Papers - All

Nick Drydakis

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 3

In the spirit of the International Labour Organisation Code (2001) of decent work and respect for the human rights and dignity of persons infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, there should be no discrimination against applicants for work on the basis of real or perceived HIV status. Whilst, the successful implementation of an HIV/AIDS policy requires cooperation and trust between firms and employees, with the active involvement of workers infected and affected by HIV/AIDS (ILO [2007]). In the current study having considered the fundamental points the first ever correspondence testing was conducted in order to test whether job applicants living with HIV (still) face prejudices in the crucial stage of the selection process in Greece. Resumes differed only in applicants' health status were faxed to advertised job openings. We suggest that a HIV-positive applicant may want to identify whether firms are prone to provide any reasonable adjustments for the recruitment and interview process. Definitely, the outcomes must imply that employers use health condition as a factor when reviewing resumes, which matches the legal definition of discrimination. The rate of net discrimination against male (female) HIV positives is found to be between 82.6% and 97.8% (81.6%-98.8%) among sectors. Whilst, the degree of discrimination is randomly assigned across occupations disrelated to education level and job status. The current study initiates a key methodology which can drive world-wide researchers to conduct relevant surveys. As efforts grow up to address HIV discrimination, so does the need for a set of standard tested and validated discrimination indicators. Measurements and discrimination trends are a key tool for identifying effective anti-stigma programming.

Alan S Gerber, Donald P Green, Matthew N Green

Cited by*: 6 Downloads*: 3

Political campaigns currently make extensive use of direct mail, particularly in state and local races, yet its effects on voter behavior are not well understood. This essay presents the results of large-scale randomized field experiments conducted in Connecticut and New Jersey during state and municipal elections of 1999. Tens of thousands of registered voters were sent from zero to nine pieces of direct mail. The target populations included party registrants with a strong history of voter participation, independents, and a random subset of registered voters. Our results indicate partisan campaign mail does little to stimulate voter turnout and may even dampen it when the mail is negative in tone.

John A List, Jan Stoop, Daan van Soest, Haiwen Zhou

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 3

Both private and public organizations constantly grapple with incentive schemes to induce maximum effort from agents. We begin with a theoretical exploration of optimal contest design, focusing on the number of competitors. Our theory reveals a critical link between the distribution of luck and the number of contestants. We find that if there is considerable (little) mass on good draws, equilibrium effort is an increasing (decreasing) function of the number of contestants. Our first test of the theory implements a laboratory experiment, where important features of the theory can be exogenously imposed. We complement our lab experiment with a field experiment, where we rely on biological models complemented by economic models to inform us of the relevant theoretical predictions. In both cases we find that the theory has a fair amount of explanatory power, allowing a deeper understanding of how to effectively design tournaments. From a methodological perspective, our study showcases the benefits of combining data from both lab and field experiments to deepen our understanding of the economic science.

Anya Samek, Roman Sheremeta

Cited by*: 3 Downloads*: 3

We experimentally investigate the impact of visibility of contributors and cost of information on public good contributions. First, we vary recognizing all, highest or lowest contributors. Second, we investigate the effect of imposing a cost on viewing contributors. Recognizing all contributors significantly increases contributions relative to the baseline, even when viewing contributors' information is costly. This effect holds even though the identities of contributors are viewed less than ten percent of the time. Recognizing only highest contributors does not increase contributions compared to not recognizing contributors, but recognizing only lowest contributors is as effective as recognizing all contributors. These findings support our conjecture that aversion from shame is a more powerful motivator for giving than anticipation of prestige.

Jeffrey A Flory, Andreas Leibbrandt, John A List

Cited by*: 12 Downloads*: 3

Recently an important line of research using laboratory experiments has provided a new potential reason for why we observe gender imbalances in labor markets: men are more competitively inclined than women. Whether, and to what extent, such preferences yield differences in naturally-occurring labor market outcomes remains an open issue. We address this question by exploring job-entry decisions in a natural field experiment where we randomized nearly 7,000 interested job-seekers into different compensation regimes. By varying the role that individual competition plays in setting the wage, we are able to explore whether competition, by itself, can cause differential job entry. The data highlight the power of the compensation regime in that women disproportionately shy away from competitive work settings. Yet, there are important factors that attenuate the gender differences, including whether the job is performed in teams, whether the job task is female-oriented, and the local labor market.

