Papers - All

Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, Colin F Camerer, Ernst Fehr, Herbert Gintis, Joseph Henrich, Richard McElreath

Cited by*: 75 Downloads*: 66

al behavior better explained statistically by individuals' attributes such as their sex, age, or relative wealth, or by the attributes of the group to which the individuals belong? Are there cultures that approximate the canonical account of self-regarding behavior? Existing research cannot answer such questions because virtually all subjects have been university students, and while there are cultural differences among student populations throughout the world, these differences are small compared to the range of all social and cultural environments. To address the above questions, we and our collaborators undertook a large cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public good, and dictator games. Twelve experienced field researchers, working in 12 countries on five continents, recruited subjects from 15 small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. Our sample consists of three foraging societies, six that practice slash-and-burn horticulture

Eric Bettinger, Robert Slonim

Cited by*: 33 Downloads*: 65

Recent policy initiatives offer cash payments to children (and often their families) to induce better health and educational choices. These policies implicitly assume that children are especially impatient (i.e., have high discount rates); however, little is known about the nature of children's patience, how it varies across children, and whether children can even make rational intertemporal choices. This paper examines the inter-temporal choices of five to sixteen year old children in an artefactual field experiment. We examine their choices between varying levels of compensation received in two or four months in the future and in zero or two months in the future. We find that children's choices are consistent with hyperbolic discounting, boys are less patient than girls, older children are more patient and that mathematical achievement test scores, private schooling and parent's patience are not correlated with children's patience. We also find that although more than 25 percent of children do not make rational inter-temporal choices within a single two-period time frame, we cannot find variables that explain this behavior other than age and standardized mathematical achievement test scores.

Steven D Levitt, John A List

Cited by*: 38 Downloads*: 65

No abstract available

Tanjim Hossain, John Morgan

Cited by*: 47 Downloads*: 65

Many firms divide the price a consumer pays for a good into two pieces---the price for the item itself and the price for shipping and handling. With fully rational customers, the exact division between the two prices is irrelevant---only the total price matters. We test this hypothesis by selling matched pairs of CDs and Xbox games in a series of field experiments on eBay. In theory, the ending auction price should vary inversely with the shipping charge to leave the total price paid constant. Contrary to the theory, we find that charging a high shipping cost and starting the auction at a low opening price leads to higher numbers of bidders and higher revenues when the shipping charge is not excessive. We show that these results can be accounted for by boundedly rational bidding behavior such as loss-aversion with separate mental accounts for different attributes of the price or disregard for shipping costs.

Stefano DellaVigna, John A List, Ulrike Malmendier

Cited by*: 257 Downloads*: 65

Every year, 90 percent of Americans give money to charities. Is such generosity necessarily welfare enhancing for the giver? We present a theoretical framework that distinguishes two types of motivation: individuals like to give, e.g., due to altruism or warm glow, and individuals would rather not give but dislike saying no, e.g., due to social pressure. We design a door-to-door fund-raising drive in which some households are informed about the exact time of solicitation with a flyer on their door-knobs; thus, they can seek or avoid the fund-raiser. We find that the flyer reduces the share of households opening the door by 10 to 25 percent and, if the flyer allows checking a `Do Not Disturb' box, reduces giving by 30 percent. The latter decrease is concentrated among donations smaller than $10. These findings suggest that social pressure is an important determinant of door-to-door giving. Combining data from this and a complementary field experiment, we structurally estimate the model. The estimated social pressure cost of saying no to a solicitor is $3.5 for an in-state charity and $1.4 for an out-of-state charity. Our welfare calculations suggest that our door-to-door fund-raising campaigns on average lower utility of the potential donors.

