters of the adjustment. This observation greatly simplifies the derivation of the asymptotic variance of these estimators and allows us to solve for the efficient regression adjustment in a large class of adjustments. Our efficiency results generalize a number of previous results known in the literature. We then discuss how this efficient regression adjustment can be feasibly implemented. We show the practical relevance of our theory in two ways. First, we use our efficiency results to improve common practices currently employed in field experiments. Second, we show how our theory allows researchers to robustly incorporate machine learning techniques into their experimental estimators to minimize variance.

Michael J. Seiler, Eric Walden

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 1

Great debate is being waged between whether strategic mortgage defaulters follow a herd for social reasons or mimic others' behavior for informational gain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the latest neurological technology allowing for observation of brain activity during strategic mortgage default decision-making, we find that when defaulters learn of peer default behavior, they acknowledge the social component of the decision, but feel freer to make their own decisions. Alternatively, when observing the behavior of a maven (real estate expert), borrowers still consider the social aspect of the decision (although to a lesser extent), but ultimately follow the maven who presumably possesses a greater information set. Alarmingly, borrowers only significantly follow the herd when mavens advocate strategic default, not when they recommend against it.

James Andreoni, Michael Callen, Karrar Hussain, Muhammad Yasir Khan, Charles Sprenger

Cited by*: 3 Downloads*: 7

We use structural estimates of time preferences to customize incentives for a sample of polio vaccinators during a series of door-to-door vaccination drives in Pakistan. Our investigation proceeds in three stages. First, we measure time preferences using intertemporal allocations of vaccinations. Second, we derive the mapping between these structural estimates and individually optimal incentives given a specific policy objective. Third, we experimentally evaluate the effect of matching contract terms to individual discounting patterns in a subsequent experiment with the same vaccinators. This exercise provides a test of the specific point predictions given by structural estimates of time preference. We document present bias among vaccinators and find that tailored contracts achieve the intended policy objective of smoothing intertemporal allocations of effort.

John A List

Cited by*: 16 Downloads*: 19

Public policy decision making often requires balancing the benefits of a policy with the costs. While regulators in the United States and abroad rely heavily on benefit-cost analysis, critics contend that hypothetical bias precludes one of the most popular benefit estimation techniques--contingent surveys--from providing reliable economic values for nonmarket goods and services. This paper explores a new methodology to obtain the total value of nonmarket goods and services--random nth price auctions. The empirical work revolves around examining behavior of 360 participants in a competitive marketplace, where subjects naturally buy, sell, and trade commodities. The field experiment provides some preliminary evidence that hypothetical random nth price auctions can, in certain situations, reveal demand truthfully.

Richard Hofler, John A List

Cited by*: 7 Downloads*: 5

The lack of robust evidence showing that hypothetical behavior directly maps into real actions remains a major concern for proponents of stated preference nonmarket valuation techniques. This article explores a new statistical approach to link actual and hypothetical statements. Using willingness-topay field data on individual bids from sealed-bid auctions for a $350 baseball card, our results are quite promising. Estimating a stochastic frontier regression model that makes use of data that any contingent valuation survey would obtain, we derive a bid function that is not statistically different from the bid function obtained from subjects in an actual auction. If other data can be calibrated similarly, this method holds significant promise since an appropriate calibration scheme, ex ante or ex post, can be invaluable to the policy maker that desires more accurate estimates of use and nonuse values for nonmarket goods and services.

John A Fox, Jayson L Lusk

Cited by*: 6 Downloads*: 13

An increasing number of studies have begun conducting economic experiments in field, rather than laboratory settings. We directly compare results from laboratory and field valuation experiments. After controlling for unengaged bidders, results indicate field valuations were greater than laboratory valuations. Results are discussed in the context of recent literature on commitment costs.