John A List, Zacharias Maniadis, Fabio Tufano

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 3

In his comment, Mitesh Kataria (2014) makes three main points about a specific part of our paper (Maniadis, Tufano, and List 2014), namely about Tables 2 and 3. In our paper, we employ these tables in order to illustrate the idea that very inconclusive post-study probabilities that a tested phenomenon is true may result from novel, surprising findings. The main arguments in Kataria (2014) are the following: First, if P(H0) is unknown, as is often the case with economic applications, the post-study probability can lead to even worse inference than the Classical significance test, depending on the quality of the prior. Second, the simulation in Maniadis et al. (2014) ignores previous assessments of P(H0) and instead utilizes a selective empirical setup that favors the use of post-study probabilities. [Third,] contrary to what Maniadis et al. (2014) argue, their results do not allow for drawing general recommendations about which approach is the most appropriate. (Kataria 2014, abs.) We believe that our work might have been misunderstood by Kataria. Moreover, it seems that some of his claims are not supported by relevant empirical evidence.

Todd Cherry, John A List

Cited by*: 7 Downloads*: 3

This paper uses county-level panel data to test the appropriateness of the 'one size fits all' reduced-form regression approach commonly used when estimating the economic model of crime. Empirical results provide initial evidence that previous studies, which restrict deterrent effects to have identical impacts across crime types, may be presenting statistically biased results.

Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans, John A List, David H Reiley

Cited by*: 10 Downloads*: 3

Recent auction theory and experimental results document strategic demand reduction by bidders in uniform-price auctions. The present article extends this area of research to consider the effects of varying the number of bidders. Our theoretical model predicts that demand reduction should decrease with an increase in the number of bidders. Considerable demand reduction remains even in the asymptotic limit, although truthful bidding yields profits very close to those of equilibrium play. We experimentally confirm several of our predictions by examining bidding behavior of subjects in an actual marketplace, auctioning dozens of sportscards using both uniform-price and Vickrey auction formats.

Anya Samek

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 3

Reputation systems provide decision support for e-commerce. A shortcoming of existing systems is that all transactions are rated equally, and the impact of reputation systems for differently valued goods is not well understood. In an experiment, we study a heterogeneous good market. We find that the reputation system increases surplus by increasing transactions in the high value good. Allowing for heterogeneous goods reduces information, as buyers cannot determine whether the seller previously transacted in low/high value goods. We test a new system, which displays reputation separately for each good. We provide evidence that this additional information is utilized in decisions.

John A List

Cited by*: 18 Downloads*: 3

We employ a two-step modified count data model to determine the county-level attributes that are conducive to attracting new foreign plants. Our estimation results indicate that previous counts of foreign direct investment, market size and accessibility, and land area are positively related to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) occurrences; while higher input costs deter new foreign firm entry. Contrary to anecdotal evidence, our results suggest that stringent environmental regulations do not have a negative impact on FDI inflows. These findings have significant implications for policymakers, as flows of FDI are expected to increase dramatically given the economic integration of our global economy.

Steffen Andersen, Seda Ertac, Uri Gneezy, John A List, Sandra Maximiano

Cited by*: 35 Downloads*: 2

Recent literature presents evidence that men are more competitively inclined than women. Since top-level careers usually require competitiveness, competitiveness differences provide an explanation for gender gaps in wages and differences in occupational choice. A natural question is whether women are born less competitive or whether they become so through the process of socialization. To pinpoint when in the socialization process the difference arises, we compare the competitiveness of children in matrilineal and patriarchal societies. We find that while there is no difference at any age in the matrilineal society, girls become less competitive around puberty in the patriarchal society.

John A List, Warren McHone

Cited by*: 7 Downloads*: 2

This paper uses state-level pollution data from 1986-1997 to construct two indices that rank U.S. states according to environmental outputs. A major finding is that marginal performers in other indices, such as Wyoming, garner top spots in these ranking systems. The paper also presents findings from fixed and random effects models of panel data that imply state income levels are positively associated with environmental outputs after a threshold level of income is obtained.