Guodong Gao, Tianshu Sun, Ginger Zhe Jin

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 64

While much research has examined the role of technology in moderating online user connections, how IT motivates offline interactions among users is much less understood. Using a randomized field experiment involving 80,000 participants, we study how mobile messaging can leverage recipients' social ties to encourage blood donation. There are three main findings: first, both behavior intervention (in the form of reminder message) and economic reward (in the form of individual or group reward) increase donations, but only the messages with group reward are effective in motivating more donors to donate with their friend(s); second, group reward tends to attract different types of donors, especially those who are traditionally less active in online social setting; and third, across all treatments, message recipients donate a greater amount of blood if their friends are present. Structural estimation further suggests that rewarding group donors is four times more cost-effective than rewarding individual donors. Based on the structural estimates, we perform policy simulations on the optimal design of mobile messaging. The method of combining structural model and randomized field experiment opens new frontiers for research on leveraging IT to mobilize a user's social network for social good.

Christina Gravert, Mette Trier Damgaard

Cited by*: 9 Downloads*: 63

We document the hidden costs of one of the most policy-relevant nudges, reminders. Sending reminders, while proven effective in facilitating behavior change, may come at a cost for both senders and receivers. Using a large scale field experiment with a charity, we find that reminders increase donations, but they also substantially increase unsubscriptions from the mailing list. To understand this novel finding, we develop a dynamic model of donation and unsubscription behavior with limited attention which is tested in reduced-form using a second field experiment. We also estimate our model structurally to perform a welfare analysis. We show that when not accounting for the hidden costs of reminders the average welfare effects for donors are overstated by a factor of ten and depending on the discount factor the welfare effects of the charity may be negative. Our results show the need to evaluate nudges on their intended as well as unintended consequences.

Brit Grosskopf, Graeme Pearce

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 63

We present a natural field experiment designed to measure other{regarding preferences in the market for taxis. We employed testers of varying ethnicity to take a number of predetermined taxi journeys. In each case we endowed them with only 80% of the expected fare. Testers revealed the amount they could afford to pay to the driver mid-journey and asked for a portion of the journey for free. In a 2x2 between{subjects design we vary the length of the journey and whether drivers havereputational concerns or not. We find that the majority of drivers give at least part of the journey for free and over 25% complete the journey. Giving is found to be proportional to the length of the journey, and the drivers' reputational concerns do not explain their behaviour. Evidence of strong out{group negativity against black testers by both white and South Asian drivers is also reported. In order to link our empirical analysis to behavioural theory we estimate the parameters of a number of utility functions. The data and the structural analysis lend support to the quantitative predictions of experiments that measure other{regarding preferences, and shed further light on how discrimination can manifest itself within our preferences.

Devah Pager

Cited by*: 98 Downloads*: 62

Over the past three decades, the number of prison inmates has increased by more than 500 percent, leaving the United States the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world. With over two million individuals currently incarcerated, and over half a million prisoners released each year, the large and growing numbers of men being processed through the criminal justice system raises important questions about the consequences of this massive institutional intervention. This paper focuses on the consequences of incarceration for the employment outcomes of black and white job seekers. The manuscript is comprised of two studies: the first, a large-scale experimental audit of employers in Milwaukee, used matched pairs of young men to apply for real entry-level jobs to measure the extent to which employers use information about criminal histories and race to screen out otherwise qualified applicants. Indeed, the results of the audit study provide clear evidence for the dramatic impact of both a criminal record and race on employment opportunities: Ex-offenders are one-half to one-third as likely to receive initial consideration from employers relative to equivalent applicants without criminal records. Perhaps most striking, the results show that even blacks without a criminal record fare no better-and perhaps worse-than do whites with criminal records.The second study, a telephone survey of these same employers, gathered self-reported information about the considerations and concerns of employers in hiring entry-level workers, with a specific focus on employers' reactions to applicants with criminal backgrounds. By linking results from the audit study to those of the employer survey, I find that employers' self-reports vastly understate the barriers faced by both blacks and ex-offenders seeking entry-level employment. Though employer surveys can tell us a great deal of useful information about the relative preferences of employers, extreme caution should be used in generalizing these results to estimates of actual behavior. The findings of this project reveal an important, and much under-recognized, mechanism of stratification. A criminal record presents a major barrier to employment, with important implications for racial disparities.

