Seminars

Economics and Psychology

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Upcoming events

• Friday 20 September 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Robb B Rutledge (Yale)
  The role of dopamine in decision making

  Abstract

  The neuromodulator dopamine is believed to play multiple roles in decision making, but the neurocomputational basis of dopamine’s influence on behavior remains unclear. Through a combination of fMRI, pharmacology, and smartphone-based experiments in the general population and in Parkinson’s disease, we find evidence that dopamine is associated with increased risk taking in a manner that does not depend on value. Surprising sounds are associated with dopamine release, and we find that surprising sounds increase risk taking in a manner that does not depend on value. Dopamine is also believed to influence willingness to exert effort. We introduce a new task to study the vigor with which actions are taken to obtain reward. We use a combination of lab, online, and smartphone-based experiments to quantify the relationship between reward, mood, and vigor across the lifespan.

• Friday 4 October 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Lionel Page (University of Queensland)

• Friday 11 October 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Marius Usher (Tel-Aviv U.)

• Friday 8 November 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Arno Riedl (Maastricht University)

• Friday 22 November 11:15-12:30

  Ferdinand Vieider (University of Gent)

• Friday 6 December 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Matias Nunez (CREST/Polytechnique)

• Friday 14 February 2025 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Giorgia Romagnoli (University of Amsterdam)

• Friday 7 March 2025 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Lucy Charles (Queen Mary University)

• Friday 21 March 2025 11:15-12:30

  Michalis Drouvelis (U. of Birmingham)

Archives

• Friday 31 May 11:15-12:30

  MSE Room 114

  Ryan Oprea (UC Santa Barbara)
  Simplicity Equivalents

  Abstract

  We provide evidence that classic lottery anomalies like probability weighting and loss aversion are not special phenomena of risk. They also arise (and often with equal strength) when subjects evaluate deterministic, positive monetary payments that have been disaggregated to resemble lotteries. Thus, we find, e.g., apparent probability weighting in settings without probabilities and loss aversion in settings without scope for loss. Across subjects, anomalies in these deterministic tasks strongly predicts the same anomalies in lotteries. These findings suggest that much of the behavior motivating our most important behavioral theories of risk derive from complexity-driven mistakes rather than true risk preferences.

• Friday 24 May 11:15-12:30

  MSE Room 114

  Martin Dufwenberg (U. of Arizona)
  Credible Threats

  Abstract

  We study the effect of communication on deterrence and costly punishment. We show that a theoretical model of belief-dependent anger captures the relationship between messages, beliefs, and behavior and implies that threats can generate credible commitments. We test our model in a between-subjects experiment with belief elicitation where one-sided communication is available as a treatment. The evidence supports the theory, demonstrating that communicated threats change beliefs and payoff expectations and lead to greater rates of costly punishment. Threats successfully deter co-players from exploiting the strategic environment to their advantage. **** Joint with Flora Li & Alec Smith.

• Friday 3 May 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Agne Kajackaite (Milano Statale)
  Breaking bad: Malfunctioning control institutions erode good behavior in a cheating game

  Abstract

  This paper studies whether malfunctioning (or unenforced) institutions erode good behavior. We use a large-scale online experiment, in which participants play a repeated observed cheating game. When we ask participants to report honestly and promise no control, we find low cheating rates. When control of truthful reporting is introduced, low cheating rates remain. In our main treatment with a malfunctioning institution, participants do not know whether they are in the treatment with or without control. In this treatment, participants who do not face control for some rounds start cheating significantly more often, reaching highest cheating rates. That is, a malfunctioning institution leads to more cheating than no institution at all, which indicates that the development of cheating behavior is endogenous to the institutions. Our findings suggest a novel negative effect of unenforced laws

• Friday 8 March 11:15-12:30

  MSE Room 115

  Christoph Vanberg (Heidelberg)
  Logrolling affects the relative performance of alternative voting rules: Simulations and Experiments

  Abstract

  Consider a group making binary decisions on “projects”, each of which yields a vector of randomly drawn payoffs for its members. Assuming that project payoffs are drawn from a distribution symmetric around zero, previous authors have observed that the application of simple majority rule maximizes a representative individual’s expected payoff if all members vote sincerely on each project. This observation has been used to develop a constitutional argument in support of majority rule. We argue that this argument is weakened if one assumes that group members may engage in logrolling agreements. If the number of projects considered is large enough, and if voters are sufficiently able to engage in such agreements, we predict that unanimity rule should outperform majority rule in an expected or aggregate payoff sense. This prediction is supported using computer simulations. We also conduct a laboratory experiment to assess the extent to which subjects engage in logrolling agreements under the two decision rules. The focus of the presentation will be on the experiment.****** Joint with Liza Charroin

• Friday 9 February 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Kai Barron (WZB Berlin)
  Narrative Persuasion

  Abstract

  We study how one individual may try to shape the way another person interprets objective information by proposing a causal explanation (or narrative) that makes sense of this objective information. Using a theory-driven experiment, we examine narrative persuasion in the context of financial advice. Our results reveal several insights. First, we show that advisors construct persuasive narratives by tailoring them to fit the objective information. Second, advisors are able to shift investors’ beliefs. Third, we identify the types of narratives that investors find convincing. Finally, we evaluate several potential policy interventions aimed at protecting investors.******* Joint work with Tilman Fries

• Friday 26 January 11:15-12:30

  MSE Room 115

  CANCELLED - Rachel Kranton (Duke)
  Competition, Cooperation, and Motivated Social Perceptions

  Abstract

  Many empirical and experimental studies show that social divisions negatively impact economic outcomes. This experiment reverses the causal arrow and asks if economic settings affect how individuals perceive one another. Subjects receive information about counterparts’ traits (preferences and demographics) and then work for bonus pay by completing a real-effort task. Subjects who compete for pay against their counterparts report having fewer traits in common with their counterparts than subjects who work in a cooperative setting. This effect emerges despite that subjects have monetary incentives to report correctly the number of common traits. In response to a vaguer question about similarity to counterparts, women also report less similarity in the competitive setting than in the cooperative setting. In an experiment with descriptions of natural scenes in place of counterparts’ traits, cooperative vs. competitive settings do not have a significant effect on subjects’ reports of features in common.

• Sunday 31 December 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  TBD

• Friday 8 December 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Tomas Jagelka (Bonn)
  Separating True Preferences from Endogenous Effort and Cognitive Noise

  Abstract

  Preferences, skills, and other latent personal attributes (PSAs) are key drivers of inequalities in life outcomes. We propose a novel framework for quantifying, and accounting for, individuals’ effort and cognitive noise that confound decisions on PSA elicitation tasks. We establish the ability of our proposed framework to quantify the noise content of a given experimental design and to de-bias preference estimates in an application to a large-scale experimental dataset measuring risk preferences. While the two elicitation designs we study were used interchangeably in the past, we estimate that a change from the more complex design to the more intuitive one results in a 30% decrease in (rational) inattention. On the one hand, failure to properly account for decision errors results in estimates of risk preferences biased by 50% for the median individual. On the other hand, accounting for endogenous effort allows us to empirically reconcile competing models of discrete choice. Furthermore, the estimated individual effort propensities have external validity. We show that they capture low-stakes motivation which generalizes to other settings and predicts, inter alia, an individual’s performance on the highly influential PISA achievement test.***** Joint with Christian Belzil

• Friday 24 November 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Reto Odermatt (University of Basel)
  Beware of Good Alternatives: The Negative Effect of Opportunity Cost on Post-Choice Satisfaction

  Abstract

  A fundamental assumption in consumer behavior is that opportunity cost is only relevant in the decision-making process and does not matter for utility once the decision is made. In this study, we question this assumption and consider the possibility that opportunity cost can negatively impact the satisfaction derived from a chosen option. In a series of hypothetical and real choice experiments, we provide evidence that opportunity cost significantly decreases consumers’ happiness after the choice. *** Joint with Fanny Brun, Benjamin Scheibehenne and Itay Sisso

• Friday 10 November 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Tali Sharot (UCL)
  How People Form Beliefs

  Abstract

  In this talk I will present our recent behavioural and neuroscience research on how the brain motivates itself to form particular beliefs and why it does so. I will propose that the utility of a belief is derived from the potential outcomes associated with holding it. Outcomes can be internal (e.g., positive/negative feelings) or external (e.g., material gain/loss), and only some are dependent on belief accuracy. We show that belief change occurs when the potential outcomes of holding it alters, for example when moving from a safe environment to a threatening environment. Our findings yield predictions about how belief formation alters as a function of mental health. We test these predictions using a linguistic analysis of participants’ web searches ‘in the wild’ to quantify the affective properties of information they consume and relate those to reported psychiatric symptoms. Finally, I will present a study in which we used our framework to alter the incentive structure of social media platforms to reduce the spread of misinformation and improve belief accuracy.

• Friday 20 October 2023 11:00-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Catherine Pollak (DREES-Min. de la Santé) — Joint with the EPCI seminar
  Behavioral interventions to promote adherence to clinical guidelines

  Abstract

  The talk will discuss some insights from a yearlong research project analyzing the use of behavioral science to improve clinicians’ prescriptions and adherence to clinical guidelines, in particular: What is the potential for nudges to improve guideline adherence? What can we learn from successful and failed interventions? How should we design RCTs for evidence-based policies? And what are the next challenges for behavioral interventions?

• Friday 6 October 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE Room 115

  Hannes Rau (KIT)
  Preference Games and Nash Equilibrium Play

  Abstract

  The Nash equilibrium is a widely used concept in Economics and many other sciences. However, in several situations it does not accurately predict behavior. Often the equilibrium prediction is based solely on the players’ own (material) payoffs, not including further relevant aspects like the payoffs other persons’ or the way of interaction. As a consequence, individual payoffs do not necessarily represent players’ utilities from the outcomes of the games. If this is the case, players may actually face a very different kind of strategic situation. To examine the latter aspect, we report results from two experimental studies. In both studies players’ (social) preferences over a set of monetary payoff pairs are elicited. These are identical to the outcomes of several simultaneous 2x2 games. This method allows us to identify the strategic properties of the corresponding “preference games”. In several cases those differ with respect to their original counterparts. In the first study, subjects then play a couple of those 2x2 games and the frequencies of equilibrium play in both types of games are compared. The second study extends this approach to all 2x2 games and provides a comprehensive overview how often a specific kind of game transforms into other game for all possible pairings of players (with known social preferences).

• Friday 22 September 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE Room 115

  Vanessa Valero (University of Leichester)
  On the relative deservingness of capital and labor

  Abstract

  ***Perceptions of deservingness play a critical role in support for redistributive policies. We investigate whether different inputs into production are perceived as differentially deserving of the rewards they jointly produce and whether such perceptions influence how people believe income should be distributed to the providers of such inputs. We focus on the special case of capital and labor inputs, a topic of long-standing interest in economics. We use pre-registered experiments with representative samples of the US and the Swiss populations to study perceptions of fairness in the allocation of production rewards to investment and work. Our design holds constant many factors that may influence individuals’ preferences over such allocations in more natural environments. In the experiment, two participants provide separate inputs to production, either in the form of monetary investment or work effort, with a third participant allocating the production rewards between them. We find substantial heterogeneity in perceived deservingness, but also observe a tendency to allocate a greater share to work than investment. Our measure of the tendency to favor one input over the other predicts attitudes and voting behavior in support of policies that differentially reward capital and labor. Overall, our findings indicate that people perceive different input factors as differentially deserving and that such fairness views directly impact redistributive policy preferences.*** Joint work with Florian Schneider and Roberto Weber

• Friday 8 September 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Rani Moran (Queen Mary University)
  Model-based and model-free Contributions to exploration strategies.

• Friday 12 May 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Paola Manzini (University of Bristol)
  A Model of Approval

  Abstract

  Online technologies enable a host of observable acts, such as “wishlisting”, that do not quite amount to choice meant as a final selection. Rather, they express interest and a positive attitude towards an item. We gather this type of behaviour under the term approval. With items presented as a list, we propose a general model of approval. We completely characterise the model in terms of simple properties of observed approval data. We show that the psychological primitives leading to approval are substantially identifiable from observed behaviour. Finally, we introduce and study the problem of “list design”. This captures situations where an interested party can manipulate the approver’s behaviour by choosing the list with the aim of maximising an objective.**** Joint work with Marco Mariotti and Levent Ülkü

• Friday 7 April 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Cristoph Kogler (Tilburg University)
  Delayed Feedback on Tax Audits: Effects on Compliance, Decision Times, and Information Acquisition

  Abstract

  In experimental research on tax behavior audits usually occur directly after filing taxes, and feedback on the consequences of an audit is provided immediately. In reality, audits can happen within a much longer period of time. This difference in time lags between filing and audit feedback may play a crucial role with regard to the external validity of experimental results. In two studies we investigated the effect of delayed audit feedback on tax compliance by varying tax rates, audit probabilities, and fine rates, as these factors are known to have a strong influence on tax compliance. Furthermore, specific attention was paid to the process of information acquisition before making compliance decisions. The results reveal that compliance in delayed feedback conditions was considerably higher than in case of immediate feedback. In addition, lower tax rate, higher audit probability, and higher fine level resulted in higher tax compliance. Analysis of response times showed that participants in conditions of delayed feedback took longer to decide whether to comply or evade. Concerning acquisition of information, delayed feedback resulted in more frequent and longer attention to information on audit probability and fine rate compared to immediate feedback. In combination with perceiving delayed feedback as more unfair - as indicated in post-experimental questionnaires - this pattern of results can be interpreted as an indication of “aversive uncertainty”.

• Friday 24 March 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  [CANCELLED] Nora Szech (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)

• Friday 10 March 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  [CANCELLED] Rani Moran (Queen Mary University)

• Friday 10 February 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Francesco Bogliacino (U. Bergamo)
  Negative Economic Shocks and Compliance to Social Norms

  Abstract

  We study why suffering a Negative Economic Shock (NES), i.e. a significant loss, may trigger a change in other-regarding behaviour. We conjecture that people trade off concern for money against a conditional preference to follow social norms and that suffering a shock makes extrinsic motivation more salient, leading to more norm violation. This result can be formally proved when preferences are norm-dependent. We study this question experimentally: after administering losses on the earnings from a Real Effort Task, we analyze choices in prosocial and antisocial settings. To derive our predictions, we elicit social norms for each context analyzed in the experiments. We find robust evidence that shocks increase deviations from norms. Joint work with Rafael C, harrisCamilo Gomez and Felipe Montealegre.

• Friday 27 January 2023 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Miguel Ballester (Oxford University)

• Friday 2 December 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Clément Bellet (Erasmus School of Economics)
  Social Movement, Identity and Gender: Did #MeToo Affect the Market for Stereotypical Products?

  Abstract

  Although we know that social movements affect beliefs and public policies, it is not clear how they impact consumption. To address this question, we examine whether and how #MeToo — a preeminent global social movement raising awareness of sexual abuse and harassment against women – affected the consumption of products displaying traditional markers of femininity in the footwear market. To do so, we analyzed unique and comprehensive high-frequency product-level stockout data from a leading global fashion retailer spanning 5.2 million observations from January 2017 to December 2018 in 32 OECD countries (covering 89% of the population of OECD members). Using a triple-difference strategy over time, across countries, and between product attributes, we document a change in product-level stockouts consistent with dissociation from gender stereotypes along two major design dimensions: colors (pink or red vs. black or blue shoes) and form (slim vs. bulky shapes; heel height emphasizing silhouette and gait). Consistent with a demand-side effect, we find no evidence of short-term changes in product assortments in reaction to #MeToo. Local heightened sensitivity of product stockouts to online searches around sexual harassment is consistent with the documented effect. We discuss the results’ implications for firms’ strategies as they relate to customer identity, as well as for our understanding of the role of social movements in shaping consumer market dynamics.

• Friday 18 November 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Aldo Rustichini (University of Minnesota)
  Selection and the Roy Model

  Abstract

  We model the evolution of the distribution of genotype in European populations’ recent past (within 14 thousand years before present). The evolution is driven by selection operating after a shift in the productivity of agriculture, induced by a well documented climate change, in a standard Roy model in which individuals self-select into one of two sectors (agriculture or hunter-gathering). We test the model in two data sets, one of ancient and one of modern DNA data-sets, matching the observed distributions of genetic variables of interest (allele frequencies and lineages). The model extends a standard Wright-Fisher model. We estimate the model and find support for the hypothesis that a major shift in distribution of allele frequencies (in a direction favoring higher cognitive skills) occurred after the climate warming at the end of the Younger Dryas (11,600 years BPE) made agriculture more productive than hunter-gathering. The general implication we draw is that historical transformations (in our case climate change and technological change) can affect the distribution of genotype and thus institutions, rather than the other way round. Co-author: Nurfatima Jandarova

• Friday 21 October 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Dianna Amasino (University of Amsterdam)
  Attention in decisions with ethical implications

  Abstract

  I will present two projects exploring the role of attention in decisions with impacts on others. In the first, we use attention to better understand differences in attitudes toward fairness and redistribution along socio-economic lines. We conduct an experiment on attention to merit and luck and the effect of attention on fairness decisions. We find that randomly advantaged subjects pay less attention to information about true merit and retain more economic surplus. Attention also has a causal role: encouraging subjects to look at merit reduces the effect of an advantaged position on allocations. This suggests that attention-based policy interventions may be effective in reducing polarized views on inequality. In the second project, we examine why consumers under-weight the ethical impacts of their purchases despite caring about them. We investigate whether consumers use ethical information when confronted with it but avoid such information when possible because it is unpleasant to contemplate. Across two studies, we find some evidence for diminished use of ethical, but not other attribute, information when such information is possible to avoid. In the second study, we further investigate how positive and negative framing of ethical information influence choice, as negative information may be particularly prone to avoidance. We find that both positive and negative frames increase the impact of ethical information in choice relative to neutral frames regardless of whether information is avoidable.

• Friday 7 October 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Alessandro Ispano (Cergy)
  The perils of a coherent narrative

  Abstract

  A persuader influences a decision-maker by providing a narrative to interpret some upcoming news. The decision-maker embraces a narrative when it is coherent (likelihoods of each news conditional on a realized state must sum to unity) and compatible with the truth (the marginal distribution of news is undistorted). Even if coherence restricts the set of beliefs the persuader can induce, it may nonetheless harm also the decision-maker. As a result, both players may benefit when the persuader can provide news-contingent, overall incoherent, narratives. Likewise, both players may benefit when the persuader can privately learn the truth, or when he can design the process of news arrival.

• Friday 23 September 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE 6th Floor Room

  Eugenio Verrina (GATE Lyon)
  Personal norms — and not only social norms — shape economic behavior

  Abstract

  While social norms have received great attention as an explanation of various economic behaviors, little is known about personal norms. We propose a simple utility framework and design a novel two-part experiment to study the relevance of personal norms across various economic games and settings. We show that personal norms — together with social norms and monetary payoff — are highly predictive of individuals’ behavior. Moreover, they are: i) distinct from social norms across a series of economic contexts, ii) robust to an exogenous increase in the salience of social norms, and iii) complementary to social norms in predicting behavior. Our findings support personal norms as a key driver of economic behavior

• Friday 9 September 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE Room S18

  Lata Gangadharan (Monash University)
  The role of the environment in the gender leadership gap

  Abstract

  We examine the role of the institutional environment in contributing to the gender leadership gap. Using the Centipede game, we design an experiment to test whether leaders can help promote trusting behavior among followers, and vary whether the incentive structure is competitive (“winner takes most") or cooperative (earnings are shared). The leader sends a short message advising followers on strategies and only the leader’s gender is revealed to their group. Our results show that male and female leaders are equally effective at improving efficiency, but female leaders receive a penalty in evaluations in the competitive environment. This bias is not present in the more cooperative setting, suggesting that the congruence of the environment with gender stereotypes matters for leadership outcomes. Men are consistently more willing to lead than women, irrespective of the environment.

• Friday 13 May 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE (6th Floor Room)

  Jean-Francois Bonnefon (TSE)
  The Moral Machine Experiment

  Abstract

  With the development of artificial intelligence came concerns about how machines will make moral decisions, and the major challenge of quantifying societal expectations about the ethical principles that should guide machine behavior. To address this challenge, we deployed the Moral Machine, an online experimental platform designed to explore the moral dilemmas faced by autonomous vehicles. This platform gathered nearly 100 million decisions in ten languages from millions of people in more than 200 countries and territories. I will describe the results of this experiment, paying special attention to cross-cultural variations in ethical preferences. I will discuss the role that these data can play to inform public policies about the programming of autonomous vehicles.