Omar Al-Ubaydli, Uri Gneezy, John A List, Min Sok Lee

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 2

A stylized fact is that agents respond more acutely to negative than positive stimuli. Such findings have generated insights on mechanism-design, have been featured prominently in policymaking, and more generally have led to discussions of whether preferences are defined over consumption levels or changes in consumption. This study reconsiders this stylized fact. In doing so, it provides insights into an important domain wherein positive stimuli induce a greater response than negative stimuli: a principal-agent game with reputational considerations and with the agent on the market's short end. This common setting represents an important feature of labor markets with involuntary unemployment.

Sultan Orazbayev

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 2

Academic journal editors reject a significant portion of first submissions without sending them out for peer review. This decision, desk rejection, is made to reduce the workload on associate editors and referees, to give the submitting author a head start on revision or pursuit of an alternative venue, as well as to achieve quicker turnaround time for the journal. Desk rejection is a judgement based on the manuscript's perceived quality, impact and fit with the journal's scope. Could extraneous factors which are unrelated to the content of the manuscript, affect the editorial decision? This paper examines whether the sequential order in which manuscripts are submitted to a large academic journal affects the editorial decision. Becoming the first submission on the editor's list of manuscripts to review increases the probability of a desk rejection by up to 7% without any effect on the likelihood of a rejection after peer review.

Omar Al-Ubaydli, Steffen Andersen, Uri Gneezy, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 2

Constructing compensation schemes for effort in multi-dimensional tasks is complex, particularly when some dimensions are not easily observable. When incentive schemes contractually reward workers for easily observed measures, such as quantity produced, the standard model predicts that unrewarded dimensions, such as quality, will be neglected. Yet, there remains mixed empirical evidence in favor of this standard principal-agent model prediction. This paper reconciles the literature by using both theory and empirical evidence. The theory outlines conditions under which principals can use a piece rate scheme to induce higher quantity and quality levels than analogous fixed wage schemes. Making use of a series of complementary laboratory and field experiments we show that this effect occurs because the agent is uncertain about the principal's monitoring ability and the principal's choice of a piece rate signals to the agent that she is efficient at monitoring.

Junsoo Lee, John A List, Mark Strazicich

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 2

In this paper we examine temporal properties of eleven natural resource real price series from 1870-1990 by employing a Lagrangian Multiplier unit root test that allows for two endogenously determined structural breaks with and without a quadratic trend. Contrary to previous research, we find evidence against the unit root hypothesis for all price series. Our findings support characterizing natural resource prices as stationary around deterministic trends with structural breaks. This result is important in both a positive and normative sense. For example, without an appropriate understanding of the dynamics of a time series, empirical verification of theories, forecasting, and proper inference are potentially fruitless. More generally, we show that both pre-testing for unit roots with breaks and allowing for breaks in the forecast model can improve forecast accuracy.

John A List, Anya Samek, Michael K Price

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 2

No abstract available

Anya Samek, Roman Sheremeta

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 2

Studies show that identifying contributors significantly increases contributions to public goods. In practice, however, viewing identifiable information is costly, which may discourage people from accessing such information. To address this question, we design a public goods experiment in which participants can pay a fee to view information about identities and corresponding contributions of their group members. We then compare this to a treatment in which there is no identifiable information, and a treatment in which all contributors are freely identified. Our main findings are that: (1) contributions in the treatment with costly information are as high as those in the treatment with free information, (2) participants choose to view the information about 10% of the time, and (3) being a high contributor is positively correlated with choosing to view identifiable information about others. Thus, it seems that having access to information is important even when such information is rarely viewed. Our findings have practical implications for non-profit organizations with a large pool of donors and for designers of recognition systems, especially in online communities with many participants.

Erwin Bulte, John A List, Mark Strazicich

Cited by*: 17 Downloads*: 2

Recent empirical work suggests that (i) incomes are converging through time, and (ii) income and pollution levels are linked. This paper weds these two literatures by examining the spatial and temporal distribution of pollution. After establishing that theoretical predictions about whether pollution will converge are critically linked to certain structural parameters, we explore pollution convergence using state-level data on two important pollutants-nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides-from 1929 to 1999. We find stronger evidence of converging emission rates during the federal pollution control years (1970-1999) than during the local control years (1929-1969). These results suggest that income convergence alone may not be sufficient to induce convergence of pollutant emissions.

Erwin Bulte, Simon Levin , John A List, Steven Pacala

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 2

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