Papers - All

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.

Macartan Humphreys, William Masters, Martin Sandbu

Cited by*: 6 Downloads*: 6

Despite a widespread trend towards the adoption of increasingly participatory approaches to political decision-making in developing countries there is little or no evidence that these practices in fact return the benefits attributed to them. We present an empirical investigation into one specific worry-that participatory decision processes may be vulnerable to manipulation by elites. We report on a field experiment on the effects of leaders, drawing on a unique nationwide experiment in democratic deliberation in Sao Tome and Principe. In these deliberations, meetings were moderated by discussion leaders who were randomly assigned to run meetings around the country. The randomization procedure provides a rare opportunity to identify the impact of leaders on the outcomes of group deliberations. We find that leadership effects were extremely large, in many cases accounting for over one third of all variation in the outcomes of the national discussions. These results have important implications for the design of such deliberative practices. While the total effect of leadership cannot be assessed, it is possible to observe leadership effects and to correct for variation in outcomes of meetings.

Paul Dolan, Robert D Metcalfe

Cited by*: 8 Downloads*: 6

There is increasing research on the exogenous impact of descriptive social norms on economic behavior. The research to date has a number of limitations: 1) it has not de-coupled the impact of the norm and the knowledge required to understand how to change behavior based upon it; 2) it has exclusively used offline but not online (i.e. emails) methods; and 3) it has not understood the impact of financial incentives in conjunction with norms. We address these three limitations using two natural field experiments. We find, firstly, that norms change energy behavior over a 15 month treatment period irrespective of whether information is provided or not. We find that social norms reduce consumption by around 6% (0.2 standard deviations). Norms have has their largest impact on the day that information on the social norm is received, and then decreases over time. Secondly, we do not find that social norms work online (even with experienced consumers who are used to online billing) - social norms de- livered online may have very little beneficial effects on reducing energy use. Thirdly, we find that large financial rewards work very well online in reducing consumption, with a 0.35 change in energy consumption over a four month period. Perhaps most interestingly, we find that the large effect of financial incentives is completely removed when information on social norms is added online.

Anne Alexander , Ralph d'Arge , John A List, Michael Margolis

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 6

The goal of this paper is to provide an investigation of several approaches to valuing ecosystem services and to contribute additional techniques which may be used in evaluating 'green' GDP accounts. Our estimates focus on the ecosystem as a productive economic input, not a stock which is depreciated or depleted over time; as such, it differs with other concepts more frequently employed in green GDP accounting. Most of our results are derived from the analytical fiction that a single owner of the biosphere establishes a market for all ecological resources. This monopolist then appropriates all rents from the human population. The maximum amount the monopolist charges is first assumed to be world gross product less the global human subsistence level. In addition, we examine the excess rents available in factor markets using the assumption of weak complementarity between factor inputs and ecosystem services. We also provide more conservative estimates of the value of ecosystem services by investigating the sustainable price the monopolist could charge the global population and by exploring the effects of compensating wage differentials and a non-monopolist owner of the ecosystem.

Glenn W Harrison, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 6

No abstract available

Tim Jeppesen, John A List, Daan van Soest

Cited by*: 5 Downloads*: 6

Empirical tests of the relationship between international competitiveness and the severity of environmental regulations are hampered by the lack of pollution abatement cost data for non-U.S. countries. The theory of the firm suggests that environmental stringency can be measured by the difference between a polluting input's shadow price and its market price. We make a first attempt at quantifying such a measure for two industries located in nine European OECD countries. Overall, we provide (i) a new approach to measure cross-country regulatory differences in that we use a theoretically attractive measure of industry-specific private compliance cost, and (ii) empirical estimates that are an attractive tool for researchers and policymakers who are interested in examining how economic activity is influenced by compliance costs.

Joshua D Clinton, John S Lapinski

Cited by*: 6 Downloads*: 6

Scholars disagree whether negative advertising demobilizes or stimulates the electorate. We use an experiment with over 10,200 eligible voters to evaluate the two leading hypotheses of negative political advertising. We extend the analysis to examine whether advertising differentially impacts the turnout of voter subpopulations depending on the advertisement's message. In the short term, we find no evidence that exposure to negative advertisements decreases turnout and little that suggests it increases turnout. Any effect appears to depend upon the message of the advertisement and the characteristics of the viewer. In the long term, we find little evidence that the information contained in the treatment groups' advertisements is sufficient to systematically alter turnout.

Pieter A Gautier, Bas van der Klaauw

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 6

We use data from a promotion campaign of NH-Hoteles to study self-selection of participants in a gift-exchange experiment. The promotion campaign allowed guests to pay any non negative amount of money for a stay in one of 36 hotels in Belgium and the Netherlands. The data allow us to distinguish between `regular guests', who booked prior to the announcement of the promotion campaign and guests who booked after the campaign was announced. During the promotion campaign we varied the posted price of a room that was communicated to the guests. Only the regular guests respond to the exogenous variation in the posted price and they pay substantially more on average. This different behavior cannot be explained by differences in satisfaction or observed compositional differences between both groups. We argue that the promotion campaign mainly attracted individuals who find it relatively unimportant to be viewed of as prosocial.