• Friday 22 April 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE (6th Floor Room)

  Chris Summerfield (Oxford U.)
  Not wrong, just general (a repulsive talk)

  Abstract

  Humans often make choices that fail to maximise expected return. This is sometimes attributed to computational fecklessness (inability or unwillingness to use neural capacity) or misplaced motives (entertaining the wrong cost function). In my talk I suggest another alternative: that humans are adapted to a world in which no events are entirely alike. This constraint encourages the learning of policies that support generalisation. I will describe simulations in which gradient descent is used to learn optimal heuristics in environments with independent noise. The results imply that some stereotyped irrationalities displayed by humans - including anti-Bayesian biases, saliency effects, concave utility, and heuristics that compress or sparsify input data - are all reward-maximising under this assumption.

• Friday 15 April 2022 11:15-12:30

  Online (Zoom Broadcast)

  [online only] Bastien Blain (University College London)
  Dissociable effect of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards on well-being and decision-making

  Abstract

  Some of the factors influencing well-being are well identified, like income, family, and health. Yet, many daily experiences resulting from our choices (e.g., eating junk food) and from our performance (e.g., losing a tennis game) can strongly impact our subjective well-being, at least temporarily. How these transient changes in our state relate to and impact our decision making is not well understood, even though many people believe that maximising well-being is a worthy goal for individuals and society. In this talk, I will first present my work describing a robust phenomenon showing how decision making can change with state: acute fatigue resulting from both extended mental or physical performance leads to a preference for immediate gratification over larger but delayed rewards. This phenomenon can be captured with my computational models, is mediated by brain activity measured with functional MRI in the Lateral Pre-Frontal Cortex, and can explain inconsistency in intertemporal choice. Although physical and mental performance can have negative impacts on state, they can also be intrinsically rewarding. I will present my recent work focusing on how different task outcomes, specifically extrinsic rewards (i.e. an outcome influencing the payment level) and intrinsic rewards (an outcome resulting from skilled performance), influence momentary well-being and reflect preferences. This “computational hedonometer” can implicitly quantify the affective value of experience and can predict the corresponding brain activity measured with functional MRI. Does momentary well-being simply reflect the variables motivating choice or does it contain specific kinds of information? I will present converging evidence showing that momentary well-being, like behaviour, is sensitive to learning-relevant variables (i.e. probability prediction errors derived from behaviour using reinforcement learning models) but unlike behaviour, momentary well-being is not sensitive to learning-irrelevant variables (i.e. reward prediction errors). These results also suggest that how we learn about our world – a form of intrinsic rewards – may be more important for how we feel than the monetary rewards we actually receive. I will conclude my talk with ongoing and future projects to investigate the features underpinning intrinsic rewards, and to optimise task schedules to increase well-being regulation.

• Friday 8 April 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE (6th Floor Room)

  Leor Zmigrod (University of Cambridge)
  Mental Computations of Ideological Choice and Conviction

  Abstract

  Political discourse and polarization are rooted in the assumption that those who hold opposing ideological beliefs are fundamentally irrational. Propaganda and misinformation are hypothesized to work by amplifying and toying with citizens’ emotions and diminishing their capacity for thought. Nevertheless, new strands of research in the science of political cognition illustrate that we can rigorously model the computational mechanisms underpinning ideological choice and conviction. Bayesian models highlight how human brains seek to build predictive models of the world by updating their beliefs and preferences in ways that are proportional to their prior expectations and sensory experiences. Consequently, incorporating Bayesian principles into formal models of ideological choice and conviction will provide a more wholistic understanding of what happens when a mind enters the market for belief systems – and why a mind can, at times, purchase toxic doses of the ideologies that sellers and entrepreneurs offer on display. The talk will discuss theoretical and empirical research into the nature of ideological cognition, and in so doing reveal that often the problems of ideological thinking lie not wholly in the brain but in the surrounding informational ecology.

• Friday 25 March 2022 11:15-12:30

  Zoom only

  [ONLY ONLINE] Florian Artinger (Berlin International U.)
  Labor provision when individual incentives are barely predictable: An analysis of the behavior of taxi drivers

  Abstract

  A fundamental assumption of expected utility models is that agents make predictions by formulating rational expectations. However, such predictions might not always be feasible, exposing the agents to considerable uncertainty. Using data from 11 million taxi trips in Hamburg (Germany), we show that traditional econometric analyses as well as methods from machine learning show that incentives for labor provision at the individual level are barely predictable. Under such uncertainty, a competitive test between utility and heuristic satisficing models shows that heuristic models predict 99.5 percent of drivers best, utility models best predict behavior of 0.5 percent of drivers. Heuristic models do not require calculating expected earnings but terminate shifts when reaching an aspiration level on shift duration or earnings. Co-authors: Gerd Gigerenzer, Perke Jacobs

• Friday 11 March 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE (6th Floor Room)

  Fabio Maccheroni (Bocconi)
  Time-Constrained Sequential Neural Decision Procedures in Multialternative Choice Problems

  Abstract

  We introduce an algorithmic decision process for multialternative choice, the Neural Metropolis Algorithm, that combines binary comparisons and Markovian exploration. We show that a stochastic version of transitivity, a basic tenet of rationality, makes this algorithm value-based. In so doing, we extend to decision procedures some classic stochastic choice notions.
  Co-authors: Massimo Marinacci, Marco Pirazzini

• Friday 11 February 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE (6th Floor Room)

  Brian Hill (HEC)
  Are people willing to pay for reduced inequality?

  Abstract

  Income inequality is a central issue in current public debate and policy. Recent theoretical results have identified the potential of providing consumers with information about the income inequality across those involved in the production of each good at the point of purchase as a tool for mitigating overall inequality. However, its impact depends crucially on whether people are willing to pay more for goods whose production involves less income inequality. Here we investigate this largely unexplored empirical question through incentive-compatible behavioural choice studies on representative samples of the English and US populations. We find that over 80% of subjects are willing to pay significantly more for goods associated with less extreme inequality. How much more people are willing to pay varies with political leaning and with the extent of the inequality reduction, but is positive across the political spectrum and for all studied inequality differences. Moreover, it is typically higher when inequality is reported in more intuitive and informative formats. Our results suggest the promise of product-level inequality information provision as a tool for moderating income inequality, hinting at impacts even in markets where all goods involve relatively high inequality levels, as well as potential buy-in across the political spectrum.
  Co-authors: Thomas Lloyd

• Friday 28 January 2022 11:15-12:30

  MSE (Room 114, 1st Floor)

  Roland Benabou (Princeton U.)
  Perceptions and Realities: Kantians, Utilitarians and Real Moral Decisions

  Abstract

  We use a series of 15 experimental games to study the prevalence, and especially the consistency across moral-choice problems, of consequentialist and deontological decision-making. We design a first block of choice problems in which these two ethical principles are predicted to induce opposite decisions. Among these is the “trolley” dilemma, which we implement both hypothetically and with real stakes, together with games involving lying, bribing, or making a distasteful statement to save a life through a donation; casting a righteous but costly and irrelevant vote in a group decision; and breaking a rule. A second block of experiments involve situations in which the both types of ethics either command the same choices, or do not have clearly opposing predictions: giving and taking dictator games, trust and reciprocity games, public-goods games, and a moral-luck game. Three main results emerge. First, we find almost no correlation in deontological vs. consequentialist orientation across decisions in the first block. Thus, there do not appear to be any consistently Kantian or Utilitarian ethical types in the subject population. Second, these moral dilemmas have no predictive power of any of the behaviors in the second block; the latter, in contrast, has a clearly identified first component, broadly corresponding the altruism-selfishness dimension. In particular, trolley-problem choices, while highly correlated between their hypothetical and real-stakes versions, tell us nothing about almost any other moral decision, in either block. Finally, we examine the extent to which an external audience predicts such similar, or on the contrary different choice patterns, for subjects who made one or the other trolley decision. Co-authors: Armin Falk, Luca Henkel

• Friday 26 November 2021 11:15-12:30

  MSE (6th Floor Room)

  Tomas Epper (IESEG/CNRS)
  Bounded Rationality in Choice over Effort and Money

  Abstract

  We study risk preferences in the money and the effort domain using an experimental setup with real incentives. In both domains subjects were exposed to triplets of lotteries with equal terminal outcome distributions but varying description frame (gain, loss and mixed). We present our results in three parts: In a first part, we propose a series of non-parametric tests that shed light on the description variance and domain-dependence of risk preferences. We examine a number of critical predictions of reference dependence proposed in the literature, such as diminishing sensitivity, reflection and prospect-theory loss aversion. In a second part, we introduce a model-free method for identifying rationality types. Our method yields a parsimonious characterization of description (in-)variance in our sample. We pose the questions whether individuals’ degree of rationality is consistent across outcome domains and whether the documented departures from neoclassic model predictions are quantitatively relevant. In a third part, we calibrate a structural behavioral model and derive an individual-specific index of asset integration. Our comprehensive description of heterogeneity in bounded rationality provides novel insights on the descriptive accuracy and external validity of popular theories of choice under risk. Co-authors: Alexander Koch and Julia Nafziger.

• Friday 12 November 2021 11:15-12:30

  MSE (6th Floor Room)

  Nagore Iriberri (University of the Basque Country)
  Naivete and Sophistication in Initial and Repeated Play in Games

  Abstract

  Compared to more sophisticated equilibrium theory, naive, non-equilibrium behavioral rules often better describe individuals’ initial play in games. Addi- tionally, in repeated play in games, when individuals have the opportunity to learn about their opponents’ past behavior, learning models of different sophis- tication levels are successful in explaining how individuals modify their behavior in response to the provided information. How do subjects following different behavioral rules in initial play modify their behavior after learning about past behavior? This study links both initial and repeated play in games by analyzing elicited behavior in 3X3 normal-form games using a within-subject laboratory design. We classify individuals into different behavioral rules in both initial and repeated play and test whether and/or how strategic naivete and sophistication in initial play correlate with naivete and sophistication in repeated play. We find no evidence of a positive correlation between naivete and sophistication in initial and repeated play.

  1 document to download

  • working paper (PDF, 1.1 Mb)

• Friday 22 October 2021 11:15-12:30

  MSE (6th Floor Room)

  [CANCELLLED] Lucia Bosone (U. Gustave Eiffel/U. de Paris)
  Vicarious experience as a lever for behavioural change: the influence of narrative persuasion on intention to adopt a new behaviour in health and environmental fields

  Abstract

  In order to motivate citizens to improve their behaviours for themselves and others, it is important to understand the socio-cognitive dimensions structuring their decision-making process. During this seminar, we will focus on a specific communication strategy that can be adopted to trigger the psychological dimensions determining individuals’ motivation and decisions in the face of a threat, in particular in the field of health-promotion and environmental protection: narrative persuasion. Through the presentation of empirical data from several studies, we will argue that communication and educational messages presenting specific threats with a narrative format can be more effective than messages with a statistical format under specific conditions.These depend on the one hand on the fit between the role model and the framing of the message, and on the other hand on the stage of behavioural change individuals are at (pre-action vs action vs maintenance).

• Friday 8 October 2021 11:00-12:30

  MSE (6th Floor Room)

  Francesco Bogliacino (Universidad Nacional de Colombia)
  Measuring Norms: Assessing Normative Expectation Elicitation Methods

  Abstract

  Measuring the expectations that underpin social norms poses an empirical challenge, as incentive compatibility of normative expectations’ elicitation is not straightforward. Experimental economists have turned to two methods to elicit normative expectations. One, introduced by Bicchieri and Xiao (2009) [BX] uses a two-step incentivized elicitation of second-order normative beliefs. The other, introduced by Krupka and Weber (2013) [KW] uses a coordination game (with multiple equilibria), where subjects are incentivized to match the modal responses of other participants, in order to elicit higher-order beliefs regarding the social appropriateness of alternative actions. The main goal of this project is to elucidate properties, potential weaknesses, and potential modifications for the two main methods. BX’s implicit assumption is that individuals assume (correctly or incorrectly) that responders’ self-report their PNB truthfully. If there is Social Desirability Bias (SDB) in the elicitation of PNB and subjects anticipate SDB of PNB responses, there would be a systematic measurement error in the elicitation of normative expectations. We assess in the lab the robustness to SDB. Additionally, PNBs are usually elicited as a singleton, which may magnify the risk of type I error (eliciting norms where they do not apply), thus we examine to what extent a variation of BX based on the Belief Elicitation by Superimposition Approach (BESA: Fragiadakis, et al. 2019) is better able at characterizing the full distribution of normative expectations. In the KW, the combination of cardinality and an even number of items could lead to improper measurement of asymmetries around a norm and to the equal judgment of actions that are unequal from a normative point of view. We examine whether this method can be improved by adding a neutral option that may allow examining an asymmetry in normative expectations regarding transgressions of the normatively prescribed action.

• Sunday 1 August 2021 11:15-12:30

  MSE (6th Floor Room)

  0. Economics and Psychology

  Abstract

  The Economics and Psychology Seminar is dedicated to research in behavioral and experimental economics. It is organized jointly by the Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne (CNRS & Univ. Paris-1) and Paris School of Economics. It is open to specialists in various fields such as economics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and neuroscience.
  The seminar takes place on Friday from 11:15 to 12:30 at the Maison des Sciences Economiques.
  If you wish to follow the seminar’s calendar on GCal, use the following link.
  The organizers are:
  Charlotte Saucet and Leonardo Pejsachowicz
  If you wish to present a paper, please contact Leonardo Pejsachowicz (leonardo.pejsachowicz at univ-paris1.fr).
  Location of the seminar:
  Maison des Sciences Economiques (MSE)/
  112 Boulevard de l’Hôpital, 75013 Paris
  Access: http://centredeconomiesorbonne.univ-paris1.fr/menu-bas-ces/acces/
  Map: http://goo.gl/maps/rJxRY
  Zoom Broadcast:
  Seminars will be held in person on location. Moreover, we will be broadcasting the seminars via Zoom. On-line attendees will be able to intervene via chat and during the Q&A at the end of the talk. If you wish to receive the link for Zoom attendance, please subscribe to the mailing list below.
  Mailing-list:
  To receive updates on the talks, links to the Zoom broadcast, or to manage your subscription to the seminar mailing-list, <A HREF="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScLsruXNdKYVr0oa4nFCJVzXV-4MFpf_24sMMhck1eiN6Herw/viewform?usp=sf_link">please use this link.</A>
  This seminar is supported jointly by the University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne with the Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne and the Paris School of Economics.
  This seminar is also co-funded by a French government subsidy managed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche under the framework of the Investissements d’avenir programme reference ANR-17-EURE-0001.

• Friday 28 May 2021 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  Christoph Vanberg (Univ. Heidelberg)
  Promises and Opportunity Cost

  Abstract

  This paper experimentally investigates the hypothesis that promise-keeping behavior is affected by the value of the opportunity that a counterpart has foregone by relying on the promise. We present two motivational mechanisms that could drive such an effect. One is that people dislike causing harm through a promise, and that they measure such harm by comparing what the counterpart will receive if the promise is broken to what she would have received if she had not relied on the promise. The other is that people dislike causing regret in another person. We test these ideas in the context of an experimental trust game involving an uncertain payoff from the first mover’s outside option. The main treatment variable is the (initially unknown) payoff that the first mover would have received if she had chosen “out”. While the value of the outside option is unknown when the first mover chooses, it becomes known to the second mover before he makes his choice. Consistent with our main hypothesis, we find that an increase in this foregone payoff increases promise-keeping behavior. The experiment is designed to rule out alternative explanations for such an effect. Our evidence suggests that the mechanism driving the effect may involve an aversion to causing regret in others. Co-author : Arjun Sengupta

• Friday 21 May 2021 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  Pierpaolo Battigalli (Bocconi)
  Games with Noisy Signals about Emotions

  Abstract

  We study games where utilities depend on emotions, and we formalize a novel framework allowing for the observation of noisy signals about co-players’ states of mind. Insofar as the latter are belief-dependent, such feedback allows players to draw inferences informing their strategic thinking. First, we give a definition of players’ rationality: we require that rational players hold coherent beliefs, that they update their beliefs consistently with the evidence and according to Bayes rule, that they plan optimally, and that they implement their plans. Under mild and reasonable technical assumptions, we prove that the set of states of the world in which a player is rational is an event (a Borel set). Second, we analyze players’ strategic reasoning adapting the strong rationalizability solution concept, and we give its epistemic justification in terms of players’ rationality and interactive beliefs. The "forward-induction’’ reasoning entailed by such solution allows players to make inferences about their co-players’ beliefs, private information, and future, or past and unobserved behavior based on the behavioral and emotional feedback they obtain as the game unfolds. We apply our framework to a signaling-like game, showing that the possibility of betraying lies, e.g., by blushing, may incentivize truth-telling.

• Friday 30 April 2021 11:00-12:30

  Online only.

  Andrea Guido (Institute for Future Studies)
  Social Connectedness and the Sharing of Innovations

  Abstract

  The transmission of innovations and ideas within and between organizations is key to the development and growth of modern economies. Yet, the act of sharing profitable, new knowledge is often not in the interest of the innovator: depending on the institutional arrangement or the type of the good, s/he may not be able to fully appropriate the returns from the innovation effort. This can lead to a sub-optimal supply of innovation, similar to collective action problems. Companies and policy-makers often seek to foster innovation by building networks that enhance cooperation and favor knowledge spillovers (e.g., regional clusters, hubs). Yet, behavioural research on the relationship between innovation sharing and network structures is scarce. In this work, we recreate the tension between cooperative and competitive forces in an incentivized laboratory experiment. By manipulating two important dimensions of networks, i.e., their stability and connectivity, we measure people’s propensity to share beneficial discoveries with competitors. We find that repeated interactions characterizing stable networks can favour the sharing of innovations only when connectivity is low. Consistently, less-connected networks are conducive to higher efficiency levels. Our results are closely linked to public policies concerning innovation and entrepreneurship.

• Friday 16 April 2021 11:00-12:30

  MSE

  Marco Fongoni (University of Strathclyde)
  Does Pay Inequality Affect Worker Effort? An Assessment of Existing Laboratory Designs and Evidence

  Abstract

  This paper contributes to the experimental literature investigating the effect of pay inequality on worker effort by developing a theoretical framework to think about employees’ effort choices in the laboratory, and by using this to provide a more formal assessment of existing laboratory designs and evidence. The analysis shows that failure to control for a number of confounds---such as reciprocity towards the employer in gift-exchange games (vertical fairness), or the incentive to increase effort when feeling underpaid under piece rates (income targeting)---may lead to inaccurate interpretation of evidence of treatment effects. In light of these findings, the paper provides a set of recommendations on how to improve the identification of the effect of pay inequality on effort in laboratory experiments

• Friday 9 April 2021 11:00-12:30

  MSE

  Alice Solda (Univ. Heidelberg)
  Absolute vs. relative success: Why overconfidence is an inefficient equilibrium

  Abstract

  Overconfidence is one of the most ubiquitous biases in the social sciences, but the evidence regarding its overall costs and benefits is mixed. To test the possibility that overconfidence might yield important relative benefits that offset its absolute costs, we conducted an experiment (N=298 university students) in which pairs of participants bargain over the unequal allocation of a prize that was earned via a joint effort. We manipulated confidence using a binary noisy signal to investigate the causal effect of negotiators’ beliefs about their relative contribution on the outcome of the negotiation. Our results provide evidence that high levels of confidence lead to relative benefits (how much one earns compared to one’s partner) but absolute costs (how much money one receives overall). These results suggest that overconfidence creates an inefficient equilibrium whereby overconfident negotiators benefit over their partners even as they bring about joint losses.

