Papers - Artefactual

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.

Steven D Levitt, John A List, David H Reiley

Cited by*: 12 Downloads*: 11

The minimax argument represents game theory in its most elegant form: simple but with stark predictions. Although some of these predictions have been met with reasonable success in the field, experimental data have generally not provided results close to the theoretical predictions. In a striking study, Palacios-Huerta and Volij (2007) present evidence that potentially resolves this puzzle: both amateur and professional soccer players play nearly exact minimax strategies in laboratory experiments. In this paper, we establish important bounds on these results by examining the behavior of four distinct subject pools: college students, bridge professionals, world-class poker players, who have vast experience with high-stakes randomization in card games, and American professional soccer players. In contrast to Palacios-Huerta and Volij's results, we find little evidence that real-world experience transfers to the lab in these games--indeed, similar to previous experimental results, all four subject pools provide choices that are generally not close to minimax predictions. We use two additional pieces of evidence to explore why professionals do not perform well in the lab: (1) complementary experimental treatments that pit professionals against preprogrammed computers, and (2) post-experiment questionnaires. The most likely explanation is that these professionals are unable to transfer their skills at randomization from the familiar context of the field to the unfamiliar context of the lab.

Michael G. Cuna, Musharraf Cyan, M. Taha Kasim, John A. List, Michael K Price

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From newborns to the elderly, exposure to violence and conflict has been found to have deleterious effects. In this study, we explore a unique type of violence: exposure to the Taliban. Pairing a field experiment with a field survey among citizens in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan, we examine how exposure to violence affects general trust, subjective well-being, and confidence in institutions. In our field experiment, we observe that exposure to conflict significantly alters the relative valuation of monetary rewards for oneself compared to those for a comparable peer. Specifically, individuals subjected to violence demonstrate a marked tendency to prioritize their own financial gain over that of a similar other. In the survey, we find that exposure to violence is associated with reduced general trust, trust in informal institutions, and subjective well-being. Interestingly, being exposed to violence increases trust in formal institutions. Our combined results highlight that the interplay between violence and trust dynamics is complex and highly consequential. In turn, the policy implications highlight the need for a multifaceted strategy to support individuals and communities affected by violence, ensuring both immediate relief and long-term resilience.

Daniel Hungerman, Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm

Cited by*: 1 Downloads*: 34

There are independent literatures in economics considering tax-price and match-price incentives for giving. The match-price literature has produced well-identified small price elasticities, but scholars have widely questioned whether these estimates can inform tax policy. The tax-price literature in contrast has produced a large range of estimates. Here, we explore and compare these different incentives. First, we consider tax incentives for giving by focusing on a state-level tax credit that creates a convex kink. We use traditional, as well as more novel, kink methods to estimate the tax-price elasticity of giving. Second, a subgroup of donors in our data were temporarily offered a match for their gifts, creating an opportunity to compare tax-price and match-price effects for the same group of donors giving to the same organization at the same time. We find the tax-price elasticity is about -.2. The match-price elasticity is essentially the same. Our results thus suggest a small tax-price elasticity, close to the match-price elasticity, and close to match-price elasticity estimates in the experimental match-price literature. The implication is that in the giving environment we investigate the match-price elasticity is informative for tax policy.

Vegard Iversen, Cecile Jackson, Bereket Kebede, Alistair Munro, Arjan Verschoor

Cited by*: 7 Downloads*: 23

We test core theories of the household using variants of a public good game and experimental data from 240 couples in rural Uganda. Spouses do not maximise surplus from cooperation and realise a greater surplus when women are in charge. This violates assumptions of unitary and cooperative models. When women control the common account, they receive less than when men control it; this contradicts standard bargaining models. Women contribute less than men and are rewarded more generously by men than vice versa. This casts doubt on postulates in Sen (1990). While the absence of altruism is rejected, we find evidence for opportunism. The results are put in a socioeconomic context using quantitative and qualitative survey data. Assortative matching and correlates of bargaining power influence behaviour within the experiments. Our findings suggest that a one-size fits all?? model of the household is unlikely to be satisfactory.

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.

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.

Ori Heffetz, John A List

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Carefully designed scientific experiments have been an engine of economic, technological, and social progress for well over a century, which is why the public generally trusts such methods. Unfortunately, governments around the world still routinely oppose controlled trials of public policies.

