Papers - All
John A List
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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.
Michal Krawczyk
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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.
Anouar El Haji,
Michal Krawczyk,
Marta Sylwestrzak,
Ewa Zawojska
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Auctions often require risk taking under time pressure. However, little is known about how time pressure moderates the relationship between uncertainty of outcomes and bidding behavior. This study consists of a field experiment in which participants are invited to a Vickrey auction to elicit their willingness to pay for a lottery ticket. The time available to place a bid and also the skewness of the lottery (holding the expected value constant) are systematically manipulated. We find that under high time pressure participants are less likely to place a bid at all. Furthermore, participants who do place a bid under high time pressure bid significantly less than participants under low time pressure. The main finding is thus that increased time pressure significantly decreases risk taking. The effect seems to be particularly strong for the lottery with a high probability of winning and for female subjects.
Wojciech Hardy,
Michal Krawczyk,
Joanna Tyrowicz
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In this project, we investigate downloading and sharing behaviour in a novel 'piracy game' modelled after standard public good games. We find that willingness to share correlates positively with the sharing by others. By contrast, actual behaviour in the 'piracy game' is not correlated with self-reported behaviour.
James Andreoni,
Amalia Di Girolamo,
John A List,
Claire Mackevicius,
Anya Samek
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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.
Damon Clark,
David Gill,
Victoria Prowse ,
Mark Rush
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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.
Omar Al-Ubaydli,
John A List
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This is a review of the literature of field experimental studies of markets. The main results covered by the review are as follows: (1) Generally speaking, markets organize the efficient exchange of commodities; (2) There are some behavioral anomalies that impede efficient exchange; (3) Many behavioral anomalies disappear when traders are experienced.
Syon Bhanot
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Across domains, people struggle to follow through on their commitments. This can happen for many reasons, including dishonesty, forgetfulness, or insufficient intrinsic motivation. Social scientists have explored the reasons for persistent failures to follow through. suggesting that eliciting explicit promises can be an effective way to motivate action. This paper presents a field experiment that tests the effect of explicit promises, in the form of "honor pledges", on loan repayment rates. The experiment was conducted with LendUp, an online lender, and targeted 4,883 first time-borrowers with the firm. Individuals were randomized into four groups, with the following experimental treatments: (1) having no honor pledge to complete (control); (2) signing a given honor pledge; (3) re-typing the same honor pledge as in (2) before signing; and (4) coming up with a personal honor pledge to type and sign. I also randomized whether or not borrowers were reminded of the honor pledge they signed prior to repayment deadline. The results suggest that the honor pledge treatments had minimal impacts on repayment, and that reminders of the pledges were similarly ineffective. This suggests that borrowers who fail to repay loans do so not because of dishonesty or behavioral biases, but because they suffer from true financial hardship and are simply unable to repay.
John A List
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"Putting Economic Research into Practice at Businesses (to Inform Science and Major Social Challenges)"
Slides from ASSA NABE
Amanda Bayer,
Syon Bhanot,
Fernando Lozano
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No abstract available
Haoran He,
David Neumark,
Qian Weng
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We explore compensating differentials for job flexibility, using a field experiment conducted on a Chinese job board. Our job ads differ randomly regarding when one works (time flexibility) and where one works (place flexibility). We find strong evidence that workers value job flexibility - especially regarding place of work. Application rates are higher to flexible jobs, conditional on the salary offered. Additional survey evidence indicates that workers are willing to take lower pay for more flexible jobs. Non-experimental job board data do not indicate that workers value job flexibility, reinforcing the difficulty of estimating compensating differentials from observational data.
Michal Krawczyk
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This paper reports a field experiment involving manipulation of invitations to register in an experimental economics subject database. Two types of invitations were sent out: one emphasizing pecuniary and the other non-pecuniary benefits of participation. The former resulted in higher response rate and the strength of this treatment effect was comparable in different groups defined by gender and academic major. In a follow-up test conducted about a year later it was found that individuals recruited by invitations emphasizing monetary benefits were less willing to make an effort to participate in a non-paid survey. The very same survey also showed that they were marginally less altruistic in general.
