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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Generalized Neo-Eu Preferences And The Falsifiability Of Ambiguity Theories, Manuel Nunez, Mark Schneider Sep 2024

Generalized Neo-Eu Preferences And The Falsifiability Of Ambiguity Theories, Manuel Nunez, Mark Schneider

ESI Working Papers

Axiomatic non-expected utility models are generally more difficult to falsify than expected utility theory as they are less restrictive (by weakening the independence axiom). Recent work computes the Vapnik-Chervonenkis (VC) dimension of a theory to determine the extent to which the theory is falsifiable. Popular ambiguity theories have VC dimensions that increase exponentially in the number of states or that are infinite, whereas the VC dimension of expected utility theory increases linearly in the number of states. In this paper we axiomatically characterize the class of generalized non-extreme outcome expected utility (NEO-EU) preferences in the Anscombe-Aumann framework and show that …


A Critical Evaluation Of Loss Aversion As The Determinate Of Effort In Compensation Framing, Timothy W. Shields, James Wilhelm Sep 2024

A Critical Evaluation Of Loss Aversion As The Determinate Of Effort In Compensation Framing, Timothy W. Shields, James Wilhelm

ESI Working Papers

A robust finding in managerial accounting research is that participants prefer economically equivalent contracts framed as bonuses to penalties. Another finding is that participants put forth more effort when facing penalty contracts than equivalent bonus contracts. Both results are commonly described as due to loss aversion, an integral portion of Prospect Theory. We test whether loss aversion is correlated with higher effort in an experiment with two parts. In the first part, we elicit individual participants' loss aversion using two measures. In the second part of the experiment, participants choose costly efforts to increase the likelihood of high versus low …


The Law Of General Average, Luca Anderlini, Joshua C. Teitelbaum Aug 2024

The Law Of General Average, Luca Anderlini, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part of a ship's cargo is jettisoned in order to save the vessel and the remaining cargo from imminent peril. How should the loss be shared among the cargo owners? The law of general average, an ancient principle of maritime law, prescribes that the owners share the loss proportionally according to the respective values of their cargo. We analyze whether the law of general average is a truthful and efficient mechanism. That is, we investigate whether it induces truthful reporting of cargo values and yields a Pareto efficient allocation in equilibrium. We show that the law of general average is …


Coordination Within And Across Two Cultures, Gabriele Camera, James Gilmore, Marilyn Giselle Hazlett, Jason Shachat, Bochen Zhu Jul 2024

Coordination Within And Across Two Cultures, Gabriele Camera, James Gilmore, Marilyn Giselle Hazlett, Jason Shachat, Bochen Zhu

ESI Working Papers

We study within- and cross-culture interaction in a Stag Hunt game, using a controlled online experiment with Chinese and American participants. We find that cross-culture interactions can have a positive impact on efficiency. American participants, particularly females, more frequently selected the efficient but risky action when facing a Chinese counterpart. Chinese male participants, instead, less frequently selected the efficient but risky action when facing an American counterpart. These behavioral asymmetries do not support the notion of cultural equivalence, nor the hypothesis that multiculturalism fosters strategic uncertainty.


Efficient Bilateral Trade With Interdependent Values: The Use Of Two-Stage Mechanisms, Takashi Kunimoto, Cuiling Zhang Jul 2024

Efficient Bilateral Trade With Interdependent Values: The Use Of Two-Stage Mechanisms, Takashi Kunimoto, Cuiling Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

As efficient, voluntary bilateral trades are generally not incentive compatible in an interdependent-value environment (Fieseler, Kittsteiner, Moldovanu (2003) and Gresik (1991)), we seek for more positive results by employing two-stage mechanisms (Mezzetti (2004)). We say that a two-stage mechanism satisfies incentive compatibility if the truth-telling in both stages constitutes an equilibrium strategy.First, we show by means of a stylized example that the generalized two-stage Groves mechanism never guarantees voluntary trade, while it satisfies efficiency and incentive compatibility. In a general environment, we next propose Assumption 1 under which there exists a two-stage incentive compatible mechanism implementing an efficient, voluntary trade. …