John A List

Cited by*: 46 Downloads*: 69

In this introduction to the symposium, I first offer an overview of the spectrum of experimental methods in economics, from laboratory experiments to the field experiments that are the subject of this symposium. I then offer some thoughts about the potential gains from doing economic research using field experiments and my own mental checklist of 14 steps to improve the chances of carrying out an economics field experiment successfully.

Syon Bhanot, Jiyoung Han, Chaning Jang

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

Restrictions like work requirements and constraints on voucher transfers are often used in social welfare systems, but little empirical evidence exists on their impact on wellbeing. We conducted a 10-day randomized experiment with 432 individuals living below the poverty line in the Kawangware settlement of Nairobi, kenya, testing two elements of social welfare design: workfare versus welfare and restricted versus unrestricted vouchers. Participants were randomly assigned to a "Work" condition, involving daily work for unrestricted vouchers, or one of two "Wait" conditions, involving daily waiting for vouchers that were either unrestricted or partially restricted to staple foods. We find that working improved psychological wellbeing relative to waiting, suggesting that means of implementing welfare programs may have important effects on individuals beyond the impact of monetary benefit alone. Furthermore, although restrictions were inframarginal, partially restricted vouchers crowded-in spending on staple foods, suggesting the existence of a "flypaper effect" in spending from restricted vouchers.

