Papers - Artefactual

Greta List, John A List, Lina Ramirez, Anya Samek

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

We conduct experiments with 720 children ages 9-11 to evaluate the relationship of time and risk preferences with health. Children who are more patient report consuming fewer unhealthy calories and spending less time on sedentary activities such as video games. Children who are more risk seeking report engaging in more exercise and more screen time. However, time and risk preferences are not predictive of body mass index (BMI). Moreover, some of the negative health behaviors, such as screen time, are associated with lower - rather than higher - BMI.

Plamen Nikolov

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Attitudes toward risk underlie virtually every important economic decision an individual makes. In this experimental study, I examine how introducing a time delay into the execution of an investment plan influences individuals' risk preferences. The field experiment proceeded in three stages: a decision stage, an execution stage and a payout stage. At the outset, in the Decision Stage (Stage 1), each subject was asked to make an investment plan by splitting a monetary investment amount between a risky asset and a safe asset. Subjects were informed that the investment plans they made in the Decision Stage are binding and will be executed during the Execution Stage (Stage 2). The Payout Stage (Stage 3) was the payout date. The timing of the Decision Stage and Payout Stage was the same for each subject, but the timing of the Execution Stage varied experimentally. I find that individuals who were assigned to execute their investment plans later (i.e., for whom there was a greater delay prior to the Execution Stage) invested a greater amount in the risky asset during the Decision Stage.

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.

Laura Schechter

Cited by*: 20 Downloads*: 25

Play in the traditional trust experiment depends both on trust beliefs and on levels of risk aversion. We ran two experiments with a diverse set of subjects in fifteen villages of rural Paraguay, the traditional trust experiment and a new experiment measuring only risk aversion. We find that risk attitudes are highly predictive of play in the trust game. In addition, omitting risk aversion as a regressor in trust regressions signficiantly changes the coefficients of important explanatory variables such as gender and wealth. We also use data on income and bet choice to calculate players' coefficients of relative risk aversion.

Martin G Kocher, Matthias Sutter

Cited by*: 127 Downloads*: 111

We examine the degree of trust and trustworthiness in an experimental trust game with 662 participants from six different age groups, ranging from 8-year-olds to retired persons. Although both trust and trustworthiness have been identified as fundamental pillars for efficient economic interactions, economic research has devoted little attention to measuring their strength in different age groups. In our experiment subjects interact with members of the same age group. We find that trust increases almost linearly from early childhood to early adulthood, but stays rather constant within different adult age groups. Trustworthiness prevails in all age groups.

J.Keith Murnighan, MIchael S Saxon

Cited by*: 58 Downloads*: 15

Recent research on ultimatum bargaining, the fact that children often confront and use ultimatums, and theories of developmental psychology all combine to suggest that studying children's ultimatum behavior will be particularly enlightening, both theoretically and with respect to the development of bargaining behavior. The results from two experiments indicate that younger children made larger offers and accepted smaller offers than older participants. Boys took greater strategic advantage of asymmetric information than girls; this dichotomy began with nine-year-olds (third graders) and continued for twelve- and fifteen-year-olds (sixth and ninth graders) as well as for college students. Like adults, children accepted smaller offers when they did not know how much was being divided. Older children required increasingly higher offers, except for college students who were willing to accept considerably less than others. Also, some of the nine-year-olds displayed an extremely strong sense of fairness. The discussion focuses on the development of bargaining strategies and concerns for fairness.

Erwin Bulte, Andreas Kontoleon, John A List, Ty Turley, Maarten Voors

Cited by*: 9 Downloads*: 46

We implement a public goods game and a social intervention modeled after a public goods game in rural Sierra Leone near the Gola Forest Reserve. We also collect demographic, economic and forest conservation data on households in the area. We use this data to assess the mapping of social preferences from the artefactual field experiment (AFE) into real world behavior. We find evidence of heterogeneity in shifting factors between the AFE, the field experiment, and conservation outcomes. We also find evidence that social controls like war violence and witchcraft may explain some of this correlation.