Rank-Guaranteed Auctions, Wei He, Jiangtao Li, Weijie Zhong Jul 2024

Rank-Guaranteed Auctions, Wei He, Jiangtao Li, Weijie Zhong

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose a combinatorial ascending auction that is “approximately” optimal, requiring minimal rationality to achieve this level of optimality, and is robust to strategic and distributional uncertainties. Specifically, the auction is rankguaranteed, meaning that for any menu M and any valuation profile, the ex-post revenue is guaranteed to be at least as high as the highest revenue achievable from feasible allocations, taking the (|M| + 1)th-highest valuation for each bundle as the price. Our analysis highlights a crucial aspect of combinatorial auction design, namely, the design of menus. We provide simple and sufficient menus in various settings.


Who Helps Tsimane Children And Adults?, Eric Schniter, Daniel K. Cummings, Paul L. Hooper, Jonathan Stieglitz, Benjamin C. Trumble, Hillard S. Kaplan, Michael D. Gurven Jun 2024

Who Helps Tsimane Children And Adults?, Eric Schniter, Daniel K. Cummings, Paul L. Hooper, Jonathan Stieglitz, Benjamin C. Trumble, Hillard S. Kaplan, Michael D. Gurven

ESI Working Papers

We examine various forms of helping behavior among Tsimane Amerindians of Bolivia, focusing on the provision of shelter, childcare, food, sickcare, cultural influence, and traditional story knowledge. Kin selection theory traditionally explains nepotistic nurturing of youth by closely related kin. However, less attention has been given to understanding the help provided by individuals without close genetic relatedness. To explain who provides various forms of help, we evaluate support for several predictions derived from kin selection theory. Our results show that helpers who are most often closely related and from an older generation tend to provide more costly forms of help …


Moral Content Diminishes Preference Falsification, Maxine Bonneau, Tanya O'Garra, Praveen Kujal Jun 2024

Moral Content Diminishes Preference Falsification, Maxine Bonneau, Tanya O'Garra, Praveen Kujal

ESI Working Papers

We examine how the moral (or neutral) content of an issue influences the tendency to falsify attitudes, given varying social and monetary incentives to engage in such ‘preference falsification’. We conduct an incentivized two stage online experimental study where, in a prior first stage, attitude strength over moral and neutral issues is elicited. Then, in the second stage participants in groups of ten were asked to express their preferences regarding the moral or neutral issues for each possible combination of supporters and opposers in their group, each associated with varying monetary payoffs. More than half of the participants falsify their …


Ideology And Economic Change, Jared Rubin, Debin Ma Jun 2024

Ideology And Economic Change, Jared Rubin, Debin Ma

ESI Working Papers

This paper revisits the old theses of the contrasting paths to modernization between Japan and China. It develops a new analytical framework regarding the role of ideology and ideological change—Meiji Japan’s decisive turn towards the West pitted against Qing China’s lethargic response to Western imperialism—as the key driver behind these contrasting paths. Our framework and historical narrative highlight the contrast between Tokugawa Japan’s feudal, decentralized political regime and Qing China’s centralized bureaucratic system as a key determinant driving the differential patterns of ideological realignment. We argue that the 1894-95 Japanese naval victory over China could not be justified under the …


On The Stability Of Norms And Norm-Following Propensity: A Cross-Cultural Panel Study With Adolescents, Erik O. Kimbrough, Erin L. Krupka, Rajnish Kumar, Jennifer M. Murray, Abhijit Ramalingam, Sharon Sánchez‑Franco, Olga L. Sarmiento, Frank Kee, Ruth F. Hunter May 2024

On The Stability Of Norms And Norm-Following Propensity: A Cross-Cultural Panel Study With Adolescents, Erik O. Kimbrough, Erin L. Krupka, Rajnish Kumar, Jennifer M. Murray, Abhijit Ramalingam, Sharon Sánchez‑Franco, Olga L. Sarmiento, Frank Kee, Ruth F. Hunter

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Norm-based accounts of social behavior in economics typically reflect tradeoffs between maximization of own consumption utility and conformity to social norms. Theories of norm-following tend to assume that there exists a single, stable, commonly known injunctive social norm for a given choice setting and that each person has a stable propensity to follow social norms. We collect panel data on 1468 participants aged 11–15 years in Belfast, Northern Ireland and Bogotá, Colombia in which we measure norms for the dictator game and norm-following propensity twice at 10 weeks apart. We test these basic assumptions and find that norm-following propensity is …