John A List, Daniel L Millimet

Cited by*: 3 Downloads*: 6

Devolution of tasks to local levels of government has recently become a popular agenda item within certain political factions in the US. While one expects the local policymaker to tailor policies to match the preferences of his constituents, critics of local policymaking claim that externalities are ignored and inefficiencies thus arise under local control of certain policies. A primary example concerns the control of pollution, which is known to have adverse effects on neighbouring jurisdictions. Whether localities actually 'race to the bottom' and enact lax environmental policies when given the chance remains an open issue. In this study, we make use of stochastic dominance tests to examine if President Reagan's policy of 'New Federalism' in the early 1980s induced states to lower environmental standards. Among the several environmental measures analysed, we do not find any evidence that the 'race to the bottom' materialized. Indeed, the evidence shows that even during these lean years of federal intervention several indicators of environmental quality at the state level continued to improve.

John A List

Cited by*: 4 Downloads*: 6

Walrasian tatonnement has been a fundamental assumption in economics ever since Walras' general equilibrium theory was introduced in 1874. Nearly a century after its introduction, Vernon Smith relaxed the Walrasian tatonnement assumption by showing that neoclassical competitive market theory explains the equilibrating forces in ""double- auction"" markets. I make a next step in this evolution by exploring the predictive power of neoclassical theory in decentralized naturally occurring markets. Using data gathered from two distinct markets--the sports card and collector pin markets--I find a tendency for exchange prices to approach the neoclassical competitive model prediction after a few market periods.

Ginger Z Jin, Andrew Kato, John A List

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 6

Using sportscard grading as an example, we employ field experiments to investigate empirically the informational role of professional certifiers. In the past 20 years, professional grading of sportscards has evolved in a way that provides a unique opportunity to measure the information provision of a monopolist certifier and that of subsequent entrants. Empirical results suggest three patterns: the grading certification provided by the first professional certifier offers new information to inexperienced traders but adds little information to experienced dealers. This implies that the certification may reduce the information asymmetry between informed and uninformed parties. Second, compared with the incumbent, new entrants adopt more precise signals and use finer grading cutoffs to differentiate from the incumbent. Third, our measured differentiated grading cutoffs map consistently into prevailing market prices, suggesting that the market recognizes differences across multiple grading criteria.

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.

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.

Amanda Kowalski

Cited by*: 4 Downloads*: 6

I examine treatment effect heterogeneity within an experiment to inform external validity. The local average treatment effect (LATE) gives an average treatment effect for compliers. I bound and estimate average treatment effects for always takers and never takers by extending marginal treatment effect methods. I use these methods to separate selection from treatment effect heterogeneity, generalizing the comparison of OLS to LATE. Applying these methods to the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, I find that the treatment effect of insurance on emergency room utilization decreases from always takers to compliers to never takers. Previous utilization explains a large share of the treatment effect heterogeneity. Extrapolations show that other expansions could increase or decrease utilization.

Michael Kremer, Edward Miguel

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 6

Intestinal helminths - including hookworm, roundworm, schistosomiasis, and whipworm - infect more than one-quarter of the world's population. A randomized evaluation of a project in Kenya suggests that school-based mass treatment with deworming drugs reduced school absenteeism in treatment schools by one quarter; gains are especially large among the youngest children. Deworming is found to be cheaper than alternative ways of boosting school participation. By reducing disease transmission, deworming creates substantial externality health and school participation benefits among untreated children in the treatment schools and among children in neighboring schools. These externalities are large enough to justify fully subsidizing treatment. We do not find evidence that deworming improves academic test scores. Existing experimental studies, in which treatment is randomized among individuals in the same school, find small and insignificant deworming treatment effects on education; however, these studies underestimate true treatment effects if deworming creates positive externalities for the control group and reduces treatment group attrition.

Uri Gneezy, Alex Imas, John A List

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 6

We introduce a simple, easy to implement instrument for jointly eliciting risk and ambiguity attitudes. Using this instrument, we structurally estimate a two-parameter model of preferences. Our findings indicate that ambiguity aversion is significantly overstated when risk neutrality is assumed. This highlights the interplay between risk and ambiguity attitudes as well as the importance of joint estimation. In addition, over our stakes levels we find no difference in the estimated parameters when incentives are real or hypothetical, raising the possibility that a simple hypothetical question can provide insights into an individuals preferences over ambiguity in such economic environments.

John A List, David Lucking-Reiley

Cited by*: 40 Downloads*: 5

No abstract available

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.

Martijn Egas, Arno Riedl

Cited by*: 11 Downloads*: 5

Explaining the evolution and maintenance of cooperation among unrelated individuals is one of the fundamental problems in biology and the social sciences. Recent experimental evidence suggests that altruistic punishment is an important mechanism to maintain cooperation among humans. In this paper we explore the boundary conditions for altruistic punishment to maintain cooperation by systematically varying the cost and impact of punishment, using a subject pool which extends beyond the standard student population. We find that the economics of altruistic punishment lead to the demise of cooperation when punishment is relatively expensive and/or has low impact. Our results indicate that the 'decision to punish' comes from an amalgam of emotional response and cognitive cost-benefit analysis. Additionally, earnings are lowest when punishment promotes cooperation, suggesting that the scope for altruistic punishment as a means to maintain cooperation is limited."

Andreas Leibbrandt

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

This paper combines experimental with field data from professional sellers to study whether social preferences are related to performance in natural markets. The data show that sellers who are more pro-social in a laboratory experiment are also more successful in natural markets: they achieve higher prices, have superior trade relations and better abilities to signal trustworthiness to buyers. These findings suggest that social preferences play a significant role for outcomes in natural markets.