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Rashid Sumalia, Daniel J Skerritt, Anna Schuhbauer, Sebastian Villasante, Andres M Cisneros-Montemayor, Hussain Sinan, Duncan Burnside, Patrízia Raggi Abdallah, Keita Abe, Juliano Palacios Abrantes, Kwasi A Addo, Julia Adelsheim, Ibukun J Adewumi, Olanike K Adeyemo, Neil Adger, Joshua Adotey, Sahir Advani, Zahidah Afrin, Denis Aheto, Shehu L Akintola, Wisdom Akpalu, Lubna Alam, Juan José Alava, Edward H Allison, Diva J Amon, John M Anderies, Christopher M Anderson, Evan Andrews, Ronaldo Angelini, Zuzy Anna, Werner Antweiler, Evans K Arizi, Derek Armitage, Robert I Arthur, Noble Asare, Frank Asche, Berchie Asiedu, Francis Asuquo, Marta Flotats Aviles, Lanre Badmus, Megan Bailey, Natalie Ban, Edward B Barbier, Shanta Barley, Colin Barnes, Scott Barrett, Xavier Basurto, Dyhia Belhabib, Nathan J Bennett, Elena Bennett, Dominique Benzaken, Robert Blasiak, John J Bohorquez, Cesar Bordehore, Virginie Bornarel, David R Boyd, Denise Breitburg, Cassandra Brooks, Lucas Brotz, Duncan Burnside, Donovan Campbell, Sara Cannon, Ling Cao, Juan C Cardenas Campo, Griffin Carpenter, Steve Carpenter, Richard T Carson, Adriana R Carvalho, Mauricio Castrejón, Alex J Caveen, M Nicole Chabi, Kai M A Chan, F Stuart Chapin, Tony Charles, William Cheung, Villy Christensen, Ernest O Chuku, Trevor Church, Andrés M Cisneros-Montemayor, Colin Clark, Tayler M Clarke, Andreea L Cojocaru, Brian Copeland, Brian Crawford, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Larry B Crowder, Philippe Cury, Allison N Cutting, Gretchen C Daily, Jose Maria Da-Rocha, Abhipsita Das, Savior K S Deikumah, Mairin Deith, Santiago de la Puente, Boris Dewitte, Nancy Doubleday, Carlos M Duarte, Nicholas K Dulvy, Bárbara B Horta e Costa, Tyler Eddy, Maeghan Efford, Paul R Ehrlich, Laura G Elsler, Kafayat A Fakoya, A Eyiwunmi Falaye, Jessica Fanzo, Clare Fitzsimmons, Ola Flaaten, Katie R N Florko, Carl Folke, Andrew Forrest, Peter Freeman, Kátia M F Freire, Rainer Froese, Thomas L Frölicher, Austin Gallagher, Veronique Garcon, Maria A Gasalla, Mark Gibbons, Kyle Gillespie, Alfredo Giron-Nava, Kristina Gjerde, Sarah Glaser, Christopher Golden, Line Gordon, Hugh Govan, Rowenna Gryba, Benjamin S Halpern, Quentin Hanich, Mafaniso Hara, Christopher D G Harley, Sarah Harper, Michael Harte, Rebecca Helm, Cullen Hendrix, Christina C Hicks, Lincoln Hood, Carie Hoover, Kristen Hopewell, Jonathan D R Houghton, Johannes A Iitembu, Moenieba Isaacs, Sadique Isahaku, Gakushi Ishimura, Monirul Islam, Ibrahim Issifu, Jeremy Jackson, Jennifer Jacquet, Olaf P Jensen, Xue Jin, Alberta Jonah, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, S Kim Juniper, Sufian Jusoh, Isigi Kadagi, Masahide Kaeriyama, Michel J Kaiser, Brooks Alexandra Kaiser, Omu Kakujaha-Matundu, Selma T Karuaihe, Mary Karumba, Jennifer D Kemmerly, Ahmed S Khan, Katrick Kimani, Kristin Kleisner, Nancy Knowlton, Dawn Kotowicz, John Kurien, Lian E Kwong, Steven Lade, Dan Laffoley, Vicky W L Lam, Glenn-Marie Lange, Mohd T Latif, Philippe Le Billon, Valérie Le Brenne, Frédéric Le Manach, Simon A Levin, Lisa Levin, Karin E Limburg, John A List, Amanda T Lombard, Priscila F M Lopes, Heike K Lotze, Tabitha G Mallory, Roshni S Mangar, Daniel Marszalec, Precious Mattah, Juan Mayorga, Carol Mcausland, DOuglas J McCauley, Jeffrey McLean, Karley McMullen, Frank Meere, Annie Mejaes, Michael Melnychuk, Jaime Mendo, Fiorenza Micheli, Katherine Millage, Dana Miller, Kolliyil Sunil Mohamed, Essam Mohammed, Mazlin Mokhtar, Lance Morgan, Umi Muawanah, Gordon R Munro, Grant Murray, Saleem Mustafa, Prateep Nayak, Dianne Newell, Tu Nguyen, Frederik Noack, Adibi M Nor, Francis K E Nunoo, David Obura, Tom Okey, Isaac Okyere, Paul Onyango, Maartje Oostdijk, Polina Orlov, Henrik Österblom, Tessa Owens, Dwight Owens, Mohammed Oyinlola, Nathan Pacoureau, Evgeny Pakhomov, Unai Pascual, Aurélien Paulmier, Daniel Pauly, Rodrigue Orobiyi Edéya Pèlèbè, Daniel Peñalosa, Maria G Pennino, Garry Peterson, Thuy T T Pham, Evelyn Pinkerton, Stephen Polasky, Nicholas V C Polunin, Ekow Prah, Ingrid Van Putten, Jorge Ramírez, Jorge Jimenez Ramon, Veronica Relano, Gabriel Reygondeau, Don Robadue, Callum Roberts, Alex Rogers, Katina Roumbedakis, Enric Sala, Gret Van Santen, Marten Scheffer, Anna Schuhbauer, Kathleen Segerson, Juan Carlos Seijo, Karen C Seto, Jason F Shogren, Jennifer J Silver, Hussain Sinan, Gerald Singh, Daniel J Skerritt, Ambre Soszynski, Dacotah-Victoria Splichalova, Margaret Spring, Jesper Stage, Fabrice Stephenson, Bryce D Stewart, Riad Sultan, U Rashid Sumaila, Curtis Suttle, Alessandro Tagliabue, Amadou Tall, Nicolás Talloni-Álvarez, Alessandro Tavoni, D R Fraser Taylor, Lydia C L Teh, Louise S L Teh, Jean-Baptiste Thiebot, Torsten Thiele, Shakuntala H Thilsted, Romola V Thumbadoo, Michelle Tigchelaar, Richard S J Tol, Philippe Tortell, Max Troell, M Selçuk Uzmanoglu, Sebastian Villasante, Juan Villaseñor-Derbez, Colette C C Wabnitz, Melissa Walsh, J P Walsh, Nina Wambiji, Elke U Weber, Frances Westley, Stella Williams, Mary S Wisz, Boris Worm, Lan Xiao, Nobuyuki Yagi, Satoshi Yamazaki, Hong Yang, Aart de Zeeuw, Dirk Zeller

Cited by*: None Downloads*: None

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