A Red Awakening: An Analysis Of China’S Quest For Global Dominance Through Economic Alternative Warfare Methods, Sarah Beddingfield May 2024

A Red Awakening: An Analysis Of China’S Quest For Global Dominance Through Economic Alternative Warfare Methods, Sarah Beddingfield

Senior Honors Theses

In the 2023 annual meeting of China’s parliament, Chinese President Xi made it clear to his political leaders and the world that he was preparing for war. This should come as no surprise after analysis of China's grand strategy points clearly to the intent to surpass the U.S. as the premier global superpower in all respects. China has been building towards this goal for years through untraditional methods of warfare, forcing the national security community to reevaluate its own strategy and assess the Chinese threat through a different lens. This thesis seeks to address one specific area in which China …


Increases In Regional Brain Volume Across Two Native South American Male Populations, Nikhil N. Chaudhari, Phoebe E. Imms, Nathan F. Chowdhury, Margaret Gatz, Benjamin Trumble, Wendy J. Mack, E. Meng Law, M. Linda Sutherland, James D. Sutherland, Christopher J. Rowan, L. Samuel Wann, Adel H. Allam, Randall C. Thompson, David E. Michalik, Michael I. Miyamoto, Guido Lombardi, Daniel Cummings, Edmond Seabright, Sarah Alami, Angela R. Garcia, Daniel E. Rodriguez, Raul Quispe Gutierrez, Adrian J. Copajira, Paul L. Hooper, Kenneth Buetow, Jonathan Stieglitz, Michael D. Gurven, Gregory S. Thomas, Hillard Kaplan, Caleb E. Finch, Andrei Irimia Apr 2024

Increases In Regional Brain Volume Across Two Native South American Male Populations, Nikhil N. Chaudhari, Phoebe E. Imms, Nathan F. Chowdhury, Margaret Gatz, Benjamin Trumble, Wendy J. Mack, E. Meng Law, M. Linda Sutherland, James D. Sutherland, Christopher J. Rowan, L. Samuel Wann, Adel H. Allam, Randall C. Thompson, David E. Michalik, Michael I. Miyamoto, Guido Lombardi, Daniel Cummings, Edmond Seabright, Sarah Alami, Angela R. Garcia, Daniel E. Rodriguez, Raul Quispe Gutierrez, Adrian J. Copajira, Paul L. Hooper, Kenneth Buetow, Jonathan Stieglitz, Michael D. Gurven, Gregory S. Thomas, Hillard Kaplan, Caleb E. Finch, Andrei Irimia

ESI Publications

Industrialized environments, despite benefits such as higher levels of formal education and lower rates of infections, can also have pernicious impacts upon brain atrophy. Partly for this reason, comparing age-related brain volume trajectories between industrialized and non-industrialized populations can help to suggest lifestyle correlates of brain health. The Tsimane, indigenous to the Bolivian Amazon, derive their subsistence from foraging and horticulture and are physically active. The Moseten, a mixed-ethnicity farming population, are physically active but less than the Tsimane. Within both populations (N = 1024; age range = 46–83), we calculated regional brain volumes from computed tomography and compared …


Cooperation In Temporary Partnerships, Gabriele Camera, Alessandro Gioffré Apr 2024

Cooperation In Temporary Partnerships, Gabriele Camera, Alessandro Gioffré

ESI Working Papers

The literature on cooperation in infinitely repeated Prisoner’s Dilemmas covers the extreme opposites of the matching spectrum: partners, a player’s opponent never changes, and strangers, a player’s opponent randomly changes in every period. Here, we extend the analysis to settings where the opponent changes, but not in every period. In these temporary partnerships, players can deter some deviations by directly sanctioning their partner. Hence, relaxing the extreme assumption of one-period matchings can support some cooperation also off equilibrium because a class of strategies emerges that are less extreme than the typical “grim” strategy. We establish conditions supporting full …


Taking Employment Seriously: With Some Notes On Universal Basic Income, Larry Udell Apr 2024

