1,720,981 research outputs found
Paradigmatic Experiments : the Dictator Game
No full textRecent experiments with the Dictator Game (and the ensuing discussions) have been affected by considerable
confusion regarding the purpose of this design. A common complaint is that the design gives rise
to fragile regularities and therefore is of little use for theory-testing. We take issue with this view, and
instead argue that the Dictator Game is potentially a very useful tool for experimental game theory, if
properly used. It is particularly useful for investigating social norms, but economists have failed to take
advantage of the Dictator Game because they still lack an adequate theory of norms
Social esteem versus social stigma : the role of anonymity in an income reporting game
No full textThis paper aims at experimentally testing the role of different non-monetary (dis)incentives on tax compliance. Participants were subjected to different experimental conditions where the role played by anonymity differed. As expected, anonymity does play an important role in the decision to pay taxes. In addition, we found that a negative non-monetary incentive increases tax compliance more effectively than a positive non-monetary incentive. We also found that the effect of these non-monetary incentives is mitigated when too much information is made available. Results show that, when evasion is made public, tax fraudsters are willing to pay in order to keep their dishonest behaviour undisclosed and to avoid public shame. Interestingly we found a misalignment on the impact of stigmatization, namely that the judgement of an individual's evasion is perceived, by the individual, more harshly than a judgement made by the said individual regarding evasion carried out by other parties
Experiments in economics: External validity and the robustness of phenomena
No full textExternal validity is the problem of generalizing results from laboratory to non-laboratory conditions. In this paper we review various ways in which the problem can be tackled, depending on the kind of experiment one is doing. Using a concrete example, we highlight in particular the distinction between external validity and robustness, and point out that many experiments are not aimed at a well-specified real-world target but rather contribute to a 'library of robust phenomena', a body of experimental knowledge to be applied case by case.experiments, methodology, theory and evidence, external validity, pure and applied science,
How history and conventions create norms : An experimental study
No full textAccording to a tradition that goes back to David Hume, social conventions have a natural tendency to turn into norms. Normativity increases compliance and stabilizes individual behaviour in spite of changes in incentives. In this paper we report experimental data that confirm this insight and encourage mildly optimistic conclusions regarding human sociality: habits provide extra glue that keeps individuals together, and prevents them from succumbing to anti-social temptation even when punishment is unlikely
Il priority setting in sanità
No full textL’applicazione delle tecniche e delle metodologie del priority setting può consentire alle organizzazioni sanitarie di superare criteri di allocazione delle risorse meno efficaci quali quelli basati sui processi di budgeting o sulla spesa storica. Tali criteri determinano un impiego subottimale delle risorse disponibili mentre il priority setting favorisce la diffusione di un approccio sistematico, esplicito, equo e basato sull’evidenza a problemi complessi e critici anche in ottica di consenso politico.
Il presente contributo, dopo aver definito obiettivi ed ambito di applicazione del priority setting in sanità, focalizza l’attenzione da un lato sulla necessità di un approccio multidisciplinare ed integrato al tema, dall’altro sulle tecniche economiche tradizionali ed emergenti applicabili alla formulazione delle scelte di priorità in sanità
A Political Justification of Nudging
No full textThaler and Sunstein justify nudge policies from welfaristic premises: nudges are acceptable because they benefit the individuals who are nudged. A tacit assumption behind this strategy is that we can identify the true preferences of decision-makers. We argue that this assumption is often unwarranted, and that as a consequence nudge policies must be justified in a different way. A possible strategy is to abandon welfarism and endorse genuine paternalism. Another one is to argue that the biases of decision that choice architects attempt to eliminate create externalities. For example, in the case of intertemporal discounting, the costs of preference reversals are not always paid by the discounters, because they are transferred onto other individuals. But if this is the case, then nudges are best justified from a political rather than welfaristic standpoint
Group membership, team preferences, and expectations
No full textGroup membership is a powerful determinant of social behaviour in a variety of experimental games. Its effect may be channelled primarily via the beliefs of group members, or directly change their social preferences. We report an experiment with a prisoner's dilemma with multiple actions, in which we manipulate players’ beliefs and show that group identity has a consistent positive effect on cooperation only when there is common knowledge of group affiliation. We also test the robustness of the minimal group effect using three different manipulations: one manipulation fails to induce group identity, and we observe an unsystematic effect of group membership when knowledge of affiliation is asymmetri
The economic value of a meeting: evidence from an investment game experiment
No full textThe decrease of social distance between subjects and between subjects and experimenters facilitates the deviation from purely selfish behavior in different experimental contexts. Even though the effects of social distance reduction are widely documented, little is known about subjects’ preferences for anonymity, and in particular about the willingness to remove it if they are given the opportunity. In a variant of the investment game we give players the opportunity to decrease the social distance and investigate three main issues: a) how many subjects decide to remove anonymity when this is allowed; b) how this choice is associated with their behavior in the game; c) why should rational subjects opt for removing anonymity. Evidence shows that a significant number of subjects (43.5%) expects to obtain a positive utility by meeting their counterpart and they are ready to risk and/or lose money to get this utilit
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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