• Friday 2 April 2021 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  Anne-Laure Sellier (HEC)
  “Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock” May Well Be the Sound of Convergent Thinking: Scheduling Styles, Convergent Versus Divergent Thinking, and Creativity

  Abstract

  To schedule activities and transition from one activity to the next, individuals can rely on the external clock (clock-time style) or their internal sense (event-time style). Recent research shows that one’s scheduling style has significant psychological implications for personal control and savoring. The current research examines how relying on an external versus internal time cue actively shapes creative thinking, with a focus on new product development. The authors find that relying on clock-time (vs. event-time) enhances a creator’s ability to produce more useful creative solutions. In contrast, relying on event-time (vs. clock-time) enhances a creator’s ability to produce more novel creative solutions. These effects occur amidst statistically equivalent overall creativity levels across scheduling styles. They happen because relying on clock-time [event-time] engages creators in relatively more convergent [divergent] thinking. A discussion of the implications for management concludes this article.

• Friday 26 March 2021 11:00-12:30

  Emmanuel Kemel (HEC)
  Attitudes towards intervals of probabilities: an experimental investigation

  Abstract

  In his two-color paradox, Ellsberg (1961) argued that most decision makers prefer a risky option giving a prize with probability 0.5 to an ambiguous option giving the same prize with the winning probability lying somewhere between 0 and 1. Many subsequent Ellsberg-like experiments refined the two-color example by focusing on the general case where the winning probability belongs to subintervals. The present paper reports the results of an experimental investigation on attitudes towards bets where the decision maker can get a prize with a winning probability lying somewhere in a given interval. We postulate a model in which decision makers evaluate these ambiguous bets by subjectively combining the values of envelope (extreme) lotteries, whose probabilities correspond to the lower bound and the upper bound of the interval. We elicited this model with data from a laboratory experiment. All the components of the models are estimated at the individual level using econometric modeling. We observe that probability weighting of the upper bound is radically different from probability weighting of the lower bound: the former is concave whereas the latter is convex. Additionally, the convex combination of these two functions allows to recover the inverse-S shape probability weighting generally observed for risk. Therefore, our model not only explains ambiguity attitudes but also offers a new insight to understand the shape of probability weighting under risk. Co-authors: M. Abdellaoui (CNRS & HEC Paris), T. Astebro (HEC Paris) et C. Paraschiv (Université de Paris)

• Friday 19 March 2021 11:00-12:30

  Visionconference only.

  Hugo Mercier (ENS - Institut Jean Nicod)
  Not born Yesterday: Why humans are less gullible than we think.

  Abstract

  It is often thought that humans are gullible, easily manipulated by demagogues, advertisers, and politicians. I will argue that the opposite is true: humans are equipped with a set of psychological mechanisms that allow them to properly evaluate communicated information, and to reject information that is false or harmful. I will rely on experimental psychology data, as well as studies showing the failures of mass persuasion, from Nazi propaganda to American presidential campaigns. I will also offer explanations for the success of some misconceptions—from pizzagate to flat earth—that are not based on credulity.

• Friday 12 March 2021 11:00-12:30

  Visioconference.

  Pietro Ortoleva (Princeton U.)
  Econographics

  Abstract

  We study the pattern of correlations across a large number of behavioral regularities, with the goal of creating an empirical basis for more comprehensive theories of decision-making. We elicit 21 behaviors using an incentivized survey on a representative sample (n = 1,000) of the U.S. population. Our data show a clear and relatively simple structure underlying the correlations between these measures. Using principal components analysis, we reduce the 21 variables to six components corresponding to clear clusters of high correlations. We examine the relationship between these components, cognitive ability, and demographics. Common extant theories explain some of the patterns in our data, but each theory we examine is also inconsistent with some patterns as well. Co-authors : Colin Camerer, Jonathan Chapman, Mark Dean and Erik Snowberg.

• Friday 5 March 2021 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  Christian Zehnder (HEC Lausanne)
  Building an Equilibrium: Rules versus Principles in Relational Contracts

  Abstract

  Effective collaboration within and between organizations requires efficient adaptation to unforeseen change. We study when relational contracts enable parties to achieve this. Specifically, in a novel experiment we explored the hypothesis that basing a relational contract on general principles rather than on specific rules is more successful in achieving efficient adaptation. In our Baseline condition, we indeed observe that, compared to pairs who relied on specific rules, those who articulated general principles achieved significantly higher performance after change occurred. Underlying this correlation, we also find that pairs with principle-based agreements were more likely both to expect and to take actions that were consistent with what their agreement prescribed. To investigate whether there is a causal link between principle-based agreements and performance, we implemented a "Nudge" intervention intended to foster principle-based relational contracts. The Nudge succeeded in causing more pairs to articulate principles, but the intervention failed to increase performance after the shock because many of the pairs induced to articulate principles then did not take actions that were consistent with their agreements. In short, our results suggest that (1) principle-based relational contracts may improve organizational performance, but also that (2) high-performing relational contracts may be difficult to build.

• Friday 12 February 2021 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  Maël Lebreton (univ. of Geneva)
  How affective states bias human beliefs

  Abstract

  Rational decision-making requires accurate beliefs: i.e. subjective probabilistic assessments that best correspond to the objective probability. In this talk, I will present two studies, combining concepts and tools from computational cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, which investigate how affective states can bias our beliefs. In the first study, I will present evidence that anticipatory anxiety lead to the adoption of comforting beliefs or “wishful thinking". In the second study, I will show that confidence judgments - a belief that an action, answer, or statement is correct, based on the available evidence - are systematically biased by the anticipated outcome of a decision. Those two studies, based a similar modus operandi, provide robust evidence for affect-induced belief biases, and illustrate the value of the inter-disciplinary approach to investigate decision-making.

• Friday 5 February 2021 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  Chloé Lecoq (Unv. de Paris Panthéon-Assas)
  How Do Social Entrepreneurs Respond to Rewards? A Field Experiment on Motivations

  Abstract

  We conducted a field experiment to identify the causal effect of extrinsic reward cues on the sorting and performance of nascent social entrepreneurs. The experiment, carried out with one of the United Kingdom’s largest support agencies for social entrepreneurs, encouraged 431 nascent social entrepreneurs to submit a full application for a grant competition that provides cash and in-kind mentoring through a one-time mailing sent by the agency. The applicants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one group received a standard mailing that emphasized the intrinsic incentives of the program, or the opportunity to do good (Social treatment), and the other two groups received a mailing that instead emphasized the extrinsic incentives - either the financial reward (Cash treatment) or the in-kind reward (Support treatment). Our results show that an emphasis on extrinsic incentives has a causal impact on sorting into the applicant pool: the extrinsic reward cues led fewer candidates to apply and “crowded out” the more prosocial candidates while “crowding in” the more money-oriented ones. The extrinsic reward cues also increased application effort, which led these candidates to be more successful in receiving the grant. Yet, the selection resulting from the extrinsic incentive cues led to worse performance at the end of the one-year grant period. Our results highlight the critical role of intrinsic motives in the selection and performance of social enterprises and suggest that using extrinsic incentives to promote the development of successful social enterprises may backfire in the longer run. Co-authors: I. Ganguli and M. Huysentruyt

• Friday 29 January 2021 11:00-12:30

  The "clouds" : 100% VISIO.

  Alberto Prati (Univ. of Oxford)
  Estimating time preferences for leisure".

  Abstract

  We study time preferences by means of a longitudinal lab experiment involving both monetary and non-monetary rewards (leisure). Our novel design allows to measure whether participants prefer to anticipate or delay gratification, without imposing any structural assumption on the instantaneous utility, intertemporal utility and the discounting functions. We find that most people prefer to anticipate monetary rewards (positive time preferences for money), but they delay non-monetary rewards (negative time preferences for leisure). These results cannot be explained by personal timetables and heterogeneous preferences only. They invite to reconsider the psychological interpretation of the discount factor, and suggest that the assumption that discounting is consistent across domains can lead to non-negligible prediction errors in models involving non-monetary decisions, such as labor supply models.
  Co-authors: Maria Bigoni, Davide Dragone and Stéphane Luchini.

• Friday 11 December 2020 11:00-12:30

  Most likely on-line

  [100% Visio] Charlotte Saucet (Sciences Po.)
  Unethical amnesia responds more to instrumental than to hedonic motives

  Abstract

  Humans care about morality. Yet, they often engage in actions that contradict their moral self. Unethical amnesia is observed when people do not remember or remember less vividly these actions. This paper explores two reasons why individuals may experience unethical amnesia. Forgetting past unethical behavior may be motivated by purely hedonic or affective reasons, such as the willingness to maintain one’s moral self-image, but also by instrumental or strategic motives, in anticipation of future misbehavior. In a large-scale incentivized online experiment (n = 1,322) using a variant of a mind game, we find that hedonic considerations are not sufficient to motivate the forgetting of past cheating behavior. This is confirmed in a follow-up experiment (n = 1,005) in which recalls are elicited the same day instead of 3 week apart. However, when unethical amnesia can serve as a justification for a future action, such as deciding on whether to keep undeserved money, motivated forgetting is more likely. Thereby, we show that motivated forgetting occurs as a self-excuse to justify future immoral decisions.
  Co-authors : Fabio Galeotti, Marie Claire Villeval

• Friday 4 December 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  Bo Sanitioso (U. of Paris)
  Age-based stereotype threat and performance of the elderly: Comparison France vs Indonesia.

  Abstract

  The research concerns the impact of stereotypes of the elderly on their performance on a memory task. The studies examined specifically the role of contact with the young (intergenerational contact) and situational anxiety in the stereotype threat-performance link, in two populations: French and Indonesian elderly. Intergenerational contact has beneficial effects i.e. it buffers the deleterious effects of stereotype threat on the performance of the elderly participants in both countries. Importantly, though anxiety mediates the threat – performance link in both populations, country/culture influences the type of anxiety that predominates: Performance anxiety for the French, and Intergroup anxiety for the Indonesians. This was partly explained by the self-construal associated with individualistic (France) and collectivistic (Indonesia) cultures, which may determine how the threat situation is perceived by the participants.

• Friday 20 November 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S18)

  [CANCELLED] Florence Jusot (U. Paris-Daphine)
  TBA

• Friday 6 November 2020 11:00-12:30

  Zoom Visioconference

  [100% Visio] Fabio Galeotti (GATE CNRS Lyon)
  Teaching Norms in the Streets

  Abstract

  We study parents’ socialization efforts by examining their enforcement of a social norm in the presence of their child in a quasi-field experiment conducted in the vicinity of elementary schools. We find that parents accompanying children, in contrast to parents alone, are more likely to punish a norm violator and to provide help when there is no violation. However, they do not withhold help more often as a means of indirect punishment. We are able to discard alternative explanations related to the perceived social norm, social image concerns, and the fear of retaliation. This leads us to isolate the educative motive behind norm enforcement behavior.

• Friday 9 October 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  [POSTPONED] Charlotte Saucet (Sciences Po.)
  Unethical amnesia responds more to Instrumental than to Hedonic motives

  Abstract

  The replacement date will be announced ASAP.
  Abstract:
  Humans care about morality. Yet, they often engage in actions that contradict their moral self. Unethical amnesia is observed when people do not remember or remember less vividly these actions. This paper explores two reasons why individuals may experience unethical amnesia. Forgetting past unethical behavior may be motivated by purely hedonic or affective reasons, such as the willingness to maintain one’s moral self-image, but also by instrumental or strategic motives, in anticipation of future misbehavior. In a large-scale incentivized online experiment (n = 1,322) using a variant of a mind game, we find that hedonic considerations are not sufficient to motivate the forgetting of past cheating behavior. This is confirmed in a follow-up experiment (n = 1,005) in which recalls are elicited the same day instead of 3 wk apart. However, when unethical amnesia can serve as a justification for a future action, such as deciding on whether to keep undeserved money, motivated forgetting is more likely. Thereby, we show that motivated forgetting occurs as a self-excuse to justify future immoral decisions.

• Friday 25 September 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S18)

  Valentin Wyart (ENS Paris)
  The surprising role of cognitive limitations in human learning and decision-making in adverse environments

  Abstract

  Efficient learning and decision-making in adverse environments constitutes a difficult challenge for human and machine intelligence. It requires inferring latent properties of one’s environment on the basis of conflicting and unreliable evidence. This cognitive inference process has been studied across a wide range of vastly different paradigms, from categorizing ambiguous stimuli (perceptual decisions) to choosing among sources of rewards (economic decisions). In this talk, I will present the research framework developed in my group for characterizing the similarities and differences between perceptual and economic decisions, something which had previously proven difficult for both theoretical and experimental reasons. First, I will show that the accuracy of perceptual and economic decisions is bounded not by sensory errors nor by choice stochasticity, but by the limited precision of cognitive inference. Neuroimaging, pupillometric and pharmacological evidence suggest a key role for the noradrenergic system in controlling inference precision. I will then describe how implementing this biological constraint in artificial neural networks boosts their cognitive resilience to conflicting evidence, in a way that strikingly resembles human cognition in similar conditions. These findings suggest that human intelligence rides on the limited precision of neural computations to promote adaptive behavior in adverse environments without any engineered cognitive sophistication.

• Friday 29 May 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 114)

  [CANCELLED] Chloé Lecoq (Stockholm Sch. of Econ.)
  TBA

• Friday 15 May 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 115)

  [CANCELLED] Pierpaolo Battigali (U. Bocconi)
  TBA

• Friday 27 March 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 114)

  [CANCELLED] Christoph Vanberg (U. Heidelberg)
  TBA

• Friday 20 March 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 115)

  [CANCELLED] Maël Lebreton (U. of Geneva)
  How affective states bias human beliefs

  Abstract

  Rational decision-making requires accurate beliefs: i.e. subjective probabilistic assessments that best correspond to the objective probability that they are meant to represent. In this talk, I will present two studies, combining concepts and tools from computational cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, which investigate how affective states can bias our beliefs. In the first study, I will show that confidence judgments - a belief that an action, answer, or statement is correct, based on the available evidence - are systematically biased by the anticipated average outcome of a decision. In the second study, I will present evidence that anticipatory anxiety lead to the adoption of comforting (biased) beliefs or “wishful thinking". Those two studies, based a similar modus operandi, provide robust evidence for affect-induced belief biases, and illustrate the value of the inter-disciplinary approach to investigate decision-making.

• Friday 13 March 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 114)

  [CANCELLED] Christian Zehnder (HEC Lausanne)
  On building a conflict culture in organizations

  Abstract

  Although conflicts are typically associated with negative emotions and waste of resources, organizations may still benefit from a corporate culture that tolerates or even encourages conflicts. The reason is that coordinated conflicts can help to enforce informal contracts and foster cooperation. In this paper we report results of a series of laboratory experiments designed to explore whether and under what conditions an efficiency-enhancing conflict culture can emerge. Using a principal-worker setup with subjective performance evaluation, we show that establishing a functional conflict culture is a delicate matter. If conflicts are encouraged in a careless, hands-off manner, the destructive side of conflicts is likely to dominate. To be successful a conflict culture requires a careful management of fairness norms. In our experiment we find that conflicts have positive net effects on efficiency only if an explicit code of conduct is established and conflicts are institutionalized through a grievance process. Thus, providing workers with more power may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for improving productivity when performance evaluations are subjective. Co-authors: W. Bentley Macleod, Victoria Valle Lara

• Friday 6 March 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 114)

  Arno Riedl (Maastricht Univ.)
  Fairness and Coordination: The Role of Fairness Ideals in Coordination Failure and Success

  Abstract

  We study the role of fairness ideals as focal points in coordination problems in homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. We elicit participants’ own normative contribution vectors in a threshold public good problem as well as their expectations about others’ normative contribution vectors. We find that in homogeneous and heterogeneous groups participants’ normative ideas of how to solve the coordination problem are reflecting well-defined prominent fairness ideals. In homogeneous groups participants overwhelmingly agree on a unique fairness ideal, whereas in heterogeneous groups multiple conflicting fairness ideals prevail. In a subsequent repeated threshold public good game, homogeneous groups are more likely to provide the public good and they do so more efficiently than heterogeneous groups. Homogeneous and heterogeneous groups are similarly likely to overcome failure to provide the public good but heterogeneous groups are less likely to sustain provision. In both types of groups, contribution vectors that are in accordance with any of the fairness ideals are highly stable. The difference between the types of groups can be traced back to the disagreement over fairness ideals which makes it much harder for heterogeneous groups to reach public good provision in accordance with these ideals. Individual level analysis reveals that in heterogeneous groups, participants are less likely to change their behavior if their groups contribute according to a fairness ideal, even if this fairness ideal is in conflict with their own normative contribution vector.

• Friday 7 February 2020 11:00-12:30

  MSE (6th floor room)

  Alessandra Casella (Columbia)
  Democracy and Intensity of Preferences. A Test of Storable Votes and Quadratic Voting on Four California Propositions

  Abstract

  Can direct democracy overcome the "Problem of Intensity", treating everyone equally and yet allowing an intense minority to prevail if, but only if, the majority’s preferences are weak? Storable Votes (SV) and Quadratic Voting (QV) propose possible solutions. We test their performance in two samples of California residents using data on four initiatives prepared for the 2016 California ballot. As per design, both systems induce some minority victories while our measure of aggregate welfare increases, relative to majority voting, and ex post inequality in welfare declines. Co-author: Luis Sanchez

• Friday 13 December 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 115)

  Maria Devetag (LUISS)
  The Key Role of Visual Coordination in the Formation of Collective Routinized Actions

  Abstract

  To date the mechanism by which human interactions in the workplace are quickly and efficiently converted into collective routinized actions is still substantially obscure. To explain the organizational process underlying routine formation, scholars have often used the analogy with the habit system, working at the individual level. However, the mechanism by which habits are developed – i.e., deliberate learning and action repetition – is not able to explain the rapid diffusion of routines in organizations. We argue that a putative mechanism by which organizational routines are developed is offered by the Mirror Neurons’ System (MNS), a neuro-functional network which is responsible for action anticipation and social coordination mechanisms. Hence, here we sought to investigate the role of MNS in routines formation in a laboratory experiment wherein dyads played a session of the Target-the-Two game (i.e., TTT), in which we manipulated the extent to which participants could take advantage of visual information about the other player’s move. The results showed that when visual coordination is allowed within dyads’ interactions, routinization is extraordinary fast, but less accurate. Conversely, in absence of visual coordination participants were able to perform their task with higher accuracy, but lower speed. Overall, our results suggest that the presence of visual coordination can act as a regulator of the well-known speed-accuracy trade-off in the performance of collective actions. Further, the development of an efficient routinization process appeared to be supported by a neural mechanism (i.e., MNS) that favors coordination across interacting individuals, via an action anticipation mechanism. Co-authors: Cinzia Calluso, Alessandro Marino, Andrea Prencipe

• Friday 6 December 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  CANCELLED: Maël Lebreton (U. of Geneva)
  Contextual biases in confidence judgments .

  Abstract

  Confidence judgments can be formalized as a subjective probabilistic assessments that an action, answer, or statement is correct, based on the available evidence. In order to optimally re-evaluate previous choices or to efficiently arbitrate between different decision-strategies, we need such confidence judgments to be accurate and unbiased. In this talk, I will present several studies – building on experimental and computational tools from perceptual decision-making, behavioral economics and reinforcement-learning- , which demonstrate that confidence judgments are systematically biased by the context value, i.e. the anticipated average outcome of a decision. This typically translates into individuals being more confident in their choices when decisions involve potential gains than when they involve potential losses, even when difficulty and performance are equal in those two contexts. Our results furthermore suggest that the biasing effect of context-value on confidence is domain-general, with likely important functional consequences.

• Friday 22 November 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S17)

  Jana Jarecki (U. Basel)
  New Perspectives on Risk Perception and Choice

  Abstract

  Risk behavior is a widely-studied topic that interests research and practitioners alike. I present new data on risk perception and risk preferences. The first line of work focuses on the risk-return paradox, which is an apparent bias in financial risk perception according to which people believe that returns decrease with risks, which does not match the financial market, in which returns often increase with risk (i.e., variance). In two studies we explain this bias by the semantics of risk. We hypothesized and found that the risk-return paradox is caused by that people understand the term risk to mean loss (not variance). We were able to make the paradox disappear by simply changing the question format. Our data show new avenues for the measurements of subjective risk perceptions. The second experimental work shows that risk preferences is not a stable personality trait, contrary to widely-held scientific beliefs. We used a risk-sensitivity manipulation, where participants were confronted with a requirement they need to reach by accumulating risky resources over time. We hypothesized and found that risk preferences were not stable but shifted such that people take more risks if requirements are high and less risks otherwise. Cognitive modeling of the risky choices reveals that an aspiration-level strategy describes the risky choices very well. Both these results call into question the traditional measurement and conceptions of human risk cognition and provide new avenues for risk research.

