Papers - Natural

Anya Samek, Roman Sheremeta

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 18

Recognizing donors by revealing their identities is important for increasing charitable giving. We conducted a field experiment to examine how different recognition methods impact giving, and found that all forms of recognition that we examined had a positive impact on increasing donations, whereby recognizing only highest donors (positive recognition) and recognizing only lowest donors (negative recognition) had the most pronounced effect. We argue that selective recognition (both positive and negative) creates tournament-like incentives. Recognizing the highest donors activates the desire to seek a positive prize of prestige, thus increasing the proportion of donors who contribute large amounts. Recognizing the lowest donors activates the desire to avoid a negative prize of shame, thus decreasing the proportion of donors who do not contribute or contribute very little. Therefore, selective recognition is an effective tool that can be used in the field by charities to increase donations.

Craig Gallet, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 1

This paper uses market share data to infer the nature of rivalry in the U.S. cigarette industry over the 1934-94 period. Unlike previous studies, which measure rivalry from various constructs of market share instability, we examine the time-series properties of market shares to determine whether or not rivalry is evident. Our empirical results imply that a majority of firm-level market shares are martingales, suggesting market shares have been unstable from 1934-94. This result leads us to conclude that rivalry in the cigarette industry has remained strong.

Uri Gneezy, Moshe Hoffman, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 0

We therefore agree with the sentiments of Bailey et al. (1) and Daly (2): Our study should not be viewed as the definitive study on this topic but as a proof of concept, which should propel researchers to exploit this unique sample to its fullest advantage. Further research using noncognitive measures, as well as alternative spatial measures would prove invaluable in addressing some of the shortcomings pointed out by Bailey et al. (1) and Daly (2). Moreover, such research would reveal the generality of our results and could focus activist efforts on traits that are most amenable to nurture. Also, if the measures are chosen to be more or less gender-dimorphic and more or less influenced by motivation, stereotype threat, and training, for example, this research, in addition to addressing some of the astute criticisms of Bailey et al. (1) and Daly (2), could also reveal mechanism, which would likewise be invaluable for focusing activists' efforts. We welcome collaboration with psychologists and anthropologists, such as the experts to whom this letter replies, to help us develop such measures of spatial and nonspatial cognitive abilities that are easy to explain and quick to implement, to take full advantage of this unique sample.

Andris Saulitis

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 34

This paper examines the extent to which a noncompliant debtor can be induced to pay back the debt by sending a randomly assigned message via mobile phone and e-mail, ranging from a simple reminder to personalized messages and a social norm. In cooperation with a debt-collector enterprise in Latvia, the field experiment was carried out on 24,781 unique cases of consumer debts with unpaid liabilities, ranging from one to 40,060.26 euros. Overall, sending a message to a debtor increases compliance in comparison of not sending a message at all. However, messages, which include debtor's name, agent's name or social norm, do not increase compliance in comparison to a simple reminder message. I also looked at the interaction effect between the content of the message and the debt amount, which has been hardly examined in previous experiments on compliance. Messages with a debtor's name significantly increase compliance in comparison to a simple reminder among the debts smaller than 170 euros. However, such a message is counter-effective for debts larger than 1,340 euros, the same trend is true for a message with the social norm. Hence, a different policy needs to be applied to the debtors who are extensively overindebted in comparison to those with comparatively small debt amounts.

Jasper Knockaert, Stefanie Peer, Erik T Verhoef

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 119

If left unidentified and uncorrected, self-selection biases may greatly compromise the external validity of the outcomes of field experiments. We show that self-selection biases in terms of observed und unobserved characteristics can be well identified and corrected by means of a complementary stated preference (SP) experiment conducted among the participants and non-participants of a field experiment. In the SP experiment, respondents are confronted with hypothetical choice situations that closely resemble the choice situations present in the field experiment. The SP experiment does not only allow us to compare participants and non-participants with respect to their behavior and implied preferences in the hypothetical choice situations, but also renders it possible to infer how non-participants would have behaved if they had decided to participate, using an innovative modeling approach to elicit the corresponding preference structures. We apply this approach in the context of a large-scale field experiment in which train commuters received monetary rewards for traveling outside peak hours. We find strong self-selection biases, especially with respect to the marginal utility of income, which is significantly higher among participants of the field experiment.