Taking Employment Seriously: With Some Notes On Universal Basic Income, Larry Udell

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The question of whether to grant all citizens a basic income that would starts with adulthood is the source of much controversy today among people who believe that government should do something to address income inequality (including but not limited to addressing increasingly widespread poverty and homelessness). Philippe Van Parijs famously advocated such a policy, but his proposal was rejected by John Rawls, who demurred at subsidizing Malibu surfers with public support for their leisure and instead emphasized the need for a full employment policy. I argue that a slight modification of Rawls's theory might allow for a limited UBI …


Truth By Consensus: A Theoretical And Empirical Investigation, Gabriele Camera, Rod Garratt, Cyril Monnet Mar 2024

Truth By Consensus: A Theoretical And Empirical Investigation, Gabriele Camera, Rod Garratt, Cyril Monnet

ESI Working Papers

Truthful reporting about publicly observed events cannot be guaranteed by a consensus process. This fact, which we establish theoretically and verify empirically, holds true even if some individuals are compelled to tell the truth, regardless of economic incentives. In an experiment, subjects routinely misreported a commonly known event when they could monetarily gain from it. Relying on majority consensus did not help uncover the truth, especially if complying with the majority granted small personal monetary gains. This highlights the difficulties in relying on shared consensus protocols to agree on specific events, and the importance of institutions with trusted, impartial observers.


Cross-Cousin Marriage Among Tsimane Forager–Horticulturalists During Demographic Transition And Market Integration, Arianna Dalzero, Bret A. Beheim, Hillard Kaplan, Jonathan Stieglitz, Paul L. Hooper, Cody T. Ross, Michael D. Gurven, Dieter Lukas Mar 2024

Cross-Cousin Marriage Among Tsimane Forager–Horticulturalists During Demographic Transition And Market Integration, Arianna Dalzero, Bret A. Beheim, Hillard Kaplan, Jonathan Stieglitz, Paul L. Hooper, Cody T. Ross, Michael D. Gurven, Dieter Lukas

ESI Publications

Although still prevalent in many human societies, the practice of cousin marriage has precipitously declined in populations undergoing rapid demographic and socioeconomic change. However, it is still unclear whether changes in the structure of the marriage pool or changes in the fitness-relevant consequences of cousin marriage more strongly influence the frequency of cousin marriage. Here, we use genealogical data collected by the Tsimane Health and Life History Project to show that there is a small but measurable decline in the frequency of first cross-cousin marriage since the mid-twentieth century. Such changes are linked to concomitant changes in the pool of …


Ambiguity, Cognitive Reflection, And Strategic Complexity Across Auctions, Cary Deck, Paan Jindapon, Tigran Melkonyan, Mark Schneider Mar 2024

Ambiguity, Cognitive Reflection, And Strategic Complexity Across Auctions, Cary Deck, Paan Jindapon, Tigran Melkonyan, Mark Schneider

ESI Working Papers

This paper bridges large but separate literatures on decision-making under ambiguity, the dual system framework of behavioral economics, and market design. We characterize behavior under ambiguity arising from dual system preferences. Rational System 2 satisfies the subjective expected utility axioms while behavioral System 1 satisfies the obvious dominance axiom from mechanism design. Our axioms provide a novel foundation for the popular NEO-EU ambiguity model and allow for source dependent ambiguity perceptions. Our approach also provides an explanation as to how behavioral differences arise between obviously strategy-proof mechanisms (e.g. English auctions) and other mechanisms. Empirically, we find ambiguity perceptions are lower …


Robust Implementation In Rationalizable Strategies In General Mechanisms, Takashi Kunimoto, Rene Saran Mar 2024

Robust Implementation In Rationalizable Strategies In General Mechanisms, Takashi Kunimoto, Rene Saran

Research Collection School Of Economics

A social choice function (SCF) is robustly implementable in rationalizable strate-gies if every rationalizable strategy profile on every type space results in outcomes consistent with it. First, we establish an equivalence between robust implementation in rationalizable strategies and “weak rationalizable implementation”. Second, using the equivalence result, we identify weak robust monotonicity as a necessary and al-most sufficient condition for robust implementation in rationalizable strategies. This exhibits a contrast with robust implementation in interim equilibria, i.e., every equilib-rium on every type space achieves outcomes consistent with the SCF. Bergemann and Morris (2011) show that strict robust monotonicity is a necessary and …