• Friday 8 November 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S17)

  Bernard Fortin (Uni. Laval)
  Peer Effects in Networks

  Abstract

  We survey the recent, fast-growing literature on peer effects in networks. An important recurring theme is that the causal identification of peer effects depends on the structure of the network itself. In the absence of correlated effects, the reflection problem is generally solved by network interactions even in non-linear, heterogeneous models. By contrast, microfoundations are generally not identified without imposing more structure to the model. We discuss and assess the various approaches developed by economists to account for correlated effects and network endogeneity in particular. We classify these approaches in four broad categories: random peers, random shocks, structural endogeneity and panel data. We review an emerging literature relaxing the assumption that the network is perfectly known. Throughout, we provide a critical reading of the existing literature and identify important gaps and directions for future research. Co-authors: Yann Bramoullé, Habiba Djebbari

• Friday 25 October 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S17)

  CANCELLED: Peter Wakker (Erasmus Univ. Rotterdam)
  Prince: An Improved General Method for Measuring Preferences

  Abstract

  We introduce the prior incentive system (Prince) for measuring preferences. Prince makes the decision relevance and incentive compatibility of experimental choice questions clearer to subjects than was possible before. It combines the efficiency and precision of matching with an improved clarity and validity of choice questions. It helps distinguish between (a) genuine deviations from classical theories (such as the endowment effect) and (b) preference anomalies due to fallible measurements (such as preference reversals). Prince avoids (a) The opaqueness of the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak incentive system; (b) violations of isolation of the random incentive system; and (c) strategic behavior for adaptive experiments. Using Prince we shed new light on willingness to accept, subjective probabilities and utilities, and risk and ambiguity attitudes. Not only did we avoid any deception of subjects in our experiment, but, moreover, every subject could verify so during the experiment. In a comparative experiment, Prince outperforms a classical preference measurement.
  Co-authors: Cathleen Johnson, Aurélien Baillon, Han Bleichrodt, Zhihua Li, and Dennie van Dolder

• Friday 11 October 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S17)

  Marius Usher (Tel Aviv Univ.)
  Holistic intuition: From population codes to complex decisions

• Friday 4 October 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  Nathan Larson (American Univ.)
  Price Discrimination in the Information Age: Prices, Poaching, and Privacy with Personalized Targeted Discounts

  Abstract

  We study list price competition when firms can individually target discounts (at a cost) to consumers afterwards, and we address recent privacy regulation (such as the GDPR) that has allowed consumers to choose whether to opt in to targeting. Targeted consumers receive poaching and retention discount offers. For plausible demand conditions, and if targeting costs are not too low, firms and consumers are both worse off with unrestricted targeting than if it were banned, and list prices are higher.
  We next suppose that consumers suffer from lost privacy if targeted. Under an opt-in policy, consumers opt in only when expected discounts exceed these privacy costs. Alert consumers consider list prices before making this choice; inattentive consumers do not. Under empirically plausible conditions, opt-in choice makes all consumers better off if they are alert, but can make consumers worse off if they are inattentive.
  Co-authors: Simon Anderson, Alicia Baik

• Friday 27 September 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S17)

  Charles Bellemare (Univ. Laval)
  Self-confidence and reactions to subjective performance evaluations

• Friday 19 April 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 114)

  José de Sousa (U. Paris Sud)
  Trickle-Down Affirmative Action: A Case Study in Chess

  Abstract

  In 1990, France introduced a gender quota in its chess club competitions. We use this
  institutional change to assess the overall effects of a quota on gender vertical segrega-
  tion. This change is unique because we have a clear idea of how well chess players
  perform, even for those who have not directly benefited from the quota. Moreover,
  sufficient time has elapsed since the introduction of the quota to evaluate its long-
  term effects. We find that more women have entered the chess market over time but
  their participation in club competitions has never exceeded the mandatory rate. How-
  ever, we find that the quality of women has improved considerably in absolute and
  also relative terms when compared to Belgium, where no gender quotas have been
  introduced.
  Co-author: Muriel Niederle (Stanford)

• Friday 12 April 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 114)

  Kirsten Rohde (Erasmus)
  Intertemporal Correlation Aversion

  Abstract

  We study attitudes towards intertemporal correlation. In an experiment we elicited certainty equivalents of intertemporal lotteries. We compare these certainty equivalents between positively, negatively, and uncorrelated risks, which allows for a non-parametric assessment of degrees of correlation aversion. We investigate whether the degree of correlation aversion is sensitive to a particular type of framing and to the timing of resolution of uncertainty. The results show that our subjects are intertemporal correlation averse. Moreover, the certainty equivalents and the degrees of correlation aversion depend on the framing in some cases and do not depend on the timing of the resolution of uncertainty.
  Co-author : Xiao Yu

• Friday 29 March 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 114)

  Michal Krawczyk (Warsaw U.)
  Positive reviews are associated with a higher price, not greater integrity. A field experiment with auto repair shops.

  Abstract

  We run a field experiment in the auto-repair market, pretending to be incompetent customers, thereby giving the mechanics an opportunity to offer a service which is in fact clearly not yet needed (overtreatment). In doing so, we manipulate the model of the car (cheap vs. expensive), the gender of the customer, and whether they imply having visited the garage before or not. We also link these data with a data set of online customer reviews, asking if positive (negative) opinions are valuable signals of honest (dishonest) behaviour. We are aware of just one experiment in a credence good market to do so (Kerschbamer et al., 2019). It turns out that females and owners of more expensive cars are more likely to be overtreated (although the latter effect is only weakly significant) whereas customers reviews are not an important predictor. Perhaps not surprisingly, the price quotes are higher for more expensive cars (although the actual cost of the service that would be incurred by the shop is the same) and in richer regions. Shops with a greater number of positive customer reviews and shops with no negative reviews are found to charge more, possibly because they can hope to find customers anyway. Other variables we have experimentally manipulated (returning vs. new customer) or measured (size of settlement, density of local competition, distance from the highway) seem to play no role.
  Co-author: Jarosław Nazarczuk

• Friday 15 March 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 114)

  Radu Vranceanu (ESSEC)
  Pledges as a Social Influence Device: Theory and Experimental Evidence

  Abstract

  This paper analyzes the communication game between two persons asked to jointly contribute to a charity. Each person’s endowment is private information available only to him. In the first stage, each agent informs the other about the amount he intends to give. In the second stage, each agent makes an effective gift. We show that, with identical agents, the equilibrium pledge is a linear function in the endowment of the agent. Furthermore, if agents have a strong taste for conformity, the optimal gift is positively related to one’s own endowment and to the pledge of his partner. An original lab experiment reveals that subjects pledge approximately 60% of their endowment. In line with theory, pledges have an important social influence role: an agent will increase his donation by 20 cents on average if his partner pledges one more euro.

• Friday 15 February 2019 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 115)

  Ido Erev (Technion and the University of Warwick)
  On Nudges, Fake News, and the Impact of Experience on Choice Behavior

  Abstract

  Basic decision research highlights large differences between decisions that are made based on a description of the incentive structure (like the situations studied by Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), and decisions that are made based on past experience. Decision makers tend to overweight rare events in decisions from description, and experience triggers the opposite bias (Barron & Erev, 2003). These results can be captured with the assumptions that (1) people tend to select the option that provided the best outcomes in small set similar situations in the past, and (2) experience increases the probability of relying on truly similar situations. The current paper reviews this research, and clarifies its predictions of the impact of nudges and fake news. Under our analysis, fake news is an example of nudge (it is an aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives). The initial impact of nudges is overgeneralization of situations that seem similar to the current task. The effect is robust to experience when the initial behavior minimizes the probability of regret.

• Friday 7 December 2018 11:00-12:30

  JOURDAN, R2-01

  Theo Offerman (U. van Amsterdam)
  Information revelation and behavioral biases in auctions

  Abstract

  Theoretically, the ascending auction is praised because it allows bidders to infer information from other bidders’ bidding during the auction. Another potential advantage of this format is that behavioral biases can be eliminated in an open, competitive process. In experimental common value auctions, we investigate these possible advantages. We compare bidding behavior in three clock auctions that all make use of a second-price rule, (i) the second-price auction; (ii) the Japanese-English auction and (iii) the Open Outcry auction. When deciding on their bids in the Japanese-English auction, we find that bidders assign similar weights to the previous dropout as the Bayesian signal averaging rule predicts, which differs systematically from what would be expected on the basis of a rational benchmark. In addition, what can be inferred from early dropouts is partly obfuscated by unobservable individual idiosyncracies, such as variation in the extent to which people imitate, and variation in the extent to which social preferences affect bidding. As a result, information aggregation in the Japanese-English auction fails, and revenues are very similar in the second-price and Japanese-English auctions. The Oral Outcry auction aggravates some behavioral patterns and raises higher revenue as a result. It stimulates bidders to submit jumpbids that decrease their expected profits. It also activates a pseudo-endowment effect that further diminishes profits.
  Co-authors: Giorgia Romagnoli and Andreas Ziegler

• Friday 30 November 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 115)

  Mathias Pessiglione (ICM)
  Neural state matters: how mood and fatigue affects economic choice

• Friday 23 November 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 115)

  Aurélien Baillon (Erasmus)
  Bayesian elicitation of unverifiable truths

  Abstract

  Economists use (monetary) incentives in experiments and data collection to ensure that respondents will answer honestly and will carefully consider their answer. Such incentives are possible when respondents have to make choices or have to report their beliefs about observable events. But can we incentivize respondents to reveal information that is unverifiable, such as thoughts, feelings, past behavior, or beliefs about unobservable events? The lecture will present several Bayesian mechanisms incentivizing truth telling for unverifiable information. These mechanisms share a Bayesian framework in which respondents’ own answer is correlated with what the respondents think about the others. For instance, on Bayesian markets, respondents bet on what others will respond. The effectiveness of the mechanisms will be illustrated with several empirical studies.

• Friday 16 November 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 115)

  Bernard Fortin (U. Laval)
  Gender and Peer Effects on Performance in Social Networks

  Abstract

  Abstract:
  We investigate whether peer effects at work differ by gender and whether the differences -if any- depend on work organization. We develop a social network model with gender heterogeneity that we test using a real-effort laboratory experiment. We compare unidirectional networks (with a one-way information flow) and bidirectional networks (with a two-way information flow). Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that competitive rivalry is the basic mechanism through which peer effects influence individuals’ behavior. Males and females behave differently. The former are influenced by their peers in both types of networks whereas the latter are indifferent to their peers’ performance in bidirectional networks. An interpretation is that females perceive the bidirectional networks as being more competitive.
  Co-authors: Julie Beugnot, Guy Lacroix, Marie Claire Villeval

  1 document to download

  • info document (PDF, 718.6 kb)

• Friday 26 October 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/17)

  Charles Bellemare & Sabine Kröger (U. Laval)
  2 presentations

  Abstract

  "Physical Disability and Labor Market Discrimination: Evidence from a Field Experiment" by Charles Bellemare (co-authors : Marion Goussé, Guy Lacroix, Steeve Marchand)
  "Information Feedback in a Portfolio Choice Experiment with Ambiguity and Myopic Loss Aversion" by Sabine Kröger (co-authors: Marius Sossou, Charles Bellemare).

• Friday 12 October 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/17)

  Daniel Halbheer (HEC)
  Consumer resistance

  Abstract

  This paper shows that reference-dependent preferences trigger consumer resistance
  and studies how such consumer behavior impacts pricing and cost communication.
  We show that consumer resistance reduces the pricing power and profit of the firm.
  We also show that consumer resistance may provide an incentive for the firm to
  engage in cost transparency. While cheap communication does not affect consumer
  behavior, we demonstrate that persuasive communication may increase sales and
  profit. Finally, we establish that a firm can benefit from operational transparency if
  cost is monotone increasing in the quality of the production process.
  Joint work with Marco Bertini and Stefan Buehler.

• Friday 22 June 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/17)

  Botond Kőszegi (CEU)
  Browsing versus Studying: A Pro-Market Case for Regulation

  Abstract

  We identify a novel competition-policy-based argument for regulating the secondary features of complex or complexly-priced products when consumers have limited attention. We study a market in which each firm chooses two price components, a headline price and an additional price, and a consumer can either fully understand the offer of one firm (studying), or look at only the headline prices of two firms (browsing). Regulations capping the additional price or standardizing conditions under which the additional price can be charged lower prices and increase consumer welfare in a variety of environments. The core mechanism is simple: because consumers do not need to worry about regulated features, they can devote more attention to browsing, enhancing competition. Extending our model to multiple markets, we show that the
  benefits of regulating one market may manifest themselves in other markets, and that in order to have a non-trivial pro-competitive effect, the regulations in question must be sufficiently broad in scope. As an auxiliary positive prediction, we show that because low-value consumers are often more likely to study than high-value consumers, the average price consumers pay can be increasing in the share of low-value consumers. This prediction helps explain why a number of essential products are more expensive in lower-income neighborhoods.
  Co-authors: Paul Heidhues, Johannes Johnen

• Friday 18 May 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/17)

  Konstantinos Tsetsos (UKE, Hambourg)
  Mechanisms of irrational preference construction

  Abstract

  There is nothing wrong in believing that A (e.g. salad) is better than B (e.g. fish); but there is something awry in believing that A is both better and worse than B. Years of research within the cognitive and decision sciences has demonstrated time and again that human choices are at odds with rational choice theory. For instance, people reverse their initial preference for A (e.g. fruit salad) over B (e.g. today’s cheesecake) when a third irrelevant alternative C (e.g. yesterday’s cheesecake) becomes available. Similarly, people show inconsistent (or intransitive) preference patterns, preferring A over B, B over C but C over A. What do these paradoxical behavioural patterns tell us about the neurocognitive processes that underlie preference formation? And, importantly, why preference formation processes that give rise to irrational decision-making survived natural evolution? These questions have not been sufficiently addressed, partly because preferential decisions (such as choosing to buy or to rent a house) involve sampling and integration over rich value information that is rarely under experimental control. To circumvent this problem, and inspired by research in perception and visual psychophysics, I will present a novel paradigm (termed “value psychophysics”) that abstracts complex decision problems into simple, well-controlled, information-integration experiments. I will show that classical paradoxes such as violations of regularity and transitivity as well as framing and risk biases can be obtained in this simple psychophysical task. A single mechanism, based on selective attention towards relatively more valuable samples of incoming information, underlies all these phenomena. I will demonstrate that this selective integration mechanism outperforms the statistically optimal choice algorithm (in terms of choice accuracy) under the assumption that moderate levels of noise corrupt the information integration process downstream sensory representation. Thus, violations of rational choice theory do not disclose fundamental limitations in human processing capacity but they rather reflect adaptive neural computations.
  The presentation will be based on two published articles :
  http://www.pnas.org/content/109/24/9659.full
  http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/02/24/1519157113.full

• Friday 4 May 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S 17)

  Christos Ioannou (Univ. Southampton)
  An Experimental Study of Uncertainty in Coordination Games

  Abstract

  Global games and Poisson games have been proposed to address equilibrium indeterminacy in Common Knowledge Coordination games, where fundamentals are commonly known by all players. Global games assume that agents face idiosyncratic uncertainty about economic fundamentals, whereas Poisson games model the number of actual players as a Poisson random variable to capture population uncertainty in large games. The present study investigates in a controlled setup, using as controls Common Knowledge Coordination games, whether idiosyncratic uncertainty about economic fundamentals or uncertainty about the number of actual players may influence subjects’ behavior. Our findings suggest that uncertainty about the number of actual players has a more significant impact on subjects’ behavior than idiosyncratic uncertainty about economic fundamentals. Furthermore, subjects’ behavior under Poisson population-size uncertainty is closer to the respective theoretical prediction than subjects’ behavior under idiosyncratic uncertainty about economic fundamentals.

• Friday 6 April 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/1)

  Aniol Llorente-Saguer (Queen Mary Univ.)
  Runoff elections in the Lab

  Abstract

  We study experimentally the majority runoff system and compare its properties to these ones of plurality rule in the setup of divided majority. This comparison is motivated by the theoretical prediction that plurality tends to produce (weakly) higher coordination of votes on two parties, giving rise to Duverger’s Law equilibria. The experiment shows similar levels of coordination under both mechanisms, even when sincere voting is an equilibrium under runoff. Behaviour seems to be explained by limited understanding on the runoff system and by overweighting the likelihood of outright victory in the first round. We explore this hypothesis in additional treatments where the incentives to coordinate are minimized.

• Friday 23 March 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/1)

  Mathieu Lefebvre (BETA, Univ. Strasbourg)
  Compensating for the Risk: Experimental Evidence on Giving in Risky Environments

  Abstract

  We investigate if and how individual giving decisions are affected in risky environments in which the recipient’s wealth is random. We observe that some influential inequality aversion theories have opposite predictions when we consider ex-post view of fairness and we report on dictator games laboratory experiments in which we carefully manipulate the riskiness of the recipient’s wealth. Our experimental data show no statistically significant impact of the recipient’s risk exposure on dictators’ giving decisions. This result is robust to both the experimental design (within or between subjects) and to the origin of the recipient’s risk exposure (chosen by the recipient or imposed to the recipient).

• Friday 16 March 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 117)

  Benoît Tarroux (CREM, Univ. Rennes 1)
  The value of tax progressivity: Evidence from survey experiment

  Abstract

  The aim of this paper is to investigate how people value tax progressivity. More precisely, I study the potential trade-off between any improvement in the final income distribution and progressivity of the tax schedule. To do this, I designed survey experiments, in which respondents were asked to rank different taxation-redistribution schemes with different treatments varying in terms of information availability: (1) when only information about final incomes is provided; and (2) when information about average tax rates is also available. Using a within-subject design, the instability of ranking between (1) and (2) indicates whether or not respondents value tax progressivity. I find that information about tax rates significantly affects respondents’ judgments about tax schemes. They exhibit a strong preference for tax progressivity: i.e., they accept a fall in the final income distribution in exchange for tax progressivity. The results of an additional treatment suggest that the mere fact of providing a new information cannot account for this finding.

• Friday 9 February 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/1)

  Marie Claire Villeval (CNRS, GATE Lyon)
  The spillover effects of monitoring institution on unethical behavior across contexts

  Abstract

  We report on a field experiment conducted in public transportation and on the streets of a large city to study whether there are cross-context spillover effects of monitoring and punishment institution on unethical behavior. In the experiment, we first observe dishonesty in a natural setting (fare evasion in public transport), and then we expose subjects to an opportunity for unethical behavior in a different setting (accepting undeserved money on the street). This enables us to test (i) whether sanctioning fraud has a deterrence effect on fare-dodgers when they are exposed to a new opportunity to misbehave, and (ii) whether being inspected has any effect on the behavior of honest passengers in the new context. Our results show that monitoring increases the unethical behavior of both fare-dodgers and non-fare-dodgers in the second unrelated context. The crowding-out effect of monitoring across contexts increases in the number of inspectors. Our experiment rules out traditional explanations related to negative reciprocity which are typically proposed in single-context settings, and shows the importance of considering the spillover effets of institutions across contexts. Co-authors: Fabio Galeotti, Valeria Maggian

• Friday 2 February 2018 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/1)

  Paolo Crosetto (INRA-GAEL)
  Safe options induce gender differences in risk attitudes

  Abstract

  Gender differences in risk attitudes are frequently observed, although recent literature has shown that they are context dependent rather than ubiquitous. In this paper we try to rationalize the heterogeneity of results investigating experimentally whether the presence of a safe option among the set of alternatives explains why females are more risk averse than males. We manipulate three widely used risk elicitation methods finding that the availability of a safe option causally affects risk attitudes. The presence of a riskless alternative does not entirely explain the gender gap but it has a significant effect in triggering or magnifying (when already present) such differences. Despite the pronounced instability that usually characterizes the measurement of risk preferences, we show estimating a structural model that the effect of a safe option is remarkably stable across tasks. This paper constitutes the first successful attempt to shed light on the determinants of gender differences in risk attitudes.

