105 research outputs found
Biases and Discrimination: An Economic Analysis using Lab and Field Experiments
No full textThis thesis uses laboratory and field experiments to examine the underlying motivations that drive biased and discriminatory behaviour. Its focus is on the differential treatment of others that stems from individuals’ preferences for particular social and ethnic groups. The unifying theme of this thesis is the exploration of how such discriminatory tastes can manifest themselves within individuals’ social and other–regarding preferences, determining the extent to which they care about the welfare of others. The prevalence and implications of these types of preferences are considered in both market and non–market settings
If you are offered the Right of First Refusal, Should you accept? An Investigation of Contract Design
No full textThe effects of induced emotions on pro-social behaviour
No full textThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Emotions are commonly experienced and expressed in human societies; however, their consequences on economic behaviour have received only limited attention. This paper investigates the effects of induced positive and negative emotions on cooperation and sanctioning behaviour in a one-shot voluntary contributions mechanism game, where personal and social interests are at odds. We concentrate on two specific emotions: anger and happiness. Our findings provide clear evidence that measures of social preferences are sensitive to subjects' current emotional states. Specifically, angry subjects contribute, on average, less than happy subjects and overall welfare as measured by average net earnings is lower when subjects are in an angry mood. We also find that how punishment is used is affected by moods: angry subjects punish harsher than happy subjects, ceteris paribus. These findings suggest that anger, when induced, can have a negative impact on economic behaviour
A closer look at cooperation: What factors influence non-strategic cooperative behaviour?
No full textThis work uses four different experiments to explore some of the factors that can help explain and predict cooperative/prosocial behaviour.
The first two experiments use the social dilemma of a two–player public goods game to explore the role of observability by others, along with, the role of beliefs/norms. Both find robust evidence in support of guilt aversion where an individual experiences a disutility simply from failing to meet the expectations of others (or their belief of what these expectations are), this being possible even when there is no observability by others. Both also find evidence for some people behaving in a “shame averse” way, this being where individuals experience a disutility from their behaviour being observed by others, in combination with, (as with guilt aversion) this behaviour failing to meet (their belief about) the expectations of others.
The other two experiments look at a more specific situation, that of paying a “queue jumping bribe”. It is found that both “citizens” and “officials” choose/accept a bribe less when there is a negative time externality attached to it (a third party being “pushed down the queue” and having to wait longer for service delivery). Citizens are also less likely to choose the bribe when a more costly “fast track fee” is available
The development of social preferences
No full textThis paper examines how social preferences develop with age. This is done using a range of mini-dictator games from which we classify 665 subjects into a variety of behavioural types. We expand on previous developmental studies of pro-sociality and parochialism by analysing individuals aged 9–67, and by employing a cross country study where participants from Spain interact with participants from different ethnic groups (Arab, East Asian, Black and White) belonging to different countries (Morocco, China, Senegal and Spain). We identify a ‘U-shaped’ relationship between age and egalitarianism that had previously gone unnoticed, and appeared linear. An inverse “U-shaped” relationship is found to be true for altruism. A gender differential is found to emerge in teenage years, with females becoming less altruistic but more egalitarian than males. In contrast to the majority of previous economic studies of the development of social preferences, we report evidence of increased altruism, and decreased egalitarianism and spite expressed towards black individuals from Senegal
Relative Payoffs and Happiness: An Experimental Study
No full textAre people concerned with their relative standing in a reference group? Do certain types care more about this than others? Little work has been done to identify underlying determinants for an inclination to make social comparisons and to explain variation across individuals. We investigate whether a person's level of happiness influences her taste for social comparisons and offer subjects choices in decision tasks where there is little or no difference in their monetary reward across choices, but where the material payoff for another person is strongly impacted. These decision tasks are calibrated to distinguish between a person's pure taste for achieving the social optimum, equality or preferences for advantageous relative standing. Self-reported happiness, as measured by scales derived from subjects' responses to questionnaires, is correlated with individual choices. Somewhat surprisingly, we find that most people appear to disregard relative payoffs, instead typically making choices resulting in higher social payoffs. While we do not find a strong correlation between happiness and difference aversion, we do observe that a willingness to lower another person's payoff below one's own (competitive preferences) seems correlated with unhappiness.
Reinforcement and Directional Learning in the Ultimatum Game with Responder Competition
No full textDemands in the Ultimatum Game in its traditional form with one proposer and one responder are compared with demands in an Ultimatum Game with responder competition. In this modified form one proposer faces three responders who can accept or reject the split of the pie. Initial demands in both ultimatum games are quite similar, however in the course of the experiment, demands in the ultimatum game with responder competition are significantly higher than in the traditional case with repeated random matching. Individual round-to-round changes of choices that are consistent with directional learning are the driving forces behind the differences between the two learning curves and cannot be tracked by an adjustment process in response to accumulated reinforcements. The importance of combining reinforcement and directional learning is addressed. Moreover, learning transfer between the two ultimatum games is analyzed. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2003ultimatum game, competition, reinforcement learning, directional learning, learning transfer,
The two-person beauty contest
No full textWe introduce a twoperson Beauty Contest Game with a unique Nash equilibrium that is identical to the game with many players. However, iterative reasoning is unnecessary in the twoperson game as choosing zero is a weakly dominant strategy. Despite this easier solution concept, we \u85nd that a large majority of players do not choose zero. This is the case even with a sophisticated subject pool
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