Shubha Chakravarty,
Mattias Lundberg,
Plamen Nikolov,
Juliane Zenker
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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.
Basil Halperin,
Benjamin Ho,
John A List,
Ian Muir
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We use a theory of apologies to analyze a nationwide field experiment involving 1.5 million Uber ridesharing consumers who experienced late rides. Several insights emerge. First, apologies are not a panacea: the efficacy of an apology and whether it may backfire depend on how the apology is made. Second, across treatments, money speaks louder than words - the best form of apology is to include a coupon for a future trip. Third, in some cases sending an apology is worse than sending nothing at all, particularly for repeated apologies. For firms, caveat venditor should be the rule when considering apologies.
John A List
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No abstract available
U. Rashid Sumalia,
Daniel J Skerritt,
Anna Schuhbauer,
Sebastian Villasante,
Andres M Cisneros-Montemayor,
Hussain Sinan,
Duncan Burnside,
Patrízia Raggi Abdallah,
Keita Abe,
Juliano Palacios Abrantes,
Kwasi A Addo,
Julia Adelsheim,
Ibukun J Adewumi,
Olanike K Adeyemo,
Neil Adger,
Joshua Adotey,
Sahir Advani,
Zahidah Afrin,
Denis Aheto,
Shehu L Akintola,
Wisdom Akpalu,
Lubna Alam,
Juan José Alava,
Edward H Allison,
Diva J Amon,
John M Anderies,
Christopher M Anderson,
Evan Andrews,
Ronaldo Angelini,
Zuzy Anna,
Werner Antweiler,
Evans K Arizi,
Derek Armitage,
Robert I Arthur,
Noble Asare,
Frank Asche,
Berchie Asiedu,
Francis Asuquo,
Marta Flotats Aviles,
Lanre Badmus,
Megan Bailey,
Natalie Ban,
Edward B Barbier,
Shanta Barley,
Colin Barnes,
Scott Barrett,
Xavier Basurto,
Dyhia Belhabib,
Nathan J Bennett,
Elena Bennett,
Dominique Benzaken,
Robert Blasiak,
John J Bohorquez,
Cesar Bordehore,
Virginie Bornarel,
David R Boyd,
Denise Breitburg,
Cassandra Brooks,
Lucas Brotz,
Duncan Burnside,
Donovan Campbell,
Sara Cannon,
Ling Cao,
Juan C Cardenas Campo,
Griffin Carpenter,
Steve Carpenter,
Richard T Carson,
Adriana R Carvalho,
Mauricio Castrejón,
Alex J Caveen,
M Nicole Chabi,
Kai M A Chan,
F Stuart Chapin,
Tony Charles,
William Cheung,
Villy Christensen,
Ernest O Chuku,
Trevor Church,
Andrés M Cisneros-Montemayor,
Colin Clark,
Tayler M Clarke,
Andreea L Cojocaru,
Brian Copeland,
Brian Crawford,
Anne-Sophie Crépin,
Larry B Crowder,
Philippe Cury,
Allison N Cutting,
Gretchen C Daily,
Jose Maria Da-Rocha,
Abhipsita Das,
Savior K S Deikumah,
Mairin Deith,
Santiago de la Puente,
Boris Dewitte,
Nancy Doubleday,
Carlos M Duarte,
Nicholas K Dulvy,
Bárbara B Horta e Costa,
Tyler Eddy,
Maeghan Efford,
Paul R Ehrlich,
Laura G Elsler,
Kafayat A Fakoya,
A Eyiwunmi Falaye,
Jessica Fanzo,
Clare Fitzsimmons,
Ola Flaaten,
Katie R N Florko,
Carl Folke,
Andrew Forrest,
Peter Freeman,
Kátia M F Freire,
Rainer Froese,
Thomas L Frölicher,
Austin Gallagher,
Veronique Garcon,
Maria A Gasalla,
Mark Gibbons,
Kyle Gillespie,
Alfredo Giron-Nava,
Kristina Gjerde,
Sarah Glaser,
Christopher Golden,
Line Gordon,
Hugh Govan,
Rowenna Gryba,
Benjamin S Halpern,
Quentin Hanich,
Mafaniso Hara,
Christopher D G Harley,
Sarah Harper,
Michael Harte,
Rebecca Helm,
Cullen Hendrix,
Christina C Hicks,