Jeffrey A Livingston

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 10

Problems that arise in online markets due to asymmetric information are exacerbated by the fact that transactions in these markets are completely anonymous. The online auction mechanism provided by eBay is an example of such a market. To combat the anonymity problem, eBay allows sellers to become "ID Verified" by paying a small fee to have their identity confirmed by a credit information company. Doing so may reassure potential bidders that the seller is legitimate since their identity is known, and there is more assurance that the seller could be tracked down and punished should a problem arise. Identifying the effect of ID verification is difficult using naturally occurring data, however, because the service tends to be used only by sellers who have a well-established reputation. It is thus difficult to determine whether an improved outcome is due to the seller's reputation or due to ID verification. This study alleviates this concern by conducting a field experiment where items are sold with different IDs that have different characteristics, and finds little evidence that bidders place any value on ID verification.

Eliana Carranza, Robyn Meeks

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 57

Overloaded electrical systems are a major source of unreliable power (outages) in developing countries. Using a randomized saturation design, we estimate the impact of energy efficient lightbulbs on household electricity consumption and local electricity reliability. Receiving compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) significantly reduced household electricity consumption. Estimates not controlling for spillovers in take-up underestimate the impacts of the CFLs, as control households near the treated are likely to take-up CFLs themselves. Greater saturation of CFLs within a transformer leads to aggregate reliability impacts of two fewer days per month without electricity due to unplanned outages relative to pure controls. Increased electricity reliability permits households to consume more electricity services, suggesting that CFL treatment results in technological externalities. The spillovers in take-up and technological externalities that we document may provide an additional explanation for the gap between empirical and engineering estimates of the impacts of energy efficient technologies.

Carina Cavalcanti, Andreas Leibbrandt

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 18

This paper investigates the role of dry promotions for community participation in eight Brazilian fishing villages. We randomly promoted some fishermen to assistants before the start of an environmental program, increasing their responsibilities but not providing any monetary compensation. Thereafter, we study whether they engage more in conservation behavior during this program. The data shows that promoted fishermen provide substantially more effort, which suggests that such promotions my be a cost-effective tool to stimulate cooperation and community participation.

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.

Tobias Heldt

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 16

In a natural experiment, this paper studies the impact of an informal sanctioning mechanism on individuals' voluntary contribution to a public good. Cross-country skiers' actual cash contributions in two ski resorts, one with and one without an informal sanctioning system, are used. I find the contributing share to be higher in the informal sanctioning system (79 percent) than in the non-sanctioning system (36 percent). Previous studies in one-shot public good situations have found an increasing conditional contribution (CC) function, i.e. the relationship between expected average contributions of other group members and the individual's own contribution. In contrast, the present results suggest that the CC-function in the non-sanctioning system is non-increasing at high perceived levels of others' contribution. This relationship deserves further testing in lab.

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.

Guodong Gao, Tianshu Sun, Ginger Zhe Jin

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 64

While much research has examined the role of technology in moderating online user connections, how IT motivates offline interactions among users is much less understood. Using a randomized field experiment involving 80,000 participants, we study how mobile messaging can leverage recipients' social ties to encourage blood donation. There are three main findings: first, both behavior intervention (in the form of reminder message) and economic reward (in the form of individual or group reward) increase donations, but only the messages with group reward are effective in motivating more donors to donate with their friend(s); second, group reward tends to attract different types of donors, especially those who are traditionally less active in online social setting; and third, across all treatments, message recipients donate a greater amount of blood if their friends are present. Structural estimation further suggests that rewarding group donors is four times more cost-effective than rewarding individual donors. Based on the structural estimates, we perform policy simulations on the optimal design of mobile messaging. The method of combining structural model and randomized field experiment opens new frontiers for research on leveraging IT to mobilize a user's social network for social good.

Donald P Green

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 1

This essay summarizes the results of a large-scale randomized experiment conducted during the 2000 election campaign by the NAACP National Voter Fund, which sought to mobilize African-American voters. Focusing solely on the direct mail and phone banking components of the NAACP-NVF campaign, this study examines the voting behavior of 980,208 participants residing in single-voter households, 1.7 percent of whom were randomly assigned to a control group. The experiment permits us to estimate (1) the extent to which the National Voter Fund's phone calls and direct mail increased voter turnout and (2) the approximate cost per vote. Within this sample, the NVF's two pieces of GOTV mail, three live phone calls, and two recorded phone calls had modest effects, generating approximately 7,100 additional votes at $158 per vote. The upper bound of a 90 percent confidence interval puts these figures at 16,214 additional votes at $69 per vote.