  1 document to download

  • info document (PDF, 2.2 Mb)

• Friday 8 December 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (S/17)

  Laurent Denant-Boemont (Univ. Rennes 1, CREM)
  Urban Sprawl, Transport Emissions and Compact City Policies: A Laboratory Experiment

• Friday 10 November 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (S/17)

  Brice Corgnet (EM Lyon, GATE)
  Stressing You Out for Your Own Bad! Reward Uncertainty and Work Addiction

• Friday 27 October 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/17)

  Gary Charness (UC Santa Barbara)
  Choices Over Biased Information Structures: Reinforcement, Confirmation And Contradiction Seeking Behavior In The Laboratory

  Abstract

  (with Ryan Oprea and Sevgi Yuksel)
  We study choices among information structures that are characterized by different biases. Bias is introduced via either distortion, through possibility of false reports as in cheap talk games of Crawford and Sobel (1982), or via filtering, through possibility of strategic omission of information as in disclosure games of Milgrom and Roberts (1986). The experimental design exploits how the optimal information structure depends on one’s prior and the form of the bias- filtering or distortion. Typing subjects based on their choices in a series of questions spanning these cases, we find strong evidence for confirmation, contradiction and certainty seeking behavior. This is particularly surprising given that traditional explanations for confirmation or contradiction seeking behavior are shut down in our design. Finally, we do not observe bias in choices over information structures to be correlated with biases in how signals are later interpreted. We discuss implications of our results in the context of political information and the role of media bias.

• Friday 6 October 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (S/17)

  Georg Weizssacker (Humboldt Univ. Berlin)
  Learning from Realized versus Unrealized Prices

  Abstract

  (joint with Kathleen Ngangoué, NYU) Our experiments investigate the extent to which traders learn from the price, differentiating between situations where orders are submitted before versus after the price has realized. In simultaneous markets with bids that are conditional on the price, traders neglect the information conveyed by the hypothetical value of the price. In sequential markets where the price is known prior to the bid submission, traders react to price to an extent that is roughly consistent with the benchmark theory. The difference’s robustness to a number of variations provides insights about the drivers of this effect.

• Friday 29 September 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/17)

  Daniel Zizzo (Newcastle Univ.)
  Unlawful media consumption: A controlled experiment with a representative sample

  Abstract

  Co-authors: Sven Fischer (BENC and Newcastle University), Piers Fleming (University of East Anglia)

  1 document to download

  • info document (PDF, 3.2 Mb)

• Friday 22 September 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room S/17)

  Jörgen Weibull (Stockholm School of Econ.)
  Strategic Behavior of Moralists and Altruists

  Abstract

  Does altruism and morality lead to socially better outcomes in strategic interactions than selfishness? We shed some light on this complex and non-trivial issue by examining a few canonical strategic interactions played by egoists, altruists and moralists. By altruists, we mean people who do not only care about their own material payoffs but also about those to others, and, by a moralist, we mean someone who cares about own material payoff and also about what would be his or her material payoff if others were to act like himself or herself. It turns out that both altruism and morality may improve or worsen equilibrium outcomes, depending on the nature of the game. Not surprisingly, both altruism and morality improve the outcomes in standard public goods games. In infinitely repeated games, however, both altruism and morality may diminish the prospects of cooperation, and to different degrees. In coordination games, morality can eliminate socially inefficient equilibria while altruism cannot.
  Co-authored with Ingela Alger

  1 document to download

  • info document (PDF, 234.1 kb)

• Friday 23 June 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE, room 116

  Erich Kirchler (Univ. Vienna)
  Backfiring of Tax Audits and the Importance to Invest in Trust

• Friday 5 May 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (6th floor room)

  Pablo Brañas Garza (Middlesex Univ. London)
  ‘Born this Way’?: Prenatal Exposure to Testosterone May Determine Conflict Behavior

  Abstract

  It is documented that fetal exposure to sexual hormones have long lasting effects on human behavior. The second-to-fourth digit ratio is a putative marker for prenatal exposure to testosterone (compared to estrogens) while in uterus with higher relative exposure to testosterone results in lower digit ratio. Although the existing literature documents the effect of digit ratio in making various decisions, no study till date studies the effects in strategic situations – especially in conflicts. We fill in this gap by observing the effects in conflict behavior. Based on a previously obtained large representative sample of volunteer student subjects, we selectively invite subjects to the experimental laboratory if their right-hand digit ratio is in the top (High type) or bottom (Low type) tercile for their gender. Unbeknownst to the subjects, we perform a controlled match of High and Low types as opponents in a 2-person rent-seeking Tullock contest. Each subject takes part in the 15-round contest twice, once against a subject of her own type and once against a subject of the other type. We find that low digit ratio males expend significantly higher effort than their high digit ratio counterparts, that is, they are more aggressive. The results go in the opposed direction for females: Low types are more strategic.
  Co-authors: Subhasish M. Chowdhury, Antonio M. Espin, Jeroen Nieboer

• Tuesday 2 May 2017 18:51-19:51

  MSE (6th floor room)

  Pablo Brañas Garza (Middlesex Univ. London)
  ‘Born this Way’?: Prenatal Exposure to Testosterone May Determine Conflict Behavior

  Abstract

  It is documented that fetal exposure to sexual hormones have long lasting effects on human behavior. The second-to-fourth digit ratio is a putative marker for prenatal exposure to testosterone (compared to estrogens) while in uterus with higher relative exposure to testosterone results in lower digit ratio. Although the existing literature documents the effect of digit ratio in making various decisions, no study till date studies the effects in strategic situations – especially in conflicts. We fill in this gap by observing the effects in conflict behavior. Based on a previously obtained large representative sample of volunteer student subjects, we selectively invite subjects to the experimental laboratory if their right-hand digit ratio is in the top (High type) or bottom (Low type) tercile for their gender. Unbeknownst to the subjects, we perform a controlled match of High and Low types as opponents in a 2-person rent-seeking Tullock contest. Each subject takes part in the 15-round contest twice, once against a subject of her own type and once against a subject of the other type. We find that low digit ratio males expend significantly higher effort than their high digit ratio counterparts, that is, they are more aggressive. The results go in the opposed direction for females: Low types are more strategic.
  Co-authors: Subhasish M. Chowdhury, Antonio M. Espin, Jeroen Nieboer

• Friday 28 April 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (6th floor room)

  Ralph Hertwig (MPI Berlin) (CANCELLED)
  TBA

• Friday 31 March 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (6th floor room)

  Martin Kocher (U. Munich)
  Immigration, Discrimination, and Naturalization: Combining a Natural Experiment with a Large-Scale Trust Experiment in Schools

  Abstract

  A fundamental aspect of migrant integration pertains inter-personal interactions between natives and immigrants. Ingrained in such interactions are issues of group identity which may give rise to phenomena such as favoritism and discrimination. We have (i) run an artefactual field experiment—that is, a version of the trust game—with a large, representative sample of German adolescents; (ii) allowed participants to condition their strategies on the migration background of their opponents; and (iii) matched the experimental data with individual background information from an extensive, self-conducted survey. In a first step, we document an interesting, heterogeneous pattern of discrimination: children with migrational backgrounds strongly discriminate in their trust decisions against their native peers but not (or to a much less extent) vice versa. On inspection, this discriminatory behavior turns out to be statistically unjustified, not driven by wrong stereotypes, and it involves a sacrifice of money, which points to a taste for discrimination. We furthermore show that discrimination in youths is negatively correlated with parental education for non-immigrants and with parental integration efforts for immigrants. In a second step, we connect our artefactual field experiment with a natural policy experiment which saw the introduction of a widely debated integration policy: birthright citizenship, which automatically grants children born to foreign parents the nationality of the host country. We find that the policy substantially reduced the degree of discrimination among male, but not among female, immigrants. This effect is accompanied by an improved educational integration of immigrant males, but not by a greater sense of affiliation with the host nation.
  Co-Authors: Christina Felfe, Helmut Rainer, Judith Saurer, Thomas Siedler

• Friday 17 March 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE, room 114

  Jean Daunizeau (Brain and Spine Institute, ICM)
  On the adaptive fitness of the social sense: lessons from Bayesian Decision Theory

  Abstract

  A defining feature of human social cognition is our insight that others’ behaviour is driven by their beliefs and preferences, rather than by what is objectively true or good for them. In fact, a great deal of our social interactions is concerned with guessing others’ mental states. But what are the specific computational processes underlying such "mentalizing", if any? Does their adaptive fitness depend upon the type of social interactions (e.g., competitive versus cooperative) agents engage in? Can one infer on the candidate evolutionary forces that acted upon mentalizing by comparing its sophistication across different (here: seven) primate species? How does this relate to the specific "cognitive style" of people suffering from autism spectrum disorders? These are the questions we address in this work, by combining computational modelling with experimental investigations of mentalizing in dyadic social interactions.

• Friday 3 March 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 115)

  Nobuyuki Hanaki (U. Nice)
  On the Roots of the Intrinsic Value of Decision Rights: Evidence from France and Japan

  Abstract

  In a recent experiment, Bartling et al (2014, EMCA) found that Swiss individuals attach an economically meaningful intrinsic value to make a decision by themselves rather than delegating it to another person. We refine their analysis in order to disentangle how much of such value stems from (i) a preference for independence from others, (ii) a desire for power, or (iii) other motives such as a preference for self-reliance, and conduct a cross-cultural comparison between France and Japan. Our (preliminary) findings suggest that (i) Japanese and French individuals intrinsically value decision rights beyond their instrumental benefit, that (ii) self-reliance is the main rationale behind this intrinsic value in both France and Japan, that (iii) independence is a mild rationale in France and not in Japan, and that (iv) power is not a motivation in neither of the countries. These results bring new insights into the roots of the preference for being in control, which can be relevant for institutional design.
  Co-authored with Joao V Ferreira and Benoît Tarroux

• Friday 3 February 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 115)

  Marc Willinger (U. Montpellier)
  Local adaptation to background risk

  Abstract

  The presentation is partly based on the article: " Evidence of genotypic adaptation to the exposure to volcanic risk at the dopamine receptor DRD4 locus".
  Humans have colonized and adapted to extremely diverse environments, and the genetic basis of some such adaptations, for example to high altitude, is understood. In some cases, local or regional variation in selection pressure could also cause behavioural adaptations. Numerous genes influence behaviour, such as alleles at the dopamine receptor locus D4 (DRD4), which are associated with attitude toward risk in experimental settings. We demonstrate genetic differentiation for this gene, but not for five unlinked microsatellite loci, between high- and low risk environments around Mount Merapi, an active volcano in Java, Indonesia. Using a behavioural experiment, we further show that people inhabiting the high risk environment are significantly more risk averse. We provide evidence of a genetic basis for this difference, showing that heterozygotes at the DRD4 locus are more risk averse than either homozygotes. In the high risk environment, allele frequencies are equilibrated, generating a high frequency of heterozygotes. Thus it appears that overdominance (i.e. selective advantage of heterozygotes) generates negative frequency dependent selection, favouring the rarer allele at this locus. Our results therefore provide evidence for adaptation to a marginal habitat through the selection of a neurocognitive trait with a genetic basis.
  http://www.nature.com/articles/srep37745.epdf?author_access_token=8nOZaaSG9I79SFQ1939PudRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0OfOn1Cocx8pdF-5lxJro6yG7YBkiXxYh9E70TMxiLodkSTujHQTQI7s8XqRfzIWdUuvHQy2mz0e34Ro7E9tXAX

• Friday 27 January 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (room 6th floor)

  Robert Sugden (U. of East Anglia)
  Looking for a psychology for the inner rational agent

  Abstract

  Abstract: Research in psychology and behavioural economics shows that individuals’ choices often depend on ‘irrelevant’ contextual factors. This presents problems for normative economics, which has traditionally used preference-satisfaction as its criterion. A common response is to claim that individuals have context-independent latent preferences which are ‘distorted’ by psychological factors, and that latent preferences should be respected. This response implicitly uses a model of human action in which each human being has an ‘inner rational agent’. I argue that this model is psychologically ungrounded. Although references to latent preferences appear in psychologically-based explanations of context-dependent choice, latent preferences serve no explanatory purpose.

• Friday 6 January 2017 11:00-12:30

  MSE (6th floor room)

  Urs Fischbacher (U. Konstanz)
  Processes and preferences behind third party reward and punishment

  Abstract

  How do people choose between reward and punishment in order to enforce a fairness norm? We investigate this question in a four-person mini dictator game with a sanctioning option. In this game a mechanism designer decides whether reward or punishment is available as a sanctioning device. Another person, the mechanism implementer, is informed about the decision of the dictator and can then decide whether the available mechanism is implemented or not. We find that implementers confirm previous evidence and care about outcome and intention. Designers do not have strict preferences for reward or punishment but choose the institution according to the situation. They prefer the institution that is most likely to be relevant for the implementer. Decision time analysis corroborates this evidence for the punishment and for the design decisions.
  Co-author: Konstantin Hesler

• Friday 2 December 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Georg Kirchsteiger (UL Brussels, Ecares)
  Suspiciously timed trade disputes

  Abstract

  This paper shows that electoral incentives affect the occurrence of trade disputes. Focusing on WTO disputes filed by the United States during the 1995‐2012 period, we show that U.S. presidents are more likely to initiate a dispute in the year preceding their re‐election date. Moreover, disputes filed by the U.S. tend to target industries that are important to swing states in the presidential election. To explain these regularities, we develop a theoretical model in which an incumbent can file a trade dispute to appeal to voters motivated by reciprocity. The incumbent’s ability to initiate a dispute during the re‐election campaign provides an advantage over the challenger, who cannot commit to file the dispute if elected. If voters’ ideological preferences are not too strong in favor of either candidate, the incumbent will file a trade dispute to increase his re‐election chances.

• Friday 25 November 2016 10:30-12:00

  MSE (room S/17)

  Angela Sutan (LESSAC)
  Vested vs. non-vested experts and advices we should ignore

  Abstract

  Co-authors: B. Corgnet, M. Bonescu

• Friday 21 October 2016 11:00-12:30

  MSE (6th floor room)

  Andrea Isoni (Warwick U.)
  Nudge Awareness: The Effect of Good and Bad Defaults

  Abstract

  Many governments are adopting forms of libertarian paternalism to influence the decisions of boundedly-rational agents using various nudges. We experimentally study whether nudging people using defaults is still effective when they know about nudging. We find that default effects are surprisingly robust to awareness, irrespective of whether the default option is good or bad, whether defaults are given a neutral, favourable or unfavourable connotation, whether the use of defaults is disclosed by the nudger or externally acquired, and whether decisions are incentivised or not. Defaults are particularly effective when they work in the background, suggesting an important role of inattention. Co-authors: Andrea Isoni, Chengwei Liu, Christopher Olivola, Daniel Read

• Friday 7 October 2016 11:00-12:30

  MSE (6th floor room)

  Olivier L’Haridon (U. Rennes 1)
  Measuring Uncertainty Preferences for Health

  Abstract

  Abstract.
  It is well-known that expected utility has empirical deficiencies. Prospect theory has developed as an alternative with more descriptive validity. This study elicits utility of life duration in a framework that is robust to violations of expected utility. In addition, our method allows for a parameter-free measurement of loss aversion and probability weighting for both gains and losses. Finally, we are the first measure utility of life duration in the case of uncertainty.
  We conducted individual experiments where respondents had to make choices using health outcomes, which included a treatment with known probabilities and treatment with unknown probabilities. First, when comparing these treatments, we found evidence for uncertainty aversion. Despite this, the two treatments showed the same general pattern: concave utility for gains, convex utility for losses, and steeper utility for losses than for gains. Hence, our findings confirm the S-shaped utility that has often been observed for monetary outcomes. The amount of loss aversion was not significantly different between the treatments, with median loss aversion coefficients varying between 1.3 and 1.8 (depending on the specific definition used). The probability weighting functions showed the usual inverse S-shape, indicating overweighting of small probabilities and underweighting of large probabilities, both for gains and for losses. In particular, our results suggest duality of the probability weighting functions.
  Co-authors: Arthur E. Attema, Han Bleichrodt

• Friday 27 May 2016 11:00-12:30

  MSE, room 115

  Ignacio Palacios Huerta (LSE)
  Beautiful Game Theory: Economics and Psychology in the Field

• Friday 20 May 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115, MSE

  Matthias Sutter (U. Cologne, U. Innsbruck)
  Where to look for the morals in markets?

  Abstract

  Co-authors: Juergen Huber, Michael Kirchler and Matthias Stefan

• Monday 18 April 2016 14:00-16:00

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Special Seminar: André Blais (Univ. Montreal)
  A survey of strategic voting" (Election results, polls and experiments)

• Friday 15 April 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Avner Ben-Ner (Univ. of Minnesota)
  Learned Generosity? An Experiment on Social Preferences and Parental Influence in Preschoolers

  Abstract

  An active area of research within the social sciences concerns the underlying motivation for sharing scarce resources and engaging in other pro-social actions. We develop a theoretical framework that sheds light on the developmental origins of social preferences by providing mechanisms through which parents transmit preferences for generosity to their children. Then, we conduct a field experiment with nearly 150 3-5 year old children and their parents, measuring (1) whether child and parent generosity is correlated, (2) whether children are influenced by their parents when making sharing decisions and (3) whether parents model generosity to children. We observe no correlation of independently measured parent and child sharing decisions at this young age. Yet, we find that apart from those choosing an equal allocation of resources between themselves and another child, children adjust their behaviors to narrow the gap with their parent’s or other adult’s choice. We find that fathers, and parents of initially generous children, increase their sharing when informed that their child will be shown their choice.
  Co-authors: John List, Louis Putterman and Anya Samek

• Friday 8 April 2016 11:00-12:30

  MSE, room 115

  Georg Kirchsteiger (Ecares, U. Libre Bruxelles)
  Endogenous Repeated Cooperation and Surplus Distribution - An Experimental Analysis

  Abstract

  This paper investigates experimentally how the endogenous group formation combined with the possibility of repeated interaction impacts cooperation levels and surplus distribution. We developed a Surplus Production Distribution Game where the cooperation of four agents is needed to produce a surplus. In case of cooperation, two of the four subjects, the distributors, decided how much of surplus each of them wanted to give to the two other agents, the receivers. This game was played repeatedly with different matching procedures. In the Re-match Treatment (RT) the subjects got randomly re-matched every round, while in the Endogenous-match Treatment (ET) a group was maintained as long as its members cooperated. There was also a Base treatment (BT) where cooperation was exogenously enforced. We found that the distributor’s contributions were higher in the ET and the RT than in the BT - unsurprisingly, receivers’ possibility to refuse cooperation led to more equal surplus distributions. But contrary to commonly hold beliefs, the possibility of repeated interaction did not lead to higher cooperation levels and more equal allocations of the surplus. Instead, endogenous group formation combined with the possibility of repeated interaction led to self-selection of the subjects in the ET. The endogenous group duration varied drastically between different groups in the ET, with long-lived groups exhibiting contributions and cooperation levels higher than in the RT, while short-lived groups showed contributions and cooperation levels lower than in the RT. Furthermore, for given contribution levels, receivers were more likely to refuse cooperation when their average relationship length was short. This shows that long-lived groups consisted of generous distributors and not so demanding receivers, while ungenerous distributors and demanding receivers formed short-lived groups. Hence, the possibility of repeated interaction does not necessarily increase cooperation and efficiency levels when combined with endogenous group formation. Rather, such a situation might lead to self-selection of agents.

• Friday 1 April 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Vera Hoorens (KU Leuven)
  Self-superiority beliefs: Self-enhancement or cognitive egocentrism?

  Abstract

  When people are asked to judge themselves as compared to others, most report that they are in many respects superior. Most people report that they possess abilities and desirable traits more, and undesirable traits less, than others. If these reports reflect genuine self-superiority beliefs, they may reveal a cause for suboptimal personal, academic, and economic decisions. Various motivational and cognitive explanations for self-superiority beliefs as revealed in self-judgment tasks have been proposed. The most prominent motivational explanation, the self-enhancement hypothesis, states that self-superiority beliefs serve a self-enhancement motive in that they serve to enhance one’s feelings of self-worth. The most prominent cognitive explanation, the cognitive egocentrism hypothesis, states that self-superiority biases derive from the differential accessibility of or differential focus on self- versus other-related information. I present correlational and experimental evidence from a set of studies that were designed to pit cognitive egocentrism and self-enhancement against each other. Whereas the pattern of correlations between relative self-judgments, absolute self- and other-judgments, and self-esteem scores was consistent with both explanations, experimentally induced self-threat affected self-superiority beliefs following the pattern predicted by the self-enhancement hypothesis only. The self-enhancement motive does drive self-superiority biases.