Edwin Leuven, Hessel Oosterbeek, Bas van der Klaauw

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 62

In a randomized field experiment where first year university students could earn financial rewards for passing all first year requirements within one year we find small and non-significant average effects of financial incentives on the pass rate and the numbers of collected credit points. There is however evidence that high ability students collect significantly more credit points when assigned to (larger) reward groups. Low ability students collect less credit points when assigned to larger reward groups. After three years these effects have increased, suggesting dynamic spillovers. The small average effect in the population is therefore the sum of a positive effect for high ability students and a (partly) off-setting negative effect for low ability students. A negative effect of financial incentives for less able individuals is in line with research from psychology and recent economic laboratory experiments which shows that external rewards may be detrimental for intrinsic motivation.

Francis Larson, John A List, Robert D Metcalfe

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 61

Behavioral economists have recently put forth a theoretical explanation for the equity premium puzzle based on combining myopia and loss aversion. Complementing the behavioral theory is evidence from laboratory experiments, which provide strong empirical support consistent with myopic loss aversion (MLA). Yet, whether, and to what extent, such preferences underlie behaviors of traders in their natural domain remains unknown. Indeed, a necessary condition for the MLA theory to explain the equity premium puzzle is for marginal traders in markets to exhibit such preferences. Using minute-by-minute trading observations from over 864,000 price realizations in a natural field experiment, we find data patterns consonant with MLA: in their normal course of business, professional traders who receive infrequent price information invest 33% more in risky assets, yielding profits that are 53% higher, compared to traders who receive frequent price information. Beyond testing theory, these results have important implications for efficient resource allocation as well as characterizing the optimal structure of social and economic policies.

Stefano DellaVigna, John A List, Ulrike Malmendier, Gautam Rao

Cited by*: 4 Downloads*: 61

Why do people vote? We design a field experiment to estimate a model of voting 'because others will ask'. The expectation of being asked motivates turnout if individuals derive pride from telling others that they voted, or feel shame from admitting that they did not vote, provided that lying is costly. In a door-to-door survey about election turnout, we experimentally vary (i) the informational content and use of a flyer pre-announcing the survey, (ii) the duration and payment for the survey, and (iii) the incentives to lie about past voting. The experimental results indicate significant social image concerns. For the 2010 Congressional election, we estimate a value of voting 'to tell others' of about $15, contributing 2 percentage points to turnout. Lastly, we evaluate a get-out-the-vote intervention in which we tell potential voters that we will ask if they voted.

Omar Al-Ubaydli, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 60

A commonly held view is that laboratory experiments provide researchers with more "control" than natural field experiments, and that this advantage is to be balanced against the disadvantage that laboratory experiments are less generalizable. This paper presents a simple model that explores circumstances under which natural field experiments provide researchers with more control than laboratory experiments afford. This stems from the covertness of natural field experiments: laboratory experiments provide researchers with a high degree of control in the environment which participants agree to be experimental subjects. When participants systematically opt out of laboratory experiments, the researcher's ability to manipulate certain variables is limited. In contrast, natural field experiments bypass the participation decision altogether and allow for a potentially more diverse participant pool within the market of interest. We show one particular case where such selection is invaluable: when treatment effects interact with participant characteristics.

Alan S Gerber, Donald P Green

Cited by*: 4 Downloads*: 60

Prior to the November 7, 2000 election, randomized voter mobilization experiments were conducted in the vicinity of college campuses in New York State, Colorado, and Oregon. Lists of registered people under the age of 30 were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. A few days before Election Day, the treatment group received a phone call or face-to-face contact from Youth Vote 2000, a nonpartisan coalition of student and community organizations, encouraging them to vote.