Lincoln Hood,
Carie Hoover,
Kristen Hopewell,
Jonathan D R Houghton,
Johannes A Iitembu,
Moenieba Isaacs,
Sadique Isahaku,
Gakushi Ishimura,
Monirul Islam,
Ibrahim Issifu,
Jeremy Jackson,
Jennifer Jacquet,
Olaf P Jensen,
Xue Jin,
Alberta Jonah,
Jean-Baptiste Jouffray,
S Kim Juniper,
Sufian Jusoh,
Isigi Kadagi,
Masahide Kaeriyama,
Michel J Kaiser,
Brooks Alexandra Kaiser,
Omu Kakujaha-Matundu,
Selma T Karuaihe,
Mary Karumba,
Jennifer D Kemmerly,
Ahmed S Khan,
Katrick Kimani,
Kristin Kleisner,
Nancy Knowlton,
Dawn Kotowicz,
John Kurien,
Lian E Kwong,
Steven Lade,
Dan Laffoley,
Vicky W L Lam,
Glenn-Marie Lange,
Mohd T Latif,
Philippe Le Billon,
Valérie Le Brenne,
Frédéric Le Manach,
Simon A Levin,
Lisa Levin,
Karin E Limburg,
John A List,
Amanda T Lombard,
Priscila F M Lopes,
Heike K Lotze,
Tabitha G Mallory,
Roshni S Mangar,
Daniel Marszalec,
Precious Mattah,
Juan Mayorga,
Carol Mcausland,
DOuglas J McCauley,
Jeffrey McLean,
Karley McMullen,
Frank Meere,
Annie Mejaes,
Michael Melnychuk,
Jaime Mendo,
Fiorenza Micheli,
Katherine Millage,
Dana Miller,
Kolliyil Sunil Mohamed,
Essam Mohammed,
Mazlin Mokhtar,
Lance Morgan,
Umi Muawanah,
Gordon R Munro,
Grant Murray,
Saleem Mustafa,
Prateep Nayak,
Dianne Newell,
Tu Nguyen,
Frederik Noack,
Adibi M Nor,
Francis K E Nunoo,
David Obura,
Tom Okey,
Isaac Okyere,
Paul Onyango,
Maartje Oostdijk,
Polina Orlov,
Henrik Österblom,
Tessa Owens,
Dwight Owens,
Mohammed Oyinlola,
Nathan Pacoureau,
Evgeny Pakhomov,
Unai Pascual,
Aurélien Paulmier,
Daniel Pauly,
Rodrigue Orobiyi Edéya Pèlèbè,
Daniel Peñalosa,
Maria G Pennino,
Garry Peterson,
Thuy T T Pham,
Evelyn Pinkerton,
Stephen Polasky,
Nicholas V C Polunin,
Ekow Prah,
Ingrid Van Putten,
Jorge Ramírez,
Jorge Jimenez Ramon,
Veronica Relano,
Gabriel Reygondeau,
Don Robadue,
Callum Roberts,
Alex Rogers,
Katina Roumbedakis,
Enric Sala,
Gret Van Santen,
Marten Scheffer,
Anna Schuhbauer,
Kathleen Segerson,
Juan Carlos Seijo,
Karen C Seto,
Jason F Shogren,
Jennifer J Silver,
Hussain Sinan,
Gerald Singh,
Daniel J Skerritt,
Ambre Soszynski,
Dacotah-Victoria Splichalova,
Margaret Spring,
Jesper Stage,
Fabrice Stephenson,
Bryce D Stewart,
Riad Sultan,
U Rashid Sumaila,
Curtis Suttle,
Alessandro Tagliabue,
Amadou Tall,
Nicolás Talloni-Álvarez,
Alessandro Tavoni,
D R Fraser Taylor,
Lydia C L Teh,
Louise S L Teh,
Jean-Baptiste Thiebot,
Torsten Thiele,
Shakuntala H Thilsted,
Romola V Thumbadoo,
Michelle Tigchelaar,
Richard S J Tol,
Philippe Tortell,
Max Troell,
M Selçuk Uzmanoglu,
Sebastian Villasante,
Juan Villaseñor-Derbez,
Colette C C Wabnitz,
Melissa Walsh,
J P Walsh,
Nina Wambiji,
Elke U Weber,
Frances Westley,
Stella Williams,
Mary S Wisz,
Boris Worm,
Lan Xiao,
Nobuyuki Yagi,
Satoshi Yamazaki,
Hong Yang,
Aart de Zeeuw,
Dirk Zeller
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Letter in Science Magazine
John A List,
Jeffrey A Livingston,
Susanne Neckermann