Alan S Gerber, Donald P Green, David W Nickerson

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 10

No abstract available

Jana Gallus

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 28

This natural field experiment tests the effects of purely symbolic awards on volunteer retention in a public goods context. The experiment is conducted at Wikipedia, which faces declining editor retention rates, particularly among newcomers. Randomization assures that award receipt is orthogonal to previous performance. The analysis reveals that awards have a sizeable effect on newcomer retention, which persists over the four quarters following the initial intervention. This is noteworthy for indicating that awards for volunteers can be effective even if they have no impact on the volunteers' future career opportunities. The awards are purely symbolic, and the status increment they produce is limited to the recipients' pseudonymous online identities in a community they have just recently joined. The results can be explained by enhanced self-identification with the community, but they are also in line with recent findings on the role of status and reputation, recognition, and evaluation potential in online communities.

Elizabeth Lyons

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 42

Remote and short-term work arrangements are increasingly common despite the limited incentives they provide for acquiring firm-specific knowledge. This paper examines the importance and cost-effectiveness of firm-specific training for remote contract workers using evidence from a field experiment conducted in an East African insurance firm that offers two-month employment contracts for its salespeople. Findings show that firm-specific training significantly increases firm revenue, but that this effect is concentrated among higher ability workers. Training has no impact on worker retention, and offering workers financial or competitive input-based incentives has no impact on these findings, or on observed worker investment in firm-specific training. These results demonstrate that high ability temporary workers may be willing to invest in firm-specific human capital without additional incentives, and that firm performance is significantly improved as a result. Implications for temporary work contracts are discussed.

Steven Blader, Claudine Gartenberg, Andrea Prat

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 19

This paper investigates how the success of a management practice depends on the nature of the long-term relationship between the firm and its employees. A large US transportation company is in the process of fitting its trucks with an electronic on-board recorder (EOBR), which provide drivers with information on their driving performance. In this setting, a natural question is whether the optimal managerial practice consists of: (1) Letting each driver know his or her individual performance only; or (2) Also providing drivers with information about their ranking with respect to other drivers. The company is also in the first phase of a multi-year initiative to remake its internal operations. This first phase corresponds to an overhaul of the relational contract with its employees, focusing exclusively on changing values toward a greater emphasis on teamwork and empowerment. The main result of our randomized experiment is that (2) leads to better performance than (1) in a particular site if and only if the site has not yet received the values intervention, and worse performance if it has. The result is consistent with the presence of a conflict between competition-based managerial practices and a cooperation-based relational contract. More broadly, it highlights the role of intangible relational factors in determining the optimal set of managerial practices.

Richard Carson , Theodore Groves , John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 1

Researchers, using contingent valuation (CV) to value changes in nonmarket goods, typically believe respondents always answer questions truthfully or they answer truthfully only when it is in their interest to do so. The second position, while consistent with economic theory, implies that interpreting survey responses depends critically on the incentive structure provided. We derive simple tests capable of distinguishing the two views. Our theoretical model for examining the incentive structure of a single binary choice relaxes the usual expected utility assumption. We test our theory using a field experiment involving voting to provide a public good. Experimental results are consistent theoretical predictions and cast doubt on the relevance of a large experimental literature using inconsequential questions and non-incentive-compatible mechanisms to make inferences about CV. The framework put forth should help in understanding the role played by theoretical conditions for preference elicitation and lend insight into the hypothetical bias literature.

Junsoo Lee, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 4

Despite its growth in other areas of economics,time series econometric methods have not been widespread in the area of environmental and resource economics. We illustrate one use of time series methods by examining the time path of US nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission data over the period 1900-1994. The analysis highlights that proper time series methods can aid in optimal regulatory policy as well as developing empirical verification of theories put forth to explain economic phenomena. In addition, several interesting results emerge. First, we find that the emissions series contains both a permanent and random component. Second, if one attributed all of the emissions reductions to regulatory policy, intervention analysis suggests that the 1970 Clean Air Act(CAA) did not merely have transitory effects,but permanently influenced the NOx emission path. In terms of total regulatory impact, an upper bound on the emissions saved due to the 1970 CAA is in the range of 27%-48%.

Ted Gayer, John Horowitz, John A List

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 0

Clear Skies is an economist's approach to pollution reduction. We heartily endorse its core approach, while recommending surgery for a few minor blemishes.