• Friday 11 March 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115, MSE

  Bernhard Kittel (Vienna U.)
  Needs-Based Justice in Social Exchange Networks

  Abstract

  A need that is recognized as such might induce people to allocate more to society members that need more resources, leading to a needs-based distribution. Building on the literature on social exchange, we designed an experiment using two simple 3-node network structures. In both networks actors are negatively connected and bilaterally negotiate over a given distribution of resources. In these networks we operationalize individual needs as a threshold of points a participant has to receive in order to earn additional points in a subsequent real effort task. The varying thresholds are randomly allocated to the actors and publicly known. In particular, we test how and when needs are recognized and whether the distributive principle of needs-based justice is relevant in social exchange in networks. In a fist analysis we focus on the network structure and the collocation of needs as well as the comparison of a theoretical versus a practical acknowledgement of individual needs.

• Friday 19 February 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Sabrina Teyssier (INRA)
  Deciding for others: an experimental investigation of preferences for shared destiny

  Abstract

  Uncertainty is key to understand how individuals make their decisions regarding sustainability and therefore to determine the optimal distribution of resources among individuals in this context. In this paper, we present the results of an experiment on social choice under uncertainty. Because in many situations decisions are made on behalf of others, i.e. social planner, parents, doctors or bankers, we use an experimental design where individuals make decisions for others by choosing between uncertain gains allocations for two other participants. Based on the model of Chew and Sagi (Journal of Economic Theory, 2012), we elicit equivalences between different types of allocations and reveal individual preferences for fairness and shared destiny as well as "other-regarding" risk attitudes. We find strong evidence of risk and inequality aversion for others and of preference for shared destiny. In particular, we calibrate a measure of preference for "shared destiny" at an individual level. We test and confirm that this measure does not depend on the gain and likelihood components of the uncertain allocations.

• Friday 12 February 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115, MSE

  Stefan Trautmann (Heidelberg U.)
  Risk, Time Pressure and Selection Effects

  Abstract

  Co-authors: Martin G. Kocher, David Schindler and Yilong Xu
  Decision-making experiments often provide the participants with unrealistically perfect decision environments. To increase external validity and to gain insights into decision processes, scholars have begun to implement adverse environments involving time pressure and stress. For the case of time pressure, the current paper shows that its effects vary significantly across decision makers, leading to selected subgroups of people who manage to obey the time constraint. Selection has implications for the external validity and for the interpretation of behavior in adverse decision environments. We examine whether sensitivity to time-pressure effects in risky decision-making can be predicted by measurable traits and observed decision strategies.

• Friday 5 February 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Olivier L’Haridon (Univ. Rennes 1, CREM)
  All Over the Map: Heterogeneity of Risk Preferences across Individuals, Prospects, and Countries

  Abstract

  We analyze the risk preferences of 2939 subjects across 30 countries on all continents. Using structural modeling, we explore heterogeneity in risk preferences across three dimensions: i) between individuals; ii) between prospects; and iii) between countries. Preferences in non-Western countries differ systematically from those found inWestern countries, hitherto considered universal. Reference-dependence and likelihood-dependence are both found to play a role in describing preferences. While we confirm previous results on individual characteristics explaining little of overall preference heterogeneity, between countries a few macroeconomic indicators can explain a considerable part of the heterogeneity. The heterogeneity explained furthermore differs across decision parameters, being low for pure risk aversion measures, but higher for measures of noise and for rationality parameters.

• Friday 29 January 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Luc Arrondel (PSE) and André Masson (PSE)
  French savers in the current crisis : Preferences, financial expectations, and portfolio choice

  Abstract

  Our basic objective is to relate the observed changes in saving and portfolio behaviours of French savers during the ongoing economic crisis to the corresponding variations in their future income and asset prices expectations, in their “cash in hand”, and in their preferences towards risk and time. Four representative waves of the Pater survey were conducted (with TNS-Sofres) in mid 2007, mid 2009, end 2011 and end 2014. The new wave, run in November-December 2014, has again a strong panel dimension which allows to analyse the joint changes in individual income and price expectations as well as preferences of the same households between three crucial dates : May 2007, before the ongoing crisis ; June 2009, after the 2008 subprime crisis ; end of 2011, after the attacks on sovereign debts of last summer. As far as behaviours are concerned, French savers in 2009 show clearly a greater reluctance than in 2007 to take risks in their behaviours, in favour of increased precautionary savings and safer assets, and slightly in favour of more long-term investments (see Arrondel and Masson, 2014). Between 2009 and 2014 (via 2011), we obtain the same qualitative, but less pronounced variations. We show that this observed reduced willingness of French households to take risks in their saving and portfolio choices can be mainly attributed to more pessimistic income and asset price expectations (and also to lower cash in hand for a third of households). The popular view of increasing risk aversion during the crisis is not warranted.

• Friday 15 January 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115, MSE

  Mohammed Abdellaoui (HEC)
  Temporal Resolution in Decision under Risk: Do We Need A More Descriptive Model?

  Abstract

  Few years after the seminal works of von Neumann & Morgenstern (1944) and Savage (1954) that established the formal and logical basis of expected utility (EU), it was observed that this model failed to recognize that decision makers might be non-neutral towards the timing of resolution of uncertainty (TRU). For instance, Markowitz (1959) and Mossin (1969) pointed out that choice between lotteries should take into account when the outcomes will become known (Machina, 1984). In fact, most economically important decisions such as investment, portfolio / risk management, and production, among others, typically involve delayed resolution of uncertainty. For many decisions, the TRU may generate anxiety or hopefulness about the final outcomes (e.g. prenatal diagnosis, stock owners selling decisions during a financial crisis). We propose an empirical investigation on non-neutrality towards the TRU where uncertainty is allowed to be resolved at a variable date t laying between now and a fixed horizon T, in which monetary gains are received. Non-neutral attitude towards the TRU is captured through three approaches. The first approach accounts for preference for early resolution through “probability discounting.” The second assumes Kreps & Porteus (1978) recursive expected utility. The third postulates a “temporal” version of rank-dependent utility, assuming that delayed resolution of uncertainty impact probability weighting rather than utility (as under Kreps and Porteus, 1978). Our data show that a combination of the first and the third approaches fits data in a satisfactory fashion.

• Friday 8 January 2016 11:00-12:30

  Room 115, MSE

  Michal Krawczyk (Warsaw U.)
  Time Pressure and Risk Taking in Auctions: A Field Experiment

  Abstract

  Auctions often require risk taking under time pressure. However, little is known about how time pressure moderates the relationship between uncertainty of outcomes and bidding behavior. This study consists of a field experiment in which participants are invited to a Vickrey auction to elicit their willingness to pay for a lottery ticket. The time available to place a bid and also the skewness of the lottery are systematically manipulated. We find that under high time pressure participants are less likely to place a bid at all. Furthermore, participants who do place a bid under time pressure bid significantly less than participants under low time pressure. The main finding is thus that increased time pressure significantly decreases risk-taking. This is particularly true for high probability-low gain lotteries. Our findings can shed some light on optimal auction duration, the phenomenon of last-minute bidding and, more broadly, on the role of emotions and deliberation in risk taking.
  With Anouar el Haji (Amsterdam), Marta Sylwestrzak and Ewa Zawojska (Warsaw)

• Friday 11 December 2015 11:00-12:30

  Rooml S01, MSE

  Emeric Henry (Sciences-Po)
  Measuring image concerns

  Abstract

  "It is now well documented that individuals, on average, change their behavior when their actions are observed by others. Yet, there is no systematic way of measuring this dimension of preferences at the individual level. In this paper, we propose a novel experimental game to measure the individual sensitivity to image concerns. We show that few socio-economic characteristics can explain the level of image concern. One exception is that members of ethnic minorities seem to be more imaged concerned, in particular when observed by a member of other groups. Men (resp. women) are more image concerned when observed by women (resp. men). Finally, we show that more image concerned individuals tend to be more selfish and find evidence consistent with the fact that they try to avoid situations where their actions risk being visible."

• Tuesday 8 December 2015 15:00-16:30

  Room S1 (MSE)

  Jean-Robert Tyran (U. Vienna)
  Voter Motivation and the Quality of Democratic Choice

  Abstract

  The quality of democratic decision making critically depends on voter motivation, i.e. voters’ willingness to incur costs to be well informed and to turn out. If voters are motivated, voting may result in smart choices because of information aggregation but if voters are unmotivated, delegating the choice to an expert may yield better outcomes. Those willing to incur a cost to cast an informed vote improve the quality of democratic choice for the entire committee and thus provide a public good. We experimentally show that voting is more informationally efficient when subjects demand (by signing a petition) to make choices by voting than when decision making by voting is imposed on subjects. Our results suggest that the quality of democratic decision making can be improved by letting voters know that others are (also) motivated to be informed and to turn out.

• Friday 4 December 2015 11:00-12:00

  Room 116 (MSE)

  Theodore Alexopoulos and Milija Simlesa,
  Good self, bad self: Initial success and failure moderate the endowment effect

  Abstract

  Abstract: Recent research on the endowment effect (a gap between selling and buying prices for the same good) considers as a working hypothesis that an endowed good becomes part of the self. Consequently, the endowment effect is viewed as a self-enhancement strategy originating or following from this self-object link. Within this perspective, subsequent self-threat typically enhances the endowment effect, whereas self-affirmation eliminates the endowment effect. Contrasting these findings and drawing on the idea that initial self-evaluations constrain the value of a newly acquired object, we reasoned that failures (successes) of the self experienced before the endowment will lower (raise) the value of possessions and influence the endowment effect accordingly. In Studies 1 and 2, we show that a private self-threat (vs. no threat) induced before endowing (vs. presenting) participants with a good eliminates the endowment effect. In Study 3, we show that feelings of pride (vs. no pride) induced via proprioceptive feedback yields a reliable endowment effect. These findings suggest that initial self-success/failure moderate the endowment effect and further show that bodily cues influence property transaction.

• Friday 6 November 2015 11:00-12:30

  Room S18, MSE

  Uriarte Jose-Ramon (U. of the Basque Country)
  Politeness Equilibrium

  2 documents to download

  • info document (PDF, 1.1 Mb)

  • info document (PDF, 186.5 kb)

• Friday 9 October 2015 11:00-12:30

  Room 116 (MSE)

  Guilhem Lecouteux (Ecole Polytechnique)
  Consumer sovereignty with incoherent preferences

  Abstract

  Behavioural economists generally interpret preference incoherence as errors, and argue in favour of paternalistic interventions so as to improve the well-being of the individuals, as judged by themselves. I show that behavioural welfare economics implicitly defends a criterion of ’rational consumer sovereignty’, but fails to justify properly why only rational consumers should be sovereign over their choices. This approach indeed presupposes that mistakes can be identified objectively from a third-person standpoint, while true preferences should be defined subjectively: I argue on the contrary that normative claims in economics should rely on a second-person standpoint, and show that consumer sovereignty may remain a valid normative criterion even when people reveal incoherent preferences.

• Friday 2 October 2015 11:00-12:30

  Room 116, MSE

  Birendra Rai (Monash U.)
  On the (ir)relevance of other-regarding preferences in bilateral bargaining

• Friday 19 June 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Michal Krawczyk (Univ. of Warsaw)
  Are we all overconfident in the long run? Evidence from one million marathon participants.

  Abstract

  Abstract: In this project we measured overconfidence in a large, heterogeneous sample making familiar, repeated choices in a natural environment which provides direct feedback. Specifically, in Study 1 we elicited predictions of own finishing time among participants of the 2012 Warsaw Marathon. Their prediction errors turned out to be very highly correlated with the change in pace over the course of the run. In Study 2 we thus took this change in pace as a proxy for self-confidence and used existing field data of one million participants of several large marathons for which split times are available (but own predictions are not). Both studies indicate that males as well as youngest and oldest participants tend to be more confident. In Study 2 we were able to additionally investigate national and cultural dimensions, confirming previously reported findings of relative overconfidence in Asians and providing some largely novel results, i.a. that relatively conservative societies tend to be more self-confident. Among Hofstede’s cultural dimensions masculinity and uncertainty avoidance seem to contribute to self-confidence.

• Friday 5 June 2015 10:30-12:00

  room 115 (MSE)

  Matteo Galizzi (LSE)
  Linking experimental and survey data for a UK representative sample: Structural estimation and external validity of risk and time preferences

• Friday 22 May 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Stéphane Robin (GATE)
  Matching in the Large: An Experimental Study

  Abstract

  Market size has been predicted to play an influential role in a broad class of economic environments. We study the performance of the Boston and the Deferred Acceptance (DA) mechanism in a laboratory where we increase the market size. Our results show that increasing the market size from 4 to 40 students per match increases participant truth-telling under the DA but decreases it under the Boston mechanism, leading to a decrease in efficiency but no change in the large stability advantage of the DA over the Boston mechanism. Furthermore, increasing the scale to 4,000 students per match has no effect on either individual behavior or mechanism performance. Our results indicate that “large" might be much smaller than predicted.

  1 document to download

  • info document (PDF, 525.8 kb)

• Friday 17 April 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Aniol Llorente-Saguer (Queen Mary)
  Veto, Abstention, and Framing: An Experimental Study of Majority Rule with Veto Power

  Abstract

  Bouton, Llorente-Saguer and Malherbe (2014) suggests that the voting rule Majority Rule with Veto Power (Veto hereafter) has desirable properties when implementing a Pareto improvement over a status quo. One of the implications of their main result is that, in the Condorcet Jury setup, Veto aggregates information better than both Unanimity and Majority. In this paper we test this and other theoretical implications experimentally. Additionally, we compare behaviour to Constructive Abstention, which is isomorphic to Majority Rule with Veto Power. The experiments yield interesting results. Aggregate behaviour and welfare comparisons are relatively close to the theoretical predictions. However, the difference between the expected welfare and the realized one seems to increase with complexity: more complex rules underperform with respect to their predictions. Second, the theoretical good properties of Majority Rule with Veto Power crucially depends on the equilibrium voters coordinate on. The data shows that the “good equilibrium” is the one in which subjects coordinate. This reinforces the theoretical argument for the particular equilibrium selection used. Third, individual level data shows significant and substantial differences among voters. We find two stylized types of voters: sincere voters which vote in line with their signal and strategic voters which best respond to the existence of sincere types. Last but not least, we find substantial framing effects between the two isomorphic rules. The results suggest that Majority with Veto Power outperforms Constructive Abstention.

• Friday 10 April 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Adam Sanjurjo (U. of Alicante)
  A Cold Shower for the Hot Hand Fallacy

  Abstract

  The hot hand fallacy has long been considered a massive and widespread cognitive illusion with important economic consequences. While the canonical domain of the fallacy is basketball, which continues to provide its strongest and most readily generalizable supporting evidence, the fallacy has been considered as a candidate explanation for various economic and financial anomalies. We find, in its canonical domain, that the belief in the hot hand is not a fallacy, and that, surprisingly, the original evidence supports this conclusion. Our approach is to design a controlled shooting field experiment and develop statistical measures that together have superior identifying power over previous studies. We find substantial evidence of the hot hand, both in our study and in all extant controlled shooting studies, including the seminal study (which found the opposite result, and coined the term "the hot hand fallacy’’). Also, we observe the hot hand effect to be heterogeneous across shooters, which suggests that decision makers (e.g. players and coaches) may have incentive to identify which shooters have a greater tendency to become hot. Accordingly, we find evidence that expert players (teammates) can do so. In light of these results, we reconsider the economic relevance of the hot hand fallacy more generally.

• Friday 3 April 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Christopher Boyce (U. Stirling)
  Monetary Policy, Interest Rates, and Subjective Well-Being: How do Interest Rate Changes Influence the Well-Being of Savers, Net Borrowers, and Homeowners?

  Abstract

  A key aim of monetary policy over the last decades has been one of maintaining low inflation but to what extent should monetary policy consider well-being. We examine how interest rate changes influence the well-being of different groups in society. We hypothesise that changes in interest rates would create opposing exogenous income shocks for savers, net borrowers, and those with mortgages on their homes leading to changes in well-being in the direction of the income shock. We use data from the UK and show across two measures of subjective well-being, psychological distress and life satisfaction, that whilst savers experience well-being gains from interest rate rises, those with burdensome debt and mortgages on their homes experience well-being decreases. However, the effects are much stronger for those with burdensome debt suggesting that income matters mostly for those at the margins. Our key result is that a 1% increase in interest rates increases the risk of “psychiatric caseness” by at least 1.2%. Our main result is robust to alternative explanations and suggests monetary policy may need to explicitly consider well-being.

• Friday 27 March 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Terri Kneeland (U. College London)
  Uncertainty in limited depth of reasoning models.

  Abstract

  This paper investigates evidence for uncertainty over levels of others in limited depth of reasoning models using existing experimental data from one-shot normal form games. We show why this type of heterogeneity matters for interpreting experimental results and discuss the implications for experimental design. We highlight a specific type of uncertainty that is relevant for understanding the experimental data – having some belief that players are reasoning similarly. This type of uncertainty suggests a departure from standard limited depth of reasoning models. We end by discussing some theoretical implications of these results.

• Friday 13 February 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Nobuyuki Hanaki (Aix-Marseille)
  It is not just confusion! Strategic uncertainty in an experimental asset market

  Abstract

  Abstract: To what extent is the observed mispricing in experimental asset markets caused by strategic uncertainty and by confusion? We address this question by comparing subjects’ initial price forecasts in two market environments: one with six human traders, and the other with one human and five computer traders. We find that both strategic uncertainty and confusion contribute equally to the median initial forecast deviation from the fundamental value. The effect of strategic uncertainty is greater for subjects with a perfect score in the Cognitive Reflection Test, and it is not significant for those with low scores.
  (joint work with Eizo Akiyama and Ryuichiro Ishikawa)

  1 document to download

  • info document (PDF, 182.9 kb)

• Friday 6 February 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room 115 (MSE)

  Anett John (CREST)
  When Commitment Fails — Evidence from a Regular Saver Product in the Philippines

  Abstract

  Recent literature promotes commitment products as a new remedy for overcoming self-control problems and savings constraints. Committing to a welfare-improving contract requires knowledge about one’s preferences, including biases and inconsistencies. If agents are imperfectly informed about their preferences, they may choose ill-suited commitment contracts. I designed a regular- instalment commitment savings product, intended to improve on pure withdrawal-restriction products by mimicking the fixed-instalment nature of loan repayment contracts. I conduct a randomised experiment in the Philippines, where individuals from a general low-income population were randomly offered to take up the product. Individuals chose the stakes of the contract (in the form of a default penalty) themselves. The result is that a majority appears to choose a harmful contract: While the intent-to-treat effect on bank savings for individuals assigned to the treatment group is four times that of a withdrawal-restriction product (offered as a control treatment), 55 percent of clients default on their savings contract. The explanation most strongly supported by the data is that the chosen stakes were too low (the commitment was too weak) to overcome clients’ self-control problems. Moreover, both take-up and default are negatively predicted by measures of sophisticated hyperbolic discounting, suggesting that those who are fully aware of their bias realise the commitment is too weak for them, and avoid the product. The study suggests that research on new commitment products should carefully consider the risk of adverse welfare effects, particularly for naïve and partially sophisticated hyperbolic discounters.

• Friday 30 January 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room S/19 (MSE)

  Allan Drazen (U. of Maryland)
  "Does ’Being Chosen to Lead’ Induce Non-Selfish Behavior?"

  Abstract

  ABSTRACT: We present experimental evidence that policies chosen by leaders depend on whether they were elected or appointed. Consistent with previous studies of the “dictator game”, we find that unitary policymakers do not always act selfishly, that is, choose a policy that maximizes their own payoffs. However, the way in which one became the leader matters. Leaders who are elected are significantly more likely to choose a policy not equal to their “type” than leaders who are appointed. Elected leaders who act non-selfishly will favor the voter rather than the losing candidate, while appointed leaders show no tendency to favor the voter over the losing candidate. Our results provide support for the view that non-selfish behavior of leaders reflects a reciprocity motive. They also show that candidates do not simply implement their own preferences once in office, as suggested by the basic citizen-candidate model.