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In the face of worryingly low performance on standardized test, offering students financial incentives linked to academic performance has been proposed as a potentially cost-effective way to support improvement. However, a large literature across disciplines finds that extrinsic incentives, once removed, may crowd out intrinsic motivation on subsequent, similar tasks. We conduct a field experiment where students, parents, and tutors are offered incentives designed to encourage student preparation for a high-stakes state test. The incentives reward performance on a separate low-stakes assessment designed to measure the same skills as the high-stakes test. Performance on the high-stakes test, however, is not incentivized. We find substantial treatment effects on the incented tests but no effect on the non-incented test; if anything, the incentives result in worse performance on the non-incented test. We also find evidence supporting the conclusion that the incentives crowd out intrinsic motivation to perform well on the non-incented test, but this effect is only temporary. One year later, students who had been in the incentives treatments perform better than those in the control on the same non-incented test.
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.
Greer K Gosnell,
John A List,
Robert D Metcalfe
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Increasing evidence indicates the importance of management in determining firms' productivity. Yet, causal evidence regarding the effectiveness of management practices is scarce, especially for high-skilled workers in the developed world. In an eight-month field experiment measuring the productivity of captains in the commercial aviation sector, we test four distinct management practices: (i) performance monitoring; (ii) performance feedback; (iii) target setting; and (iv) prosocial incentives. We find that these management practices -particularly performance monitoring and target setting- significantly increase captains' productivity with respect to the targeted fuel-saving dimensions. We identify positive spillovers of the tested management practices on job satisfaction and carbon dioxide emissions, and captains overwhelmingly express desire for deeper managerial engagement. Both the implementation and the results of the study reveal an uncharted opportunity for management researchers to delve into the black box of firms and rigorously examine the determinants of productivity amongst skilled labor.
Uri Gneezy,
Moshe Hoffman,
Mark A. Lane,
John A List,
Jeffrey A Livingston,
Michael J. Seiler
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Recent theoretical work shows that the better-than-average effect, where a majority
believes their ability to be better than average, can be perfectly consistent with Bayesian updating. However, later experiments that account for this theoretical advance still find behavior consistent with overconfidence. The literature notes that overoptimism can be caused by either overconfidence (optimism about performance), wishful thinking (optimism about outcomes), or both. To test whether the better-than-average effect might be explained by wishful thinking instead of overconfidence, we conduct an experiment that is similar to those used in the overconfidence literature, but removes performance as a potential channel. We find evidence that wishful thinking might explain overconfidence only among the most optimistic subjects, and that conservatism is possibly more of a worry; if unaccounted for, overconfidence might be underestimated.