Juan-Camilo Cardenas, Jeff P Carpenter

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 13

No abstract available

Dean S Karlan

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 28

Questions remain as to whether results from experimental economics are generalizable to real decisions in nonlaboratory settings. Furthermore, questions persist about whether social capital helps mitigate information asymmetries in credit markets. I examine whether behavior in two laboratory games, Trust and a Public Goods, predicts loan repayments to a Peruvian group-lending microfinance program. Since this program relies on social capital to enforce repayment, this tests the external validity of the games. Individuals identified as "trustworthy" by the Trust Game are indeed less likely to default on their loans. No similar support is found for the game's identification of "trusting" individuals.

Eric Bettinger, Robert Slonim

Cited by*: 13 Downloads*: 8

Economic research examining how educational intervention programs affect primary and secondary schooling focuses largely on test scores although the interventions can affect many other outcomes. This paper examines how an educational intervention, a voucher program, affected students' altruism. The voucher program used a lottery to allocate scholarships among low-income applicant families with children in K-8th grade. By exploiting the lottery to identify the voucher effects, and using experimental economic methods, we measure the effects of the intervention on childrens altruism. We also measure the voucher programs effects on parents' altruism and several academic outcomes including test scores. We find that the educational intervention positively affects students' altruism towards charitable organizations but not towards their peers. We fail to find statistically significant effects of the vouchers on parents' altruism or test scores.

Eric Floyd, John A List

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 49

The gold standard in the sciences is uncovering causal relationships. A growing literature in economics utilizes field experiments as a methodology to establish causality between variables. Taking lessons from the economics literature, this study provides an "A-to-Z" description of how to conduct field experiments in accounting and finance. We begin by providing a user's guide into what a field experiment is, what behavioral parameters field experiments identify, and how to efficiently generate and analyze experimental data. We then provide a discussion of extant field experiments that touch on important issues in accounting and finance, and we also review areas that have ample opportunities for future field experimental explorations. We conclude that the time is ripe for field experimentation to deepen our understanding of important issues in accounting and finance.

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.

John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 111

Not applicable.

Andreas Lange, John A List, Michael K Price

Cited by*: 35 Downloads*: 33

This study explores the economics of charitable fund-raising. We begin by developing theory that examines the optimal lottery design while explicitly relaxing both risk-neutrality and preference homogeneity assumptions. We test our theory using a battery of experimental treatments and find that our theoretical predictions are largely confirmed. Specifically, we find that single and multiple prize lotteries dominate the voluntary contribution mechanism both in total dollars raised and the number of contributors attracted. Moreover, we find that the optimal fund-raising mechanism depends critically on the risk postures of potential contributors and preference heterogeneity.

Michael J. Seiler, Eric Walden

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 1

Great debate is being waged between whether strategic mortgage defaulters follow a herd for social reasons or mimic others' behavior for informational gain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the latest neurological technology allowing for observation of brain activity during strategic mortgage default decision-making, we find that when defaulters learn of peer default behavior, they acknowledge the social component of the decision, but feel freer to make their own decisions. Alternatively, when observing the behavior of a maven (real estate expert), borrowers still consider the social aspect of the decision (although to a lesser extent), but ultimately follow the maven who presumably possesses a greater information set. Alarmingly, borrowers only significantly follow the herd when mavens advocate strategic default, not when they recommend against it.

Steven D Levitt, John A List

Cited by*: 51 Downloads*: 30

We can think of no question more fundamental to experimental economics than understanding whether, and under what circumstances, laboratory results generalize to naturally occurring environments. In this paper, we extend Levitt and List (2006) to the class of games in which financial payoffs and doing the right thing are not necessarily in conflict. We argue that behaviour is crucially linked to not only the preferences of people, but also the properties of the situation. By doing so, we are able to provide a road map of the psychological and economic properties of people and situations that might interfere with generalizability of laboratory result from a broad class of games.

