1,721,012 research outputs found
‘Expressive’ Obligations in Public Good Games: Crowding-in and Crowding-out Effects, No. 04/WP/2010, Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice.
No full textWe study individual behaviour in a repeated linear public good experiment in which, in each period, subjects are required to contribute a minimum level and face a certain probability to be
audited. Audited subjects who contribute less than the minimum level are convicted to pay the difference between the obligation required and the voluntary contribution. We study the ‘expressive’ power of the obligations. While at early stages subjects contribute the minimum level, with repetition contributions decline below the required amount indicating that expressive obligations are not capable to sustain cooperation. We observe that expressive
obligations exert a rather robust crowding-out effect on voluntary contributions as compared to a standard public good game. The crowding-out is stronger when payments collected by the
monitoring activity are distributed to subjects rather than when they are pure dead-weight-loss
Salience, Coordination and Cooperation in Contributing toThreshold Public Goods
No full textWe present results from a multiple public goods experiment, where each public good produces benefits only if total contributions to it reach a minimum threshold. The experiment allows us to compare subjectsbehavior in a benchmark treatment with a single public good and in treatments with more public goods than can be funded. We show how the availability of numerous, more-efficient public goods may not make subjects better off. This is because multiple options decrease the probability of coordination and discourage contributions. The availability of several less-efficient options does not alter coordination and contributions relative to the benchmark
Voting as a Lottery
No full textSupermajorities have their advantage as well as their disadvantage: they provide an hedgeagainst being in the minority, but they make being in the majority less likely. We characterizethis trade-o¤ and compute the most preferred majority threshold. The relevant parametersare voting power, risk aversion and pessimism. People who feel powerful prefer low thresholds.High thresholds are preferred by risk averters or by those who are pessimistic about being inthe majority.Further we study constitutional agreements on the voting rule. Members of the constituentassembly are heterogeneous in the parameters above. We show that weak and minority memberssucceed in pushing forward on high and protective rules.[...
Political Narratives and the US Partisan Gender Gap
Full text linkSocial scientists have devoted considerable research effort to investigate the determinants of the Partisan Gender Gap (PGG), whereby US women (men) tend to exhibit more liberal (conservative) political preferences over time. Results of a survey experiment run during the COVID-19 emergency and involving 3,086 US residents show that exposing subjects to alternative narratives on the causes of the pandemic increases the PGG: relative to a baseline treatment in which no narrative manipulation is implemented, exposing subjects to either the Lab narrative (claiming that COVID-19 was caused by a lab accident in Wuhan) or the Nature narrative (according to which COVID-19 originated in the wildlife) makes women more liberal. The polarization effect documented in our experiment is magnified by the political orientation of participants' state of residence: the largest PGG effect is between men residing in Republican-leaning states and women living in Democratic-leaning states. JEL Classification: J16, D83, C83, C99, P16, D72
Do Danes and Italians Rate Life Satisfaction in the Same Way? Using Vignettes to Correct for Individual-Specific Scale Biases
No full textSelf-reported life satisfaction is highly heterogeneous across similar countries. This phenomenon can be largely explained by the different scales and benchmarks adopted by individuals when evaluating themselves. We use cross-sectional data on the population aged 50 and over in ten European countries to compare estimates from a model in which reporting styles are assumed to be constant across respondents with those from a model in which anchoring vignettes are used to correct for individual-speci c scale biases. We fi nd that variations in response scales explain a large part of the differences found in raw data. Moreover, the cross-country ranking in life satisfaction signi cantly depends on scale biases
Allotment in First Price Auctions: An Experimental Investigation
Full text linkWe experimentally investigate the effects of allotment - the division of one item into several and distinct units - on bidding behaviour and efficiency in first-price, independent
private values auction formats. In particular, allotment is introduced by either implementing a single auction with two identical units (discriminatory auction) or by letting subjects
to participate to two identical and simultaneous auctions, each involving a single unit. We find that allotment mitigates overbidding, with this effect being more pronunced in the
discriminatory auction. Moreover, in the treatments with allotment, we observe a persistent and (relatively) large bid spread. Finally, because of bid spreading and the effects on
overbidding, we observe a signicant loss of efficiency in the discriminatory auction relative to the other two treatments
Whistleblowing and tax evasion: Experimental evidence
No full textIn a tax compliance experiment we manipulate various dimensions to isolate the effects of whistleblowing: whether incomes are homogeneous or heterogeneous; whether whistleblowing is permitted or not; and whether subjects have complete or incomplete information about others' tax evasion. Under complete information, we find that whistleblowing has a strong impact on compliance, reducing the proportion of concealed income and increasing the precision of the auditing procedure. Moreover, the probability of being whistled increases with evasion and rich subjects react to whistleblowing more than poor subjects do. Introducing incomplete information reduces the deterrent effect of whistleblowing, but not among the richest taxpayers
Measuring the Impact of Behavioural Choices on the Market Prices
No full textWe present a methodology to build a new sentiment index of market (ir)rationality. The proposed index, derived only on the basis of equity market prices, could be used to monitor the impact on behavioural-driven agent's choices. In this note, we discuss the main idea behind the proposed approach
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