Alexandre Mas, Amanda Pallais

Cited by*: 8 Downloads*: 3

We use a field experiment to study how workers value alternative work arrangements. During the application process to staff a national call center we randomly offered applicants choices between traditional M-F 9am - 5pm office positions and alternatives. These alternatives include flexible scheduling, working from home, and positions that give the employer discretion over scheduling. We randomlyvaried the wage difference between the traditional option and the alternative, allowing us to estimate the entire distribution of willingness to pay (WTP) for these alternatives. We validate our results using a nationally-representative survey. The great majority of workers are not willing to pay for flexible scheduling relative to a traditional schedule: either the ability to choose the days and times of work or the number of hours they work. However, the average worker is willing to give up 20% of wages to avoid a schedule set by an employer on a week's notice. This largely represents workers' aversion to evening and weekend work, not scheduling unpredictability. Traditional M-F 9am - 5pm schedules are preferred by most jobseekers. Despite the fact that the average worker isn't willing to pay for scheduling flexibility, a tail of workers with high WTP allows for sizable compensating differentials. Of the workerfriendly options we test, workers are willing to pay the most (8% of wages) for the option of working from home. Women, particularly those with young children, have higher WTP for work from home and to avoid employer scheduling discretion. They are slightly more likely to be in jobs with these amenities, but the differences are not large enough to explain any wage gaps.

Michal Krawczyk, Joanna Rachubik

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Despite having the same probability of being drawn, certain number combinations are more popular than others among the lottery players. One explanation of such preferences is the representativeness heuristic (RH). Unlike previous hypothetical experiments, in the present experiment we used real-life lottery tickets, involving a high payout in case of winning to elicit true preferences. To verify if people prefer randomly-looking number combinations, participants were to choose a preferred ticket. To validate if it is likely to be caused by RH, we correlated preference for "random" sequences with the belief in dependence between subsequent coin tosses. We confirm that people strongly prefer random sequences and that a non-trivial fraction believes in dependence between coin tosses. However, there is no correlation between these two tendencies, questioning the RH explanation. By contrast, participants who have an (irrationally) strong preference for number combinations also tend to make (irrationally) specific predictions in the coin task. Unexpectedly, we find that females are considerably more likely to belong to this groups than males.

Steven D Levitt, John A List

Cited by*: 51 Downloads*: 30

We can think of no question more fundamental to experimental economics than understanding whether, and under what circumstances, laboratory results generalize to naturally occurring environments. In this paper, we extend Levitt and List (2006) to the class of games in which financial payoffs and doing the right thing are not necessarily in conflict. We argue that behaviour is crucially linked to not only the preferences of people, but also the properties of the situation. By doing so, we are able to provide a road map of the psychological and economic properties of people and situations that might interfere with generalizability of laboratory result from a broad class of games.

Lewis Glinert, Aileen Heinberg, Angela Hung, Arie Kapteyn, Annamaria Lusardi, Anya Samek

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 15

In this paper, we developed and experimentally evaluated four novel educational programs delivered online: an informational brochure, a visual interactive tool, a written narrative, and a video narrative. The programs were designed to inform people about risk diversification, an essential concept for financial decision-making. The effectiveness of these programs was evaluated using the RAND American Life Panel. Participants were exposed to one of the programs, and then asked to answer questions measuring financial literacy and self-efficacy. All of the programs were found to be effective at increasing self-efficacy, and several improved financial literacy, providing new evidence for the value of programs designed to help individuals make financial decisions. The video was more effective at improving financial literacy scores than the written narrative, highlighting the power of online media in financial education.

Shubha Chakravarty, Mattias Lundberg, Plamen Nikolov, Juliane Zenker

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Lack of skills is arguably one of the most important determinants of high levels of unemployment and poverty. In response, policymakers often initiate vocational training programs in effort to enhance skill formation among the youth. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we examine a large youth training intervention in Nepal. We find, twelve months after the start of the training program, that the intervention generated an increase in non-farm employment of 10 percentage points (ITT estimates) and up to 31 percentage points for program compliers (LATE estimates). We also detect sizable gains in monthly earnings. Women who start self-employment activities inside their homes largely drive these impacts. We argue that low baseline educational levels and non-farm employment levels and Nepal's social and cultural norms towards women drive our large program impacts. Our results suggest that the program enables otherwise underemployed women to earn an income while staying at home - close to household errands and in line with the socio-cultural norms that prevent them from taking up employment outside the house.