Christina M Fong, Erzo FP Luttmer

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 4

We investigate determinants of private and public generosity to Katrina victims using an artifactual field experiment. In this experiment, respondents from the general population viewed a short audiovisual presentation that manipulated respondents' perceptions of the income, race, and deservingness of Katrina victims in one of two small cities. Respondents then decided how to split $100 between themselves and a charity helping Katrina victims in this small city. We also collected survey data on subjective support for government spending to help the Katrina victims in the cities. We find, first, that our income manipulation had a significant effect on giving; respondents gave more when they perceived the victims to be poorer. Second, the race and deservingness manipulations had virtually no effect on average giving. Third, the averages mask substantial racial bias among sub-groups of our sample. For instance, the subgroup of whites who identify with their ethnic or racial group strongly biased their giving against blacks. Finally, subjective support for government spending to help Katrina victims was significantly influenced by both our race and deservingness manipulations, but not by the income manipulation. White respondents supported significantly less public spending for black victims and significantly more for victims who were described in more flattering terms, such as being helpful and law-abiding.

Steven D Levitt, John A List

Cited by*: 321 Downloads*: 96

A critical question facing experimental economists is whether behavior inside the laboratory is a good indicator of behavior outside the laboratory. To address that question, we build a model in which the choices that individuals make depend not just on financial implications, but also on the nature and extent of scrutiny by others, the particular context in which a decision is embedded, and the manner in which participants and tasks are selected. We present empirical evidence demonstrating the importance of these various factors. To the extent that lab and naturally occurring environments systematically differ on any of these dimensions, the results obtained inside and outside the lab need not correspond. Focusing on experiments designed to measure social preferences, we discuss the extent to which the existing laboratory results generalize to naturally-occurring markets. We summarize cases where the lab may understate the importance of social preferences as well as instances in which the lab might exaggerate their importance. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of interpreting laboratory and field data through the lens of theory.

Haruka Uchida

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Concealing candidate identities during evaluations, or "blinding", is often proposed as a tool for combatting discrimination. I study how blinding impacts candidate selection and quality, and the forms of discrimination driving these effects. I conduct a natural field experiment at an academic conference, running each submitted paper through both blind and non-blind review. Four years after the experiment, I collect proxy measures of paper quality—citations and publication statuses—for each paper and link it to the experimental data. I find that blinding significantly reduces scores for traditionally high-scoring groups, and consequently alters the composition of applicants who are accepted to the conference. Despite these compositional changes, blinding does not worsen the conference's ability to select high-quality papers. I develop a model of evaluator discrimination that allows me to rationalize these effects and decompose non-blind disparities into two distinct forms of discrimination: accurate statistical discrimination and bias.

Juan-Camilo Cardenas, Elinor Ostrom

Cited by*: 40 Downloads*: 34

The study of collective action requires an understanding of the individual incentives and of the institutional constraints that guide people in making choices about cooperating or defecting on the group facing the dilemma. The use of local ecosystems by groups of individuals is just one example where individual extraction increases well-being, but aggregate extraction decreases it. The use of economic experiments has enhanced the already diverse knowledge from theoretical and field sources of when and how groups can solve the problem through selfgoverning mechanisms. These studies have identified several factors that promote and limit collective action, associated with the nature of the production system that allows groups to benefit from a joint-access local ecosystem, and associated with the institutional incentives and constraints from both self-governed and externally imposed rules. In general, there is widespread agreement that cooperation can happen and be chosen by individuals as a rational strategy, beyond the "tragedy of the commons" prediction. A first step in this paper is to propose a set of layers of information that the individuals might be using to decide over their level of cooperation. The layers range from the material incentives that the specific production function imposes, to the dynamics of the game, to the composition of the group and the individual characteristics of the player. We next expand the experimental literature by analyzing data from a set of experiments conducted in the field with actual ecosystem users in three rural villages of Colombia using this framework. We find that repetition brings reciprocity motives into the decision making. Further, prior experience of the participants, their perception of external regulation, or the composition of the group in terms of their wealth and social position in the village, influence decisions to cooperate or defect in the experiment. The results suggest that understanding the multiple levels of the game, in terms of the incentives, the group and individual characteristics or the context, can help understand and therefore explore the potentials for solving the collective-action dilemma.