Papers - All

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.

Matthew Cypher, S McKay Price, Spenser Robinson, Michael J. Seiler

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

Using a sample of CCIM designees and candidates in an experimental setting, this study examines the impact of broker signaling in commercial real estate transactions. It also explores the effect of certainty of closure in commercial real estate transactions. Findings suggest brokers are able to influence transaction pricing. Moreover, detailed analysis reveals that when a signal is above a reference point implied by previous transactions, the strength of the signal matters; privately communicated signals from reliable sources have significantly greater impact than signals which are made widely available. Additionally, we find an approximately 10% premium in transactions with lower certainty of closure than one with high certainty. The latter result varies by transactional participant type; owner/developers require a larger premium than institutional sellers.

Ryan D Friedrichs, David C King, David W Nickerson

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

Recent large-scale field experiments of get out the vote (GOTV) drives have been non-partisan and may not accurately capture the effectiveness of partisan campaign outreach. In the 2002 Michigan gubernatorial election, a large field experiment across 14 state house districts evaluated the cost effectiveness of three mobilization technologies utilized by the Michigan Democratic Party's Youth Coordinated Campaign: door hangers, volunteer phone calls, and face-to-face visits. The results indicate that all three GOTV strategies possess similar cost-effectiveness.

Christopher Mann

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 5

The survey methodology literature has debated whether advance letters to potential survey respondents will reduce nonresponse bias and thereby improve the accuracy of preelection forecasts. This research note analyzes the results of experiments conducted in Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania in which advance letters were sent to a random sample of potential survey respondents to 2002 preelection surveys. We find a significant increase in the overall response rate, although notably less than in past studies. However, the advance letters did not improve the representativeness of survey respondents or the accuracy of the election forecasts.

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.

Richard Damania, Per Fredriksson , John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

This study uses a three-stage common agency model to explore the linkages between trade policy, corruption and environmental policy in an imperfect market setting. We show that the effect of trade liberalization on the stringency of environmental policy depends critically on the level of corruption-in relatively corrupt countries, trade openness leads to more stringent environmental policy. In such countries, this interaction, therefore, lends trade liberalization a type of "multiplier effect," raising both economic growth and environmental policy stringency.

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."

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 List, Jason F Shogren, Michael Spencer , Stephen Swallow

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

This paper considers how six alternative rebate rules affect voluntary contributions in a threshold public-good experiment. The rules differ by (1) whether an individual can receive a proportional rebate of excess contributions, a winner-takes-all of any excess contributions, or a full rebate of one's contribution in the event the public good is provided and excess contributions exist, and (2) whether the probability of receiving a rebate is proportional to an individual's contribution relative to total contributions or is a simple uniform probability distribution set by the number of contributors. The paper adds to the existing experimental economics literature on threshold public goods by investigating both aggregate and individual demand revelation under the winner-take-all and random full-rebate rules. Half of the rules (proportional rebate, winner-take-all with uniform probability among all group members, and random full-rebate with uniform probability) provide total contributions that nearly equal total benefits, while the rest (winner-take-all with proportional probability, winner-take-all with uniform probability among contributors only, and random full-rebate with proportional probability) exceed benefits by over 30 percent. Only the proportional rebate rule is found to achieve both aggregate and individual demand revelation. Our experimental results have implications for both fundraisers and valuation practitioners.

Claude Montmarquette, Jean-Louis Rulliere, Marie-Claire Villeval, Romain Zeiliger

Cited by*: 10 Downloads*: 5

After a merger, company officials face the challenge of making compensation schemes uniform and of redesigning teams with managers from companies with different incentives, work habits and recruiting methods. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between executive pay and performance after a merger by dissociating the respective influence of shifts, which occur in both compensation incentives and team composition. The results of a real effort experiment conducted with managers within a large pharmaceutical company not only show that changes in compensation incentives affect performance but also suggest that the sorting effect of incentives in the previous companies impact cooperation and efficiency after the merger. Replicating this experiment with students showed differences in strategy rather than in substance between the two groups of subjects with managers appearing performance driven while students are more cost driven.

John A List, Yana Peysakhovichc

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 5

This paper examines aggregate time series data on individual charitable donations from 1968 to 2007. We find that changes in individual giving show an asymmetric response to changes in the S&P 500: individuals are more responsive to stock market upturns than downturns.

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.