  1 document to download

  • info document (PDF, 416.9 kb)

• Friday 23 January 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room S/19 (MSE)

  Joshua Miller (Bocconi)
  Equilibrium Play in Experimental Parimutuel Betting Markets (with Martin Dufwenberg)

  Abstract

  Abstract Parimutuel wagering markets have attractive features, both as test beds for financial market theory, and as mechanisms for aggregating information. We design a laboratory experiment to test theoretical predictions of behavior in parimutuel betting markets. Our results are largely consistent with Bayesian Nash equilibrium play and shed light on the question of origin of the well-known favorite-longshot bias. Our results suggest that mechanisms which lead to heterogeneous private beliefs are behind the favorite-longshot bias, rather than the presence of probability distortions or risk-loving preferences.

• Friday 16 January 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room 19 (MSE)

  Pablo Hernandez (NYU Abu Dhabi)
  Political Identity and Trust

  Abstract

  Abstract: We explore how political identity a¤ects trust. Using an incentivized exper- imental survey we vary information about partners’ partisan identity to elicit trust behavior and beliefs. By eliciting beliefs, we are able to assess whether differences in trust rates are due to stereotyping or a "taste for discrimina- tion." By measuring actual trustworthiness, we are able to determine whether beliefs are statistically correct. We finnd that trust is pervasive and depends on the partisan identity of the trustee. Differential trust rates are explained by incorrect stereotypes about the other’s lack of trustworthiness rather than by a "taste for discrimination."

  1 document to download

  • info document (PDF, 359.3 kb)

• Friday 9 January 2015 10:30-12:00

  Room S/19 (MSE)

  Nikos Georgantzis (U. of Reading)
  "Institutional, idiosyncratic and physiological aspects of corruption"

• Friday 19 December 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room B3.1 (MSE)

  David Ettinger (U. P. Dauphine)
  "An Experiment on Deception, Credibility and Trust" (with Philippe Jehiel)

  Abstract

  Abstract: We report results from an experiment on a repeated sender/receiver game with twenty periods in which one of the periods has higher weight, the sender communicates about the realized state in each period, the receiver takes an action matching her belief about the state, and then learns whether the sender lied. Receivers are matched either with malevolent (human) senders who prefer the agents to take wrong decisions or with benevolent (machine) senders who always tell the truth. Our findings do not support the predictions of the Sequential Equilibrium. The deceptive tactic in which malevolent senders tell the truth up to the key period and then lie at the key period is used much more often than it should and it brings higher expected payoff. We suggest that our data are well organized by the analogy-based sequential equilibrium (ABSE) in which (some subjects) may reason coarsely when making inferences and forming expectations about others’ types and behaviors.

  1 document to download

  • Ettinger Paper (PDF, 733.8 kb)

• Friday 12 December 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/1 (MSE)

  Astrid Hopfensitz (TSE)
  "The Modular Nature of Trustworthiness Detection" (with Jean-François Bonnefon and Wim De Neys)

  Abstract

  Abstract: The capacity to trust wisely is a critical facilitator of success and prosperity, and it has been conjectured that people of higher intelligence were better able to detect signs of untrustworthiness from potential partners. In contrast, this article reports five Trust Game studies suggesting that reading trustworthiness of the faces of strangers is a modular process. Trustworthiness detection from faces is independent of general intelligence (Study 1) and effortless (Study 2). Pictures that include non-facial features such as hair and clothing impair trustworthiness detection (Study 3) by increasing reliance on conscious judgments (Study 4), but people largely prefer to make decisions from this sort of pictures (Study 5). In sum, trustworthiness detec- tion in an economic interaction is a genuine and effortless ability, possessed in equal amount by people of all cognitive capacities, but whose impenetrability leads to inaccurate conscious judgments and inappropriate informational preferences.

• Friday 28 November 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/1 (MSE)

  Yukio Koriyama (Ecole Polytechnique)
  "The Condorcet Jury Theorem under Cognitive Hierarchies: Theory and Experiments" (with Ali Ihsan Ozkes)

  1 document to download

  • Koriyama Paper (PDF, 400.5 kb)

• Friday 14 November 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/1 (MSE)

  Jeanne Hagenbach (Ecole Polytechnique)
  "Communication with Evidence in the Lab" (with Eduardo Perez-Richet)

  Abstract

  Abstract: We examine strategic communication in sender-receiver games where senders can only transmit information using verifiable statements. Applying the method of Hagenbach, Koessler, Perez-Richet [Ecta14], we represent players’ incentives by a graph mapping which type of a sender would like to be believed as which other type, the masquerading graph. In theory, when this graph is acyclic, the receiver can deter the use of any vague message by attributing it to a type that no potential sender of this message would like to be. If receivers make such skeptical inferences, full revelation of information obtains in equilibrium. On the contrary, when the masquerading graph is cyclic, the use of vague messages is harder to discourage and full disclosure more difficult to sustain. This paper investigates the relevance of this graphical distinction in the lab. Our experimental design involves sender-receiver games with various payoffs and allows examining how subjects use and interpret evidences for the different resulting graphs. We show that information is more often revealed in games whose graph is acyclic than cyclic, and that receivers interpret vague evidences skeptically in most cases. While senders understand well when their type should be identified, they however fail using vague messages to fool receivers as finely as they could.

• Friday 24 October 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/1 (MSE)

  Guillaume Hollard (Ecole Polytechnique)
  "Gender Differences: Evidence from Field Tournaments" (with José de Sousa)

• Friday 27 June 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/1 (Note change in location)

  Tom Cunningham (Stockholm University)
  "Biases and Implicit Knowledge"

  1 document to download

  • Cunningham Paper (PDF, 933.2 kb)

• Friday 13 June 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/17

  Ryan Webb (University of Toronto)
  "Rationalizing Context-Dependent Preferences: Divisive Normalization and Neurobiological Constraints on Choice” (with Paul W. Glimcher and Kenway Louie)

  1 document to download

  • Webb Paper (PDF, 5.9 Mb)

• Friday 6 June 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/17

  Mark Dean (Brown University)
  "Revealed Preference, Rational Inattention, and Costly Information Acquisition" (with Andrew Caplin)

  1 document to download

  • Dean Paper (PDF, 270 kb)

• Friday 30 May 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/17

  Lionel Page (Queensland University of Technology)
  "Estimating Preferences for Fairness: a New Empirical Strategy within a Unifed Theoretical Framework" (with Daniel Mueller)

• Friday 16 May 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/17

  Antonio Guarino (University College London)
  "Informational Financial Contagion in the Laboratory" (with Marco Cipriani, Giovanni Guazzarotti, Federico Tagliati, and Sven Fisher)

• Friday 9 May 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/17

  Beatrice Boulu-Reshef (University of Virginia)
  "Leadership Styles and Free-Riding: An Experimental Investigation" (with Charles A. Holt and Melissa Thomas-Hunt)

• Friday 2 May 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/17

  Roberto Weber (University of Zurich)
  "Do Markets Erode Social Responsibility?" (with Björn Bartling)

  1 document to download

  • Weber Paper (PDF, 1.6 Mb)

• Friday 4 April 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/17

  Daniel Martin (Paris School of Economics)
  "Failures of Unraveling in Disclosure Experiments" (with Ginger Jin and Mike Luca)

• Friday 14 March 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/17

  Alexander Vostroknutov (Maastricht University)
  "Norms Make Preferences Social" (with Erik O. Kimbrough)

  1 document to download

  • Vostroknutov Paper (PDF, 1.6 Mb)

• Friday 7 March 2014 09:00-17:30

  Workshop on Neuroeconomics
  Ecole Normale Supérieure (45 rue d’Ulm, Paris)
  For logistic reasons, a (very simple) registration is required, which you can do directly on the website: http://neuroecowork.sciencesconf.org/

• Friday 28 February 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/17

  David Schroeder (Birkbeck, University of London)
  "Measuring Ambiguity Preferences"

• Friday 21 February 2014 10:30-12:00

  Room S/17

  David Eil (George Mason University)
  "A Two Way Street: Multiple Price Lists, The Common Ratio Effect, and Preference Reversals" (with Marco Castillo)

• Friday 7 February 2014 11:00-12:30

  Sigrid Suetens (Tilburg University)
  “Predicting Lotto Numbers - A natural experiment on the gambler’s fallacy and the hot hand fallacy”, (with Claus B. Galbo-Jørgensen and Jean-Robert Tyran)

  1 document to download

  • Suetens Paper (PDF, 277.4 kb)

• Friday 31 January 2014 11:00-12:30

  Collin Raymond (Oxford University)
  “Tell all the Truth, but Tell it Slant: Testing Models of Media Bias”, (with Sarah Taylor)

  1 document to download

  • Raymond Paper (PDF, 442.5 kb)

• Friday 24 January 2014 11:00-12:30

  Jerome Hergueux (Harvard University and Science Po)
  “Cooperation in a Peer Production Economy Experimental Evidence from Wikipedia”, (with Yann Algan, Yochai Benkler, and Mayo Fuster Morell)

  1 document to download

  • Hergueux Paper (PDF, 517.2 kb)

• Friday 17 January 2014 11:00-12:30

  Charles Noussair (Tilburg University)
  “In Search of the Angry Button”

  1 document to download

  • Noussair Slides (PDF, 1.4 Mb)

• Friday 15 November 2013 11:00-12:30

  Dirk Engelmann (University of Mannheim)
  "Who cares for social image? Interactions between intrinsic motivation and social image concerns" (with Jana Friedrichsen)

• Friday 8 November 2013 11:00-12:30

  Matthew Embrey (Maastricht University)
  “Bargaining and Reputation: Experimental Evidence on Bargaining in the Presence of Irrational Types”, (with Guillaume Fréchette and Steven Lehrer)

  1 document to download

  • Embrey Paper (PDF, 623.3 kb)

• Friday 25 October 2013 11:00-12:30

  Philippe Jehiel (Paris School of Economics)
  “Modeling bounded rationality in games: A subjective perspective”

• Friday 11 October 2013 11:00-12:30

  David Masclet (CNRS, University Renne 2)
  "The Role of Information in Deterring Discrimination: A New Experimental Evidence of Statistical Discrimination" (with E. Peterle and S. Larribeau)

• Friday 4 October 2013 11:00-12:30

  Marie-Claire Villeval (CNRS, GATE Lyon)
  "Social preferences and lying aversion in children"

  1 document to download

  • Villeval Paper (PDF, 602.8 kb)

• Friday 27 September 2013 11:00-12:30

  Han Bleichrodt (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)
  TBA

  1 document to download

  • Bleichrodt Paper (PDF, 418.9 kb)

• Friday 5 July 2013 11:00-12:30

  Stephanie Wang (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
  "Beliefs: elicitation, markets, and networks"

• Friday 14 June 2013 11:00-12:30

  Muriel Niederle (Stanford University)
  TBA

• Friday 7 June 2013 11:00-12:30

  Heinrich H. Nax (Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques (PSE))
  "Learning in a Black Box" (with Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew , Stuart A. West , and H. Peyton Young)

  Abstract

  Many interactive environments can be represented as games, but they are so large and complex that individual players are in the dark about what others are doing and howtheir own payoffs are affected. This paper analyzes learning behavior in such `black box’ environments, where players’ only source of information is their own history of actions taken and payoffs received. Specifically we study repeated public goods games, where players must decide how much to contribute at each stage, but they do not know how much others have contributed or how others’ contributions affect their own payoffs. We identify two key features of the players’ learning dynamics. First, if a player’s realized payoff increases he is less inclined to change his strategy, whereas if his realized payoff decreases he is more inclined to change his strategy. Second, if increasing his own contribution results in higher payoffs he will tend to increase his contribution still further, whereas the reverse holds if an increase in contribution leads to lower payoffs. These two effects are clearly present when players have no information about the game; moreover they are still present even when players have full information. Convergence to Nash equilibrium occurs at about the same rate in both situations.

• Friday 31 May 2013 11:00-12:30

  Jeremy Celse (LESSAC – Department of Management, Organization & Entrepreneurship - Burgundy School of Business)
  "Altruistic behaviour depends on what we think others expect: how expectations shape pro-social behaviour"

  Abstract

  Expectations play a crucial role in human interactions and they can be used as a guidance in decision-making. Although recent papers highlight the importance of expectations in decision-making, we still lack direct evidences of how expectations are integrated into an agent’s decision process. In this paper, we examine the role of expectations in altruistic choices in a Dictator Game in which Dictators have limited information about the receiver’s actual expectation. Our hypothesis is that the willingness to conform to others’ expectations can be one motive behind altruistic behaviour even in anonymous and non-repeated interactions. We compared two experimental conditions in order to test whether potential expectations could enter the decision-making process of dictators, and how these expectations affected their decisions. Our results show that the majority of dictators are sensitive to receivers’ expectations, even when these expectations are only potential. We also observe that this tendency to fulfil others’ expectations is connected to receivers’ expectations and not to any sensitivity to numbers. In addition, we find that the willingness to conform to others’ expectations is not blind but it depends on the expected amount. The implications of expectations for theories of social preferences are discussed

• Thursday 30 May 2013

  Ariel Rubinstein ( Tel Aviv University, Israel)
  TBA

• Friday 24 May 2013 11:00-12:30

  Susan Laury (Georgia State University)
  "Will Girls be Girls? Risk Taking and Competition in Single Gender Girls’ Schools"

• Friday 17 May 2013 11:00-12:30

  Chris Starmer (University of Nottingham)
  "Do emotional carryovers carryover?" (with Tim Lloyd and Nikhil Masters.)

  Abstract

  Incidental emotions arise from situational sources that are unrelated to a decision at hand but, nevertheless, “carryover” and have an impact on that decision. This paper reports an experiment in which we examined, between subjects, the impact of three different emotion induction tasks (neutral, targeted fear and naturalistic risk) on subsequent valuations of risky and ambiguous lotteries. A central research question was whether the known effects of targeted stimuli can be observed for more naturalistic stimuli that may have a broader spectrum but lower amplitude. Carryover effects were found to be stronger using the more naturalistic stimulus and for ambiguous as compared to risky lotteries. There were clear gender differences with only males showing consistent carry over effects.

• Friday 26 April 2013 11:00-12:30

  Jean-Francois Laslier (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris)
  "Utilitarian voting: theory and practice"

• Friday 12 April 2013 11:00-12:30

  Jean-Louis Rullière
  "Rank Order Tournament with Relative Prizes: Theoretical and Experimental Evidence." (with Lata GANGADHARAN and Giancarlo MUSTO)

• Friday 5 April 2013 11:00-12:30

  James Andreoni (University of California, San Diego)
  "Uncertainty Equivalents: Linear Tests of the Independence Axiom." with Charles Sprenger

• Friday 22 March 2013 11:00-12:30

  Serge Pajak (Université Paris Sud)
  "Do Recruiters ‘Like’ it? Privacy and Social Network Profile in Hiring: A Randomized Experiment" (with Matthieu Manant and Nicolas Soulié)

• Friday 15 February 2013 11:00-12:30

  Pedro Bordalo (University of London)
  "Salience and Consumer Whoice" (with N. Gennaioli and A. Schleifer)

• Friday 15 February 2013 11:00-12:30

  Pedro Bordalo (University of London)
  "Salience and Consumer Choice" (with N. Gennaioli and A. Schleifer)

• Friday 8 February 2013 11:00-12:30

  Luis Santos Pinto (HEC Lausanne)
  "Entry into Entrepreneurship: Risk Loving, Optimism or Overweighting of Small Probabilities?"

• Friday 25 January 2013 11:00-12:30

  Botond Közegi (University of California, Berkeley)
  "Reference-dependence preferences"

• Friday 25 January 2013 11:00-12:30

  Botond Koszegi (University of California Berkeley)
  "Reference-dependence preferences"

• Monday 21 January 2013 17:00-18:30

  Ecole Normale Supérieure (joint with the Roy seminar)

  Botond Koszegi (University of California Berkeley)
  TBA

• Monday 7 January 2013 17:00-18:30

  École normale supérieure (joint with the Roy seminar)

  Aurélien Baillon (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
  Prudence (and more) with respect to Uncertainty and Ambiguity

  Abstract

  Several studies have recognized the importance of risk prudence, for instance for analyzing precautionary savings behavior. Under expected utility, it is equivalent to the third derivative of utility being positive. Eeckhoudt and Schlessinger (2006) proposed behavioral definitions of this concept and extended it by defining risk apportionment of order n, determining the sign of the nth derivatives of utility. This paper proposes similar definitions for prudence with respect to uncertainty (when probabilities are unknown) but also for uncertainty apportionment of order n. Moreover, these concepts are extended to ambiguity, i.e. the difference between uncertainty and risk. Implications for several models are derived. For instance, it is shown that ambiguity prudence determines the sign of the third derivatives of Klibanoff, Marinacci, and Mukerji’s (2005) smooth ambiguity attitude function. Moreover, Hansen and Sargent’s (2001) multiplier preferences imply ambiguity prudence (and even ambiguity apportionment of order n for all n). The relationship between uncertainty and ambiguity prudence and savings behavior is analyzed in some simple savings models.

• Friday 30 November 2012 11:00-12:30

  (Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management) Ido Erev

• Friday 9 November 2012 11:00-12:00

  (University of Magdeburg) Karim Sadrieh

• Friday 26 October 2012 11:00-12:30

  Theo Offerman (Univ. of Amsterdam)

• Friday 15 June 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/3

  Charles Sprenger (Stanford University)
  Uncertainty Equivalents: Testing the Limits of the Independence Axiom

  Abstract

  There is convincing experimental evidence that Expected Utility fails, but when does it fail, how severely, and for what fraction of subjects? We explore these questions using a novel measure we call the uncertainty equivalent. We find Expected Utility performs well away from certainty, but fails primarily near certainty for about 50% of subjects. Among non-Expected Utility theories, the majority of the violations are in contrast to familiar formulations of Cumulative Prospect Theory. A further surprise is that nearly 40% of subjects indirectly violate first order stochastic dominance, preferring certainty of a low outcome to a near-certain, dominant gamble. Interestingly, these dominance violations have predictive power in standard experimental techniques eliciting prospect theory shapes.

• Friday 8 June 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/3

  Toni Schmader (University of British Columbia)
  Stereotype Threat: How Performance is Impaired by Being Negatively Stereotyped

  Abstract

  Members of certain segments of society consistently underperform on intellectual tests. These differences have been widely documented and lead to heated discussion about their cause. Social psychological evidence suggests that performance situations themselves can activate a temporary state called stereotype threat that can undermine performance and contribute to these apparent differences in ability between people of different groups. Stereotype threat has been one of the most highly studied social psychological phenomenon of the last decade, yet until recently, little was understood about the mechanisms by which performance is impaired in contexts where negative stereotypes are made salient. In this talk, I’ll describe the research we have carryied out to understand the interplay of cognitive, affective, and motivational processes that underlie how negative stereotypes impair performance particularly as it relates to women’s experience in science and math. I’ll present evidence that subtle reminders of being stereotyped cue an uncertain connection to the domain that elicits meta-cognitive interpretation of one’s experience. These off-task thoughts hijack working memory resources and engage mind-wandering, accounting for performance impairments due to threat. Efforts to retrain stereotyped associations and provide a positive reappraisal of one’s experience can alleviate these effects. Implications for gender and racial equality as well as applications to other types of decision making will be discussed.

• Friday 25 May 2012 12:00-13:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/3

  Daniel Zizzo (University of East Anglia)
  Complexity and Smart Nudges with Inattentive Consumers

  Abstract

  In an experiment on markets for services, we find that consumers are likely to stick to defaults and make suboptimal choices. We unpack two key psychological reasons why they do this - complexity (in terms of non-linearity, number and bundling of tariffs) and consumer inattention -. The complexity induced by non-linearity and number of tariffs has an important role, but one overstated if the explanatory power of inattention is neglected. We show that a ‘smart nudge’ policy of automatically switching default tariffs can be used to exploit inattention-based consumer inertia to achieve better consumer outcomes.

• Friday 25 May 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/3

  Jordi Brandts (Barcelona School of Economics)
  How communication affects contract design: An experimental study of formal and informal contracting

  Abstract

  We study experimentally how the ability to communicate affects the frequency of using flexible and rigid contracts in a bilateral trade context where sellers can adjust trade quality after observing a post-contractual cost shock and a discretionary buyer transfer. In the absence of communication, we find that rigid contracts are more frequent and lead to higher quality levels. By contrast, in the presence of communication, flexible contracts are more frequent and productive. The first result generalizes previous theory and evidence to noncompetitive environments. The second result shows that communication can remove the cost of flexibility. We offer a theoretical explanation based on social norms.