The Interplay Of Interdependence And Correlation In Bilateral Trade, Takashi Kunimoto, Cuiling Zhang Mar 2024

The Interplay Of Interdependence And Correlation In Bilateral Trade, Takashi Kunimoto, Cuiling Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Crémer and McLean (1988) show that the seller can extract full surplus almost always by an incentive compatible, individually rational mechanism in a single-unit auction model with a finite type space in which agents' beliefs are correlated and their valuations can be interdependent. We first show that this paradoxically positive result can be extended to a model of bilateral trades. To make it more realistic, we investigate when ex-post efficiency and ex-post budget balance in bilateral trades can also be achieved by an incentive compatible, individually rational mechanism. We identify a necessary condition for the existence of such mechanisms and …


Interim Regret Minimization, Wei He, Jiangtao Li, Kexin Wang Mar 2024

Interim Regret Minimization, Wei He, Jiangtao Li, Kexin Wang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a robust version of monopoly pricing when the seller only knows the bound on valuations and the mean of the distribution of the buyer’s value. The seller seeks to minimize interim regret, the forgone expected revenue due to not knowing the distribution of the buyer’s value. The optimal pricing policy randomizes over a range of prices; the support of the pricing policy is bounded away from zero.


Cognitive Abilities And Individual Earnings In Hybrid Continuous Double Auctions, Yan Peng, Jason Shachat, Lijia Wei, S. Sarah Zhang Feb 2024

Cognitive Abilities And Individual Earnings In Hybrid Continuous Double Auctions, Yan Peng, Jason Shachat, Lijia Wei, S. Sarah Zhang

ESI Working Papers

We study the influence of cognitive abilities, in particular reaction time, trader intuition (Theory of Mind), and cognitive reflection abilities, on human participants’ individual earnings when competing alongside algorithmic traders in continuous double auctions. In balanced markets, where each human trader has an algorithmic trader clone with the same valuations or costs, faster human reaction time significantly improves trading performance, while Theory of Mind can be detrimental to human trading performance, particularly for sellers. For unbalanced markets with humans and algorithmic traders on opposite sides of the market, the effects of cognitive abilities depend on trader role as well as …


Coordinated And Uncoordinated Punishment In A Team Investment Game, Vicente Calabuig, Natalia Jiménez-Jiménez, Gonzalo Olcina, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara Feb 2024

Coordinated And Uncoordinated Punishment In A Team Investment Game, Vicente Calabuig, Natalia Jiménez-Jiménez, Gonzalo Olcina, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara

ESI Publications

Coordinated punishment occurs when punishment requires a specific number of punishers to be effective, otherwise, no damage will be inflicted on the target. While societies often rely on this punishment device, its benefits are unclear compared to uncoordinated punishment, where punishment decisions are substitutes. In this paper, we compare the efficacy of coordinated and uncoordinated punishment in a team investment game with two investors and one allocator. Our findings indicate that coordinated punishment results in higher levels of cooperation and reciprocity, as measured by the levels of joint investment and the return by allocators. Importantly, this does not translate into …


One-Half Heuristic In Overconfidence Research, Vojtěch Zíka Feb 2024

One-Half Heuristic In Overconfidence Research, Vojtěch Zíka

ESI Working Papers

This laboratory experiment (N=120) explored the possibility that overconfidence research concerning overestimation and overplacement may be affected by the one-half heuristic, a tendency of individuals to estimate quantities with unknown distributions at half of the maximum value. The data from multiple rounds of the computerized hand game Rock–Paper–Scissors provide convincing evidence that half of the maximum is the most popular estimate and that manipulating the game’s average score can affect the direction and magnitude of estimation, averaging, and placement levels. The resulting methodological proposal is that the score participants estimate should have an expected value equal to half of the …


How Does Passive Investing Effect The Informational Efficiency Of Prices?, Brice Corgnet, Mark Desantis, Yan Peng, David Porter, Jason Shachat Feb 2024