Cody Cook, Rebecca Diamond, Jonathan Hall, John A List, Paul Oyer

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 60

The growth of the "gig" economy generates worker flexibility that, some have speculated, will favor women. We explore one facet of the gig economy by examining labor supply choices and earnings among more than a million rideshare drivers on Uber in the U.S. Perhaps most surprisingly, we find that there is a roughly 7% gender earnings gap among drivers. The uniqueness of our data - knowing exactly the production and compensation functions - permits us to completely unpack the underlying determinants of the gender earnings gap. We find that the entire gender gap is caused by three factors: experience on the platform (learning-by-doing), preferences over where/when to work, and preferences for driving speed. This suggests that, as the gig economy grows and brings more flexibility in employment, women's relatively high opportunity cost of non-paid-work time and gender-based preference differences can perpetuate a gender earnings gap even in the absence of discrimination.

John A List

Cited by*: 13 Downloads*: 59

No abstract available

Lars Hultkrantz, Gunnar Lindberg, Jan-Eric Nilsson, Fridtjof Thomas

Cited by*: 4 Downloads*: 58

Around one million people are killed world wide every year in road-traffic accidents. The risks and consequences of accidents increase progressively with speed, which ultimately is determined by the individual driver. The behaviour of the motorist thus affects both her own and other peoples safety. Internalisation of external costs of road transport has hitherto been focused on distance-based taxes or insurance premiums. While these means, as they are designed today, may affect driven distance, they have no influence on driving behaviour. This paper argues that by linking on-board positioning systems to insurance premiums it is possible to reward careful driving and get drivers to self select into different risk categories depending on their compliance to speed limits. We report two economic field experiments that have tested ways to induce car-owners to have technical platforms installed in their vehicle in order to affect the extent of speeding. It is demonstrated that a bonus to remunerate those that have the device installed, tantamount to a lower insurance premium, increases drivers?propensity to accept the technical devices. In a second experiment the size of the bonus is made dependent on the actual frequency of speeding. We find that this is a second way to discipline users to drive at legal speeds.

Juan-Camilo Cardenas

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 58

The use of experimental settings to observe human behaviour in a controlled environment of incentives, rules and institutions, has been widely used by the behavioural sciences for some time now, particularly by psychology and economics. In most cases the subjects are college students recruited from one to two hour decision making exercises in which, depending on their choices, they earn cash averaging US$ 20. In such exercises players face a set of feasible actions, rules and incentives (payoffs) involving different forms of social exchange with other people, and that in most cases involve some kind of externalities with incomplete contracts, such as in the case of common-pool resources situations. Depending on the ecological and institutional settings, the resource users face a set of feasible levels of extraction, a set of rules regarding the control or monitoring of individual use, and sometimes ways of imposing material or non-material costs or rewards to those breaking or following the rules. We brought the experimental lab to the field and invited about two hundred users of natural resources in three Columbian rural villages to participate in such decision making exercises and through these and other research instruments we learned about the ways they solve - or fail to - tragedies of the commons with different social institutions. Further, bringing the lab to the field allowed us to explore some of the limitations of existing models about human behavior and its consequences for designing policies for conserving ecosystems and improving social welfare.

Eliana Carranza, Robyn Meeks

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 57

Overloaded electrical systems are a major source of unreliable power (outages) in developing countries. Using a randomized saturation design, we estimate the impact of energy efficient lightbulbs on household electricity consumption and local electricity reliability. Receiving compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) significantly reduced household electricity consumption. Estimates not controlling for spillovers in take-up underestimate the impacts of the CFLs, as control households near the treated are likely to take-up CFLs themselves. Greater saturation of CFLs within a transformer leads to aggregate reliability impacts of two fewer days per month without electricity due to unplanned outages relative to pure controls. Increased electricity reliability permits households to consume more electricity services, suggesting that CFL treatment results in technological externalities. The spillovers in take-up and technological externalities that we document may provide an additional explanation for the gap between empirical and engineering estimates of the impacts of energy efficient technologies.

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.