• Friday 11 May 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/3

  Steffen Andersen (Copenhagen Business School)
  Canceled

• Friday 30 March 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S.114

  Arno Riedl (Maastricht University)

  Abstract

  Existing experimental research on behavior in weakest-link games shows overwhelmingly the inability of people to coordinate on the efficient equilibrium, especially in larger groups. We hypothesize that people are able to coordinate on efficient outcomes, provided they have sufficient freedom to choose their interaction neighborhood. We conduct experiments with medium sized and large groups and show that neighborhood choice indeed leads to coordination on the fully efficient equilibrium, irrespective if group size. This leads to substantial welfare effects. Achieved welfare is between 40 and 60 percent higher in games with neighborhood choice than without neighborhood choice. We identify exclusion as the simple but very effective mechanism underlying this result. In early rounds, high performers exclude low performers who in consequence ‘learn’ to become high performers.

• Friday 16 March 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/3

  Giuseppe Attanasi (TSE)
  Disclosure of Belief-Dependent Preferences in the Trust Game

  Abstract

  We adopt a psychological games perspective to analyze behavior and beliefs in a Trust Game experiment. Subjects are randomly assigned to the role of truster, A player, and trustee, B player. Assuming that B subjects may be affected by guilt aversion and reciprocity, we try to elicit their belief dependent motivations with a set of hypothetical questions. We design the experiment so that subjects have no incentives to manipulate and we check that answers are reliable. We have two main treatments. In the No-Transmission (control) treatment, B’s (belief dependent) preferences cannot be common knowledge, hence the game has incomplete information. In the Transmission treatment, B’s answers to the hypothetical questions are transmitted and made common knowledge between the two matched subjects. In so far as such answers reveal the ìpsychological typeîof B, this treatment approximates a psychological game with complete information. In this case, assuming that players coordinate their expectations on the efficient equilibrium, we should observe trust/cooperation when the revealed type of B is guilt averse (or reciprocal) and no-trust/defection when he is selfish. We also provide qualitative predictions for the incomplete information case, based on a simplified Bayesian psychological game. The main insight is that average behavior is intermediate. We analyze the set of answers of each B subject with a grid estimation al- gorithm. Most B subjects are not selfish and we observe a dominance of guilt aversion over reciprocity. Coherently with our theoretical insights, our experi- mental results show that in the Transmission treatment inducing a psychological game with (approximately) complete information behavior is more extreme: in the subpopulation of matched pairs where B is highly guilt averse there is more trust and cooperation than in the corresponding incomplete information setting without transmission; whereas in the subpopulation of matched pairs where B has low guilt aversion there is less trust and cooperation than in the correspond- ing incomplete information setting. In both information settings, we find that the B subjects’cooperation rate is positively related to guilt aversion.

• Friday 2 March 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/3

  Hans-Theo Normann (University of Duesseldorf)
  Preferences and Beliefs in a Sequential Social Dilemma: A Within-Subjects Analysis

  Abstract

  In game theory, preferences and beliefs are typically treated as independent ingredients of best-response behavior. However, beliefs and preferences themselves are likely to interact and this has important implications for the interpretation of observed behavior. Our sequential social dilemma experiment allows to separate different interaction channels. We find that the frequently observed correlation between first- and second-mover behavior primarily originates via an indirect channel, where second-mover decisions influence beliefs via a consensus effect, and the first-mover decision is a best response to these beliefs. Specifically, beliefs about second-mover cooperation are biased toward own second-mover behavior, and most subjects best respond to stated beliefs. However, we also find evidence for a more conventional direct, preference-based channel. When first movers know the true probability of second-mover cooperation, subjects’ own second moves still have predictive power regarding their first moves.

• Friday 3 February 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/3

  Kyle Hyndman (Maastricht University)
  Procrastination, Self-Imposed Deadlines and Other Commitment Devices: Theory and Experiment

  Abstract

  In this paper we model a decision maker who must exert costly effort to complete a single task by a fixed deadline. Effort costs evolve stochastically in continuous time. The decision maker optimally waits to exert eff-ort until costs are less than a given threshold, the solution to an optimal stopping time problem. We derive the solution to this model for three cases: (1) time consistent decision makers, (2) naï-ve hyperbolic discounters and (3) sophisticated hyperbolic discounters. Sophisticated hyperbolic discounters behave as if they were time consistent but instead have a smaller reward for completing the task. Moreover, they will often self-impose a deadline to ensure early completion of the task. Other forms of commitment are also discussed. We then report the results of an experiment designed to study procrastination and the role of deadlines. Unlike previous experimental results on deadlines, we show that deadlines do not lead to improved performance, though those subjects who do self-impose deadlines on themselves also report themselves as being less conscientious than those who do not self-impose deadlines. Beyond procrastination, our results indicate that over-con-fidence and unanticipated cost shocks played an important role in the low completion rates.

• Friday 27 January 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/114

  Chris Starmer (University of Nottingham)
  Preference imprecision - what is it good for?

  Abstract

• Friday 20 January 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/3

  Olivier Armantier (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, CIRANO, and CIREQ)
  Framing of Incentives and Effort Provision

  Abstract

  The object of this paper is to better understand how effort provision is af- fected when workers face economically equivalent employment contracts framed as a combination of bonuses and penalties. Using a simple prospect theory model, we show that the link between incentive framing and effort provision is ambiguous: small penalties yield higher effort (because of loss aversion), but large penalties may decrease effort (because of diminishing sensitivity). To test the model’s predictions, we conduct a framed field experiment in which economically equivalent incentives contracts are framed as menus of either i) bonuses, ii) penalties, and iii) bonuses and penalties. Consistent with our model, we find that performance and effort are highest when bonuses and penalties are combined. These results suggest that both loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity can have explanatory power for labor decisions.

• Friday 13 January 2012 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/3

  Graham Loomes (University of Warwick)
  Which Way to Model the Stochastic Nature of Decision Making Under Risk

• Friday 16 December 2011 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, B.2.2

  Chris Starmer (University of Nottingham)
  Preference imprecision - what is it good for?

  Abstract

• Friday 9 December 2011 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/19

  Andreas Ortmann (Australian School of Business)
  Group Incentives or Individual Incentives? A Real-Effort Weak-Link Experiment

  Abstract

  Motivated by previous research on coordination problems and incentive design in organizations, we compare group incentives and individual incentives in a new experimental test-bed: a real-effort task embedding a weak-link lab coordination game technology. Comparing group incentives and individual incentives, we find that the observed dynamics of both individual errors and worst performances within firms are largely indistinguishable, suggesting that firm-based incentives are as effective as individual-based incentives in the present context. Simulations suggest that, in our test-bed, production costs are lower and profits are higher under group incentives. We find that more than 80 percent of our laboratory firms, notwithstanding initially widespread inefficiency, were eventually able to achieve and sustain efficient coordination, despite the presence of extremely unforgiving payoff structure. This result stands in stark contrast to standard results in the coordination game literature and provides an interesting challenge to test-beds currently used.

• Friday 2 December 2011 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, B.2.2

  Bo Sanitioso (Paris Descartes University)
  Power of the desired self: Influence of induced perceptions of the self on reasoning

• Friday 4 November 2011 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/18

  Mattia Nardotto (Telecom - Paris Tech)
  Nudging with information: a randomized field experiment on reminders and feedback

  Abstract

  Can people be helped to stick to their plans with a little help from information? We provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of the effects of reminders and feedback on investment activities involving up-front costs and delayed benefits, such as education and healthy behavior. By means of a randomized field experiment, we show that simple weekly reminders induce users of a gym to substantially increase their levels of physical exercise. We show that limited attention helps explain our results, and we find evidence of mental accounting in users’ response to the stimulus of reminders. These results show that virtuous behavior, such as following a healthy life style, can be promoted without the need for monetary incentives: providing incentives through information is both effective and cheap.

• Friday 21 October 2011 11:00-12:00

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, S/18

  Pavlo Blavatsky - University of Innsbruck
  Which decision theory?

  Abstract

  A new laboratory experiment is designed to identify the best theories for describing decisions under risk. The experimental design has two noteworthy features: a representative sample of binary choice problems (for fair comparison across theories) and a lottery set with a small number of outcomes and probabilities (for ease of non-parametric estimation). We find that a simple heuristic, rank-dependent utility and expected utility theory provide the best goodness of fit. Each theory can account for about a quarter of individual choice patterns. Most of choice patterns best rationalized by expected utility theory can be equally well described by Yaari’s dual model. Some of choice patterns best rationalized by rank-dependent utility can be equally well described by modified mean-variance approach.

  1 document to download

  • Which decision theory? (PDF, 92.9 kb)

• Friday 1 July 2011

  (University of Bologna) Tomaso Regianni

  Abstract

  Tomaso Regianni (University of Bologna)

• Friday 24 June 2011

  (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) Charles NOUSSAIR

  Abstract

  Charles NOUSSAIR (Tilburg University, The Netherlands)

• Friday 17 June 2011

  (Heidelberg University) Georg Oechsler

  Abstract

  Georg Oechsler (Heidelberg University)

• Friday 10 June 2011 11:00-13:00

  10th June 2011 - Juergen Bracht

  Abstract

  10th June 2011 - Juergen Bracht

• Friday 27 May 2011

  (IMPRS, MPI of Economics, Jena, Germany) Katrin SCHMELZ

  Abstract

  Katrin SCHMELZ (IMPRS, MPI of Economics, Jena, Germany)

• Friday 6 May 2011

  (Georgia State University) Glenn Harrison

  Abstract

  Glenn Harrison (Georgia State University)

• Friday 29 April 2011

  (Nuffield College, Oxford) Guy MAYRAZ

  Abstract

  Guy MAYRAZ (Nuffield College, Oxford)

• Friday 8 April 2011

  (Oklahoma State University, Stillwater) Jason LUSK

  Abstract

  Jason LUSK (Oklahoma State University, Stillwater)

• Friday 1 April 2011

  (Leibniz Universität, Hannover) Ulrich SCHMIDT

  Abstract

  Ulrich SCHMIDT (Leibniz Universität, Hannover)

• Friday 25 March 2011

  (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis) Aldo RUSTICHINI

  Abstract

  Aldo RUSTICHINI (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis)

• Friday 18 March 2011

  (University College of London) Benedetto DE MARTINO

  Abstract

  Benedetto DE MARTINO (University College of London)

• Friday 11 March 2011

  University of Namur (Belgium), and European Development Network (EUDN) - Gani Aldashev

  Abstract

  Gani Aldashev - University of Namur (Belgium), and European Development Network (EUDN)

• Friday 4 March 2011

  (University Warwick, UK) Andrea Isoni

  Abstract

  Andrea Isoni (University Warwick, UK)

• Friday 4 February 2011

  Ganna Pogrebna (University of Warwick, Coventry)

  Abstract

  Ganna Pogrebna (University of Warwick, Coventry)

• Friday 21 January 2011

  (Univ. Nottingham) Johannes Abeler

  Abstract

  Johannes Abeler (Univ. Nottingham)

• Friday 14 January 2011

  (Mannheim University) Michael Ziegelmeyer

  Abstract

  Michael Ziegelmeyer (Mannheim University)

• Thursday 6 January 2011

  (Erasmus University, Rotterdam) Han Bleichrodt

  Abstract

  Han Bleichrodt (Erasmus University, Rotterdam)

• Friday 26 November 2010

  (LSE) Imran Rasul

  Abstract

  Imran Rasul (LSE)

• Friday 19 November 2010

  (Erasmus University, Rotterdam/Warwick) Peter Wakker

  Abstract

  Peter Wakker (Erasmus University, Rotterdam/Warwick)

• Friday 12 November 2010

  (PSE) Chris Boyce

  Abstract

  Chris Boyce (PSE)

• Friday 5 November 2010

  (University of Southampton) Hector Calvo

  Abstract

  Hector Calvo (University of Southampton)

• Friday 29 October 2010

  (University of Innsbruck) Pavlo Blavatsky

  Abstract

  Pavlo Blavatsky (University of Innsbruck)

• Friday 15 October 2010

  (Osaka University) Katsunori Yamada

  Abstract

  Katsunori Yamada (Osaka University)

• Friday 8 October 2010

  (Erasmus University, Rotterdam) Aurélien Baillon

  Abstract

  Aurélien Baillon (Erasmus University, Rotterdam)

• Friday 1 October 2010

  (Univ. Bocconi, Milan) Luca Corazzini

  Abstract

  Luca Corazzini (Univ. Bocconi, Milan)

• Friday 17 September 2010

  (Ludwig-Maximilians University, Germany) Ferdinand Vieider

  Abstract

  Ferdinand Vieider (Ludwig-Maximilians University, Germany)

• Friday 2 July 2010

  (NYU) Guillaume Frechette

  Abstract

  Guillaume Frechette (NYU)
  MSE

• Friday 25 June 2010

  (University of Michigan) Bob Willis

  Abstract

  Bob Willis (University of Michigan)
  MSE

• Friday 11 June 2010

  (University of California, Irvine) Michael MacBride

  Abstract

  Michael MacBride (University of California, Irvine)
  MSE

• Friday 28 May 2010

  (PSE) Luc Arrondel et André Masson

  Abstract

  Luc Arrondel et André Masson (PSE)
  MSE

• Friday 14 May 2010

  (IZA) Thomas Dohnen

  Abstract

  Thomas Dohnen (IZA)
  MSE

• Friday 7 May 2010

  (PSE) Frederic Koessler

  Abstract

  Frederic Koessler (PSE)
  MSE

• Friday 16 April 2010

  Jeremy Celse (U. Montpellier)

  Abstract

  Jeremy Celse (U. Montpellier)
  MSE

• Friday 2 April 2010

  (Purdue University) Timothy Cason

  Abstract

  Timothy Cason (Purdue University)
  MSE

• Friday 26 March 2010

  (New York University) Andrew Caplin

  Abstract

  Andrew Caplin (New York University)
  MSE

• Friday 19 March 2010

  (MBB, CRICM, INSERM, UPMC, Hopital Pitié-Salpêtrière) Mathias Pessiglione

  Abstract

  Mathias Pessiglione (MBB, CRICM, INSERM, UPMC, Hopital Pitié-Salpêtrière)
  MSE

• Friday 12 March 2010

  (PSE) Fabrice Etile

  Abstract

  Fabrice Etile (PSE)
  MSE

• Thursday 18 February 2010

  Gneezy Uri

  Abstract

  Uri Gneezy
  ENS Ulm

• Friday 12 February 2010

  (PSE) Claudia Senik

  Abstract

  Claudia Senik (PSE)
  Jourdan

• Friday 5 February 2010

  (PSE) Olivier Gossner

  Abstract

  Olivier Gossner (PSE)
  Jourdan

• Friday 29 January 2010

  (Univ. Pompeu Fabra) Nagore Iriberri

  Abstract

  Nagore Iriberri (Univ. Pompeu Fabra)
  Jourdan

• Friday 22 January 2010

  (INRA, ALISS) Sabrina Teyssier

  Abstract

  Sabrina Teyssier (INRA, ALISS)
  Jourdan

• Friday 15 January 2010

  (PSE) Raphael Godefroy

  Abstract

  Raphael Godefroy (PSE)
  Jourdan

• Friday 8 January 2010

  (Cornell University) Ori Heffetz

  Abstract

  Ori Heffetz (Cornell University)
  Jourdan

• Friday 18 December 2009

  (PSE) Andrew Clark

  Abstract

  Andrew Clark (PSE)
  Jourdan, building F, room F

• Friday 11 December 2009

  (IZA) Alpaslan Akay

  Abstract

  Alpaslan Akay (IZA)
  Jourdan, building F, room F

• Friday 27 November 2009

  (University of Innsbruck) Matthias Sutter

  Abstract

  Matthias Sutter (University of Innsbruck)
  Jourdan, building F, room F

• Friday 20 November 2009

  (PSE) Guillaume Hollard

  Abstract

  Guillaume Hollard (PSE)
  Jourdan, building F, room F

• Friday 13 November 2009

  (LSE) Georg Weizsacker

  Abstract

  Georg Weizsacker (LSE) Jourdan, Salle de réunion, B

• From 25 June 2009 10:00 to 26 June 2009 11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  John List, University of Chicago
  TBA

• Friday 12 June 2009 13:00-17:00

  Drazen Prelec - MIT
  Meta-knowledge and the Bayesian truth serum mechanism

• Friday 5 June 2009 13:00-17:00

  Jim Andreoni - UCSD
  Diverging opinions

• Thursday 4 June 2009 16:00-19:00

  Salle 314

  Lise Vesterlund - Pittsburgh
  Gender differences in bargaining: a field experiment

• Friday 15 May 2009 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Arno Riedl, Maastricht University
  Norm enforcement in heterogeneous populations

• Friday 3 April 2009 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Rupert Sausgruber, University of Innsbruck
  Honesty on the streets : a natural field experiment on newspaper purchasing.

• Friday 13 March 2009 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Lionel Page, University of Westminster, London
  The momentum effect in competitions : field evidence from tennis matches

• Friday 6 March 2009 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Peter Wakker, Rotterdam and Maastricht Universities

  Abstract

  <a href="IMG/pdf/wakker.pdf" title='PDF - 118.2 kb' type="application/pdf"><img src='plugins-dist/medias/prive/vignettes/pdf.png' width='52' height='52' alt='PDF - 118.2 kb' />

  
  <dt
  class='spip_doc_titre' style='width:120px;'>Preference Reversals to Explain Ambiguity Aversion

• Friday 13 February 2009 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  ATTENTION - SEMINAIRE REPORTE A UNE DATE ULTERIEURE

  Nagore Iriberri, Pompeu Fabra University
  TBA

• Friday 6 February 2009 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Steffen Huck, University College of London
  Engineering Trust

  Abstract

  <a href="IMG/pdf/Huck1.pdf" title='PDF - 304.5 kb' type="application/pdf"><img src='plugins-dist/medias/prive/vignettes/pdf.png' width='52' height='52' alt='PDF - 304.5 kb' />

  
  <dt
  class='spip_doc_titre' style='width:120px;'>Competition Fosters Trust

  <a href="IMG/pdf/Huck2.pdf" title='PDF - 281.6 kb' type="application/pdf"><img src='plugins-dist/medias/prive/vignettes/pdf.png' width='52' height='52' alt='PDF - 281.6 kb' />

  
  <dt
  class='spip_doc_titre' style='width:120px;'>Pricing and Trust

• Friday 30 January 2009 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Theo Offerman, University of Amsterdam
  How to subsidize contributions to public goods - Does the frog jump out of the boiling water?

• Friday 16 January 2009 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Jean-Robert Tyran, University of Copenhaguen
  The Demand for Discrimination

• Friday 12 December 2008 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Orif Heffetz, Cornell University
  Conspicuous Consumption and Expenditure Visibility : measurement and application

• Friday 21 November 2008 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Graham Loomes, University of East Anglia

  Abstract

  <a href="IMG/pdf/loomes.pdf" title='PDF - 469.2 kb' type="application/pdf"><img src='plugins-dist/medias/prive/vignettes/pdf.png' width='52' height='52' alt='PDF - 469.2 kb' />

  
  <dt
  class='spip_doc_titre' style='width:120px;'>Modelling Noise and Imprecision in Individual Decisions

• Thursday 20 November 2008 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle B.3.1

  Graham Loomes, University of East Anglia
  Séance Supplémentaire

  Abstract

  <a href="IMG/pdf/loomes2.pdf" title='PDF - 265.8 kb' type="application/pdf"><img src='plugins-dist/medias/prive/vignettes/pdf.png' width='52' height='52' alt='PDF - 265.8 kb' />

  
  <dt
  class='spip_doc_titre' style='width:120px;'>Modelling Choice and Valuation in Decision Experiments

• Friday 14 November 2008 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Hilke Plassmann, INSEAD, Fontainebleau
  Neural basis of simple economic decision-making

• Friday 17 October 2008 10:00-11:30

  Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, boulevard de L’Hôpital, Paris 13°

  Salle 6e

  Tibor Neugebauer, University of Luxembourg
  The Petersburg paradox : 300 years of introspection and experimental evidence at last