How Does Passive Investing Effect The Informational Efficiency Of Prices?, Brice Corgnet, Mark Desantis, Yan Peng, David Porter, Jason Shachat

ESI Working Papers

We investigate the causal effects of passive investing on informational efficiency and market quality metrics by developing a novel laboratory experiment that introduces Index trackers with exogenous passive investment flows. We find that, while improving liquidity, Index tracking hurts informational efficiency, confirming our main hypothesis. Furthermore, we observe violations of the law of one price, leading to widespread and persistent arbitrage opportunities. Additionally, our research uncovers that Active traders, particularly those with private information about asset values and high cognitive ability, reap benefits from the introduction of Index tracking.


Sleep Restriction Alters The Integration Of Multiple Information Sources In Probabilistic Decision-Making, Jeryl Y. L. Lim, Johanna M. Boardman, Clare Anderson, David L. Dickinson, Daniel Bennett, Sean P. A. Drummond Feb 2024

Sleep Restriction Alters The Integration Of Multiple Information Sources In Probabilistic Decision-Making, Jeryl Y. L. Lim, Johanna M. Boardman, Clare Anderson, David L. Dickinson, Daniel Bennett, Sean P. A. Drummond

ESI Publications

The detrimental effects of sleep loss on overall decision-making have been well described. Due to the complex nature of decisions, there remains a need for studies to identify specific mechanisms of decision-making vulnerable to sleep loss. Bayesian perspectives of decision-making posit judgement formation during decision-making occurs via a process of integrating knowledge gleaned from past experiences (priors) with new information from current observations (likelihoods). We investigated the effects of sleep loss on the ability to integrate multiple sources of information during decision-making by reporting results from two experiments: the first implementing both sleep restriction (SR) and …


Representation And Bracketing In Repeated Games, Mouli Modak Feb 2024

Representation And Bracketing In Repeated Games, Mouli Modak

ESI Working Papers

In this experimental paper, the author investigates the framing effect of different representations of multiple strategic settings or games on a player’s strategic behavior. Two representations of the same environment are employed, wherein a player engages in two infinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma games. In the first representation (termed Split), the stage games are shown separately. In contrast, the second representation (termed Linked) displays a combined stage game. The choice bracketing, distinguishing between Narrow and Broad bracketing, is considered a potential cause behind any disparity in behavior between the two representations. The Split representation does not necessitate broad bracketing, whereas the …


Compellingness In Nash Implementation, Shurojit Chatterji, Takashi Kunimoto, Paulo Daniel Salles Ramos Feb 2024

Compellingness In Nash Implementation, Shurojit Chatterji, Takashi Kunimoto, Paulo Daniel Salles Ramos

Research Collection School Of Economics

A social choice function (SCF) is said to be Nash implementable if there exists a mechanism in which every Nash equilibrium outcome coincides with that specified by the SCF. The main objective of this paper is to assess the impact of considering mixed strategy equilibria in Nash implementation. To do this, we focus on environments with two agents and restrict attention to finite mechanisms. We call a mixed strategy equilibrium “compelling” if its outcome Pareto dominates any pure strategy equilibrium outcome. We show that if the finite environment and the SCF to be implemented jointly satisfy what we call Condition …


How Personalized Networks Can Limit Free Riding: A Multi-Group Version Of The Public Goods Game, Aaron S. Berman, Laurence R. Iannaccone, Mouli Modak Jan 2024

How Personalized Networks Can Limit Free Riding: A Multi-Group Version Of The Public Goods Game, Aaron S. Berman, Laurence R. Iannaccone, Mouli Modak

ESI Working Papers

People belong to many different groups, and few belong to the same network of groups. Moreover, people routinely reduce their involvement in dysfunctional groups while increasing involvement in those they find more attractive. The net effect can be an increase in overall cooperation and the partial isolation of free-riders, even if free-riders are never punished, excluded, or recognized. We formalize and test this conjecture with an agent-based social simulation and a multi-good extension of the standard repeated public goods game. Our initial results from three treatments suggest that the multi-group setting indeed raises overall cooperation and dampens the impact of …


Personal Lies, Gary Charness, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara Jