Papers - All

James Cox, John A List, Michael K Price, Vjollca Sadiraj, Anya Samek

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 123

The literature exploring other regarding behavior sheds important light on interesting social phenomena, yet less attention has been given to how the received results speak to foundational assumptions within economics. Our study synthesizes the empirical evidence, showing that recent work challenges convex preference theory but is largely consistent with rational choice theory. Guided by this understanding, we design a new, more demanding test of a central tenet of economics - the contraction axiom - within a sharing framework. Making use of more than 325 dictators participating in a series of allocation games, we show that sharing choices violate the contraction axiom. We advance a new theory that augments standard models with moral reference points to explain our experimental data. Our theory also organizes the broader sharing patterns in the received literature.

Abigail Barr, Truman G Packard

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 9

Exploiting new data from a survey and behavioral experiment conducted in Peru we analyze individuals' preferences for securing income in old age. We identify a group that is unrationed by the mandate to save in Peru's pension system, and draw insights from their affiliation and contribution behavior. Among the unrationed, those who are more tolerant of risk, have more children, and have a greater share of housing in their accumulated assets are less likely to affiliate and/or contribute to the formal pensions system. Further, the less risk tolerant choose private individual retirement accounts over a publicly administered pension system.

Uri Gneezy, John A List, Jeffrey A Livingston, Xiangdong Qin, Sally Sadoff, Yang Xu

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 124

Tests measuring and comparing educational achievement are an important policy tool. We experimentally show that offering students extrinsic incentives to put forth effort on such achievement tests has differential effects across cultures. Offering incentives to U.S. students, who generally perform poorly on assessments, improved performance substantially. In contrast, Shanghai students, who are top performers on assessments, were not affected by incentives. Our findings suggest that in the absence of extrinsic incentives, ranking countries based on low-stakes assessments is problematic because test scores reflect differences in intrinsic motivation to perform well on the test itself, and not just differences in ability.

Catherine Kling , John A List, Jinhua Zhao

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 5

Recent evidence from laboratory experiments suggests that important disparities exist between willingness to pay (WTP) and compensation demanded for the same good. Because a fundamental postulate in neoclassical theory is that with small income effects and many available substitutes, the willingness to accept (WTA) and WTP measures of value for a commodity should be roughly equivalent, this finding has vast implications in both a positive and normative sense. This study advances, and experimentally tests, a new explanation of the WTP/WTA disparity-a dynamic theory based on the presence of commitment costs. Although to date neoclassical models have not explained the observed data patterns well, we find that the commitment cost theory combined with a simple behavioral anomaly is able to lend insights into the causes and severity of the WTA/WTP disparity. Furthermore, we find that market experience attenuates the behavioral anomaly, consistent with the notion that no value disparity exists for agents with sufficient market experience.

Gerald Pruckner, Rupert Sausgruber

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 48

A publisher uses an honor-system for selling a newspaper in the street. The customers make payments into a cash-box, but can also just take the paper without paying. Payments are not monitored and highly anonymous; hence customers exhibit trustworthiness if they pay for the paper. We run a natural field experiment to identify motives behind payments. The experiment reveals that trustworthiness is based on a social rather than a legal norm. Additional survey questions serve to identify individual-specific components of trustworthiness. We find effects of gender, age, family status, church attendance, measures of reciprocity, social connectedness, and social risk.

Mary Kay Gugerty, Michael Kremer

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 7

Many argue that organizations of the disadvantaged create positive externalities, and in particular strengthen the position of these groups in society. A natural inference is that these organizations should be subsidized. We argue that the benefits of expanding the operations of these groups must be set against the potential costs of weakening the role of the disadvantaged in these organizations. A prospective, randomized evaluation of a development program targeted at strengthening rural women's groups in western Kenya suggests that the program did not improve group strength or functioning as measured by participation rates, assistance to members, and assistance to other community projects. The funding did, however, change the very characteristics of the groups that made them attractive to funders in the first place. Younger, more educated women and women employed in the formal sector joined the groups, and men and better-educated and wealthier women moved into key leadership positions.

Rachel Croson, Americus Reed, Jen Shang

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 54

Information is presented about a presentation at the Advances in Consumer Research North American Conference on social information and marketing environments in donation behavior. Topics in the presentation include activated identities in decision-making, contextual cues in donation behavior, and gender identity in informers and targets of social information. Field experiments on radio pledges are also described.

Omar Al-Ubaydli, John A List, Danielle LoRe, Dana L Suskind

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 7

No abstract available

James Edwards, John A List

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 0

People respond to those who ask. Within the charitable fundraising community, the power of the ask represents the backbone of most fundraising strategies. Despite this, the optimal design of communication strategies has received less formal attention. For their part, economists have recently explored how communication affects empathy, altruism, and giving rates to charities. Our study takes a step back from this literature to examine how suggestions-a direct ask for a certain amount of money-affect giving rates. We find that our suggestion amounts affect both the intensive and extensive margins: more people give and they tend to give the suggested amount. Resulting insights help us understand why people give, why messages work, and deepen practitioners' understanding of how to use messages to leverage more giving.

Justin Krieg, Anya Samek

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 6

What happens when charities compete? We begin to answer this question through a laboratory experiment in which subjects play two public goods games simultaneously. We systematically vary the incentives for contributing in one of the games - investigating the effects of recognition, a bonus conditional on contributing, and non-monetary sanctions - and measure the effect on contributions in both games. Monetary incentives in the form of conditional bonuses increase contributions, even when two games are played simultaneously. However, non-monetary incentives such as recognition and sanctions are less effective than in related literature on games played in isolation. Moreover, we find mixed evidence of the spillover effect of treatment on the un-treated games - bonuses increase contributions initially, recognition decreases contributions, and sanctions have no effect.

Werner Guth, Carsten Schmidt, Matthias Sutter

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 17

5,132 readers of the German weekly, Die Zeit, participated in a three-person bargaining experiment. In our data analysis we focus on (1) the influence of age, gender, profession and medium chosen for participation and (2) the external validity of student behaviour (inside and outside the lab). We find that older participants and women care more about equal distributions and that Internet users are more self-regarding than those using mail or fax. Decisions made by students in the lab are rather similar to those made by participants in the newspaper experiment, indicating a high degree of external validity of student data.

Ori Heffetz , John A List

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 14

A hallmark result within behavioral economics is that individuals' choices are affected by current endowments. A recent theory due to Koszegi and Rabin (2006) explains such endowment effect with a model of expectations-based reference-dependent preferences. Departing from past work, we conduct complementary experiments to disentangle expectations - verified probabilistic beliefs held by subjects - from other features of endowment - such as "assignment" to a good - hence allowing us to compare the effect of expectations with that of other variations. While mere assignment can affect choices, we do not find a large role in the effect for Koszegi-Rabin expectations.

David Lucking-Reiley

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 11

I present experimental evidence on the effects of minimum bids in first-price, sealed-bid auctions. The auction experiments manipulated the minimum bids in a preexisting market on the Internet for collectible trading cards from the game Magic: the Gathering. I examine a number of outcomes, including the number of participating bidders, the probability of sale, the levels of individual bids, and the auctioneer's revenues. The benchmark theoretical model is one with symmetric, risk-neutral bidders with independent private values. The results verify a number of the predictions concerning equilibrium bidding. Many bidders behave strategically, anticipating the effects of the reserve price on others' bids.

Glenn W Harrison, Steven J Humphrey, Arjan Verschoor

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 24

We review experimental evidence collected from risky choice experiments using poor subjects in Ethiopia, India and Uganda. Using these data we estimate that just over 50% of our sample behaves in accordance with expected utility theory and that the rest subjectively weight probability according to prospect theory. Our results show that inferences about risk aversion are robust to whichever model we adopt when we estimate each model separately. However, when we allow both models to explain portions of the data simultaneously, we infer risk aversion for subjects behaving according to expected utility theory and risk seeking behavior for subjects behaving according to prospect theory. We conclude that the current practice of designing policies under the assumption that one or other explains all behavior is fundamentally flawed.

Anya Samek

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 57

The rising childhood obesity rate calls for interventions aimed at improving child food choice, and one recent innovation is the use of behavioral 'nudges.' We conducted a field experiment with over 1,400 children to measure the impact of interventions based on two behavioral theories: reciprocity and theories of self-control. The interventions were implemented in the classroom prior to observing choices between a healthy and less healthy milk choice in the cafeteria. We found that small, unconditional gifts (triggering reciprocity) increased the choice of the healthier milk by 15 percentage points relative to a control group. Giving the option to set a goal (an internal commitment device) was most effective for the younger children and increased the choice of the healthier milk by 10 percentage points. About two thirds of children made a goal to select the healthier milk, and almost 90 percent followed through with their goal. We also see an impact of health information delivered by teachers. Our results have implications for policy and practice, since low cost interventions implemented at school may have an impact on what kids choose to eat and in turn on obesity rates.

Frank W Marlowe

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 27

Most hypotheses proposed to explain human food sharing address motives, yet most tests of these hypotheses have measured only the patterns of food transfer. To choose between these hypotheses we need to measure people's propensity to share. To do that, I played two games (the Ultimatum and Dictator Games) with Hadza hunter-gatherers. Despite their ubiquitous food sharing, the Hadza are less willing to share in these games than people in complex societies are. They were also less willing to share in smaller camps than larger camps. I evaluate the various food-sharing hypotheses in light of these results.

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.

Maria De Paola, Francesca Gioia, Vincenzo Scoppa

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 10

We analyze how overconfidence is affected by superstitious beliefs and emotions induced by positive and negative stimuli in a field experiment involving about 700 Italian students who were randomly assigned to numbered seats in their written examination sessions. According to widespread superstitions, some numbers are considered lucky, while others are considered unlucky. At the end of the examination, we asked students the grade they expected to get. We find that students tend to be systematically overconfident and that their overconfidence is positively affected by being assigned to a lucky number. Interestingly, males and females react differently: on the one hand, females tend to expect lower grades when assigned to unlucky numbers, while they are not affected by being assigned to lucky numbers. On the other hand, males are not affected by being assigned to unlucky numbers but expect higher grades when assigned to lucky numbers.

Joshua D Angrist, Victor Lavy

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 40

In Israel, as in many other countries, a high school matriculation certificate is required by universities and some jobs. In spite of the certificate's value, Israeli society is marked by vast differences in matriculation rates by region and socioeconomic status. We attempted to increase the likelihood of matriculation among low-achieving students by offering substantial cash incentives in two demonstration programs. As a theoretical matter, cash incentives may be helpful if low-achieving students reduce investment in schooling because of high discount rates, part-time work, or face peer pressure not to study. A small pilot program selected individual students within schools for treatment, with treatment status determined by previous test scores and a partially randomized cutoff for low socioeconomic status. In a larger follow-up program, entire schools were randomly selected for treatment and the program operated with the cooperation of principals and teachers. The results suggest the Achievement Awards program that randomized treatment at the school level raised matriculation rates, while the student-based program did not.

Jayson L Lusk, Bailey Norwood

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 5

Eliciting actual donations toward a public good has been proposed as a means of estimating a lower bound to individuals' compensating surplus, and can be accomplished using mail/phone surveys or field experiments. This study shows that when warm-glow is present, the elicitation instrument decreases the transaction costs of donating. This presents an obstacle to using the donation mechanism. As a remedy, we propose the use of a multi-donation mechanism where subjects can direct their donation to alternative public goods. Results from a field experiment confirm this instrument-induced bias can be large, suggesting field experiment practitioners should seriously consider how their experimental procedures may alter economic behavior.