Uri Gneezy, Kenneth Leonard, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

This study uses a controlled experiment to explore whether there are gender differences in selecting into competitive environments across two distinct societies: the Maasai in Tanzania and the Khasi in India. One unique aspect of these societies is that the Maasai represent a textbook example of a patriarchal society whereas the Khasi are matrilineal. Similar to the extant evidence drawn from experiments executed in Western cultures, Maasai men opt to compete at roughly twice the rate as Maasai women. Interestingly, this result is reversed amongst the Khasi, where women choose the competitive environment more often than Khasi men, and even choose to compete weakly more often than Maasai men. We view these results as potentially providing insights into the underpinnings of the factors hypothesized to be determinants of the observed gender differences in selecting into competitive environments.

Omar Azfar, Clifford Zinnes

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

One conjecture in the theory of incentives is that incentives based on broader outcomes may be better at motivating agents than incentives based on narrow measures. We designed an experiment to test these hypotheses using a ""prospective randomized evaluation procedure"" (PREP). We then apply PREP to training programs as typically funded by donors of economic development assistance. We randomly assigned 274 participating entrepreneurs in the Philippines to one of 26, simultaneous, one-day, training classes in marketing. Trainers were given cash incentives based on the average score of their ""students"" on a standardized test containing an alternative number of questions, which were randomly assigned to each class. We then examined outcomes based on student satisfaction ratings of the trainer. Our results suggest that incentives based on broad outcomes are more effective than incentives based on narrow outcomes. We conclude with ways to improve our approach as well as with a discussion of the implications for using prospective randomized evaluation for improving the evaluation of donor projects.

John A List, David Lucking-Reiley

Cited by*: 40 Downloads*: 5

No abstract available

David H Reiley

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

This paper tests the empirical predictions of recent theories of the endogenous entry of bidders in auctions. Data come from a field experiment, involving sealed-bid auctions for collectible trading cards over the Internet. Manipulating the reserve prices in the auctions as an experimental treatment variable generates several results. First, observed participation behavior indicates that bidders consider their bid submission to be costly, and that bidder participation is indeed an endogenous decision. Second, the participation is more consistent with a mixed-strategy entry equilibrium than with a deterministic equilibrium. Third, the data reject the prediction that the profit- maximizing reserve price is greater than or equal to the auctioneer's salvage value for the good, showing instead that a zero reserve price provides higher expected profits in this case.

Matthew McCarter, Anya Samek, Roman Sheremeta

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 5

It is common in organizational life to be simultaneously involved in multiple collective actions. These collective actions may be modeled using public good dilemmas. The developing social dilemma literature has two perspectives - the "divided loyalties" and "conditional cooperation" perspectives - that give opposite predictions about how individuals will behave when they simultaneously play two identical public good games. The current paper creates consensus between these social dilemma perspectives by examining cooperative behavior of participants interacting in two public good games with either different or the same group members. In each round, individuals have a common budget constraint across the two games. In support of the conditional cooperator's perspective of social dilemmas, we find that playing two games with different, rather than same, group members increases overall contributions. Over the course of the experiment, participants playing two games with different group members shift their contributions significantly more often toward more cooperative public good games than participants playing with the same group members.

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.

John A List

Cited by*: 5 Downloads*: 5

Several experimental studies have recently provided strong evidence that the basic independence assumption, which is used in most theoretical and applied economic models to assess the operation of markets, is rarely appropriate. These results, which clearly contradict closely held economic doctrines, have led some influential commentators to call for an entirely new economic paradigm to displace conventional neoclassical theory. This paper refutes the generality of these experimental findings by going to a well-functioning marketplace and examining more than 350 individual decisions across various incentive compatible elicitation mechanisms. The data suggest that individuals with significant marketlike experience behave largely in accordance with neoclassical predictions: any observed WTA/WTP disparity amongst this group can be explained by neoclassical arguments. In light of these findings, I believe that we have discarded neoclassical explanations of the value disparity too quickly. More narrowly, these empirical results have important implications for stated valuation methods, such as contingent valuation.

Charles Bellemare, Sabine Kroger

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 5

This paper analyzes data for a random sample drawn from the Dutch population who reveal their capacity to provide and sustain social capital by their propensity to invest and reward investments by means of an economic experiment. We have three main results. First, we find that heterogeneity in behavior is characterized by several asymmetries men, the young and elderly, and low educated individuals invest relatively less, but reward significantly more investments. Second, higher expected levels of investments have a positive and significant effect on the level of investments themselves, corroborating the presence of social norms. Third, we compare our results with a laboratory experiment conducted with a student sample. We find that the student sample provides a lower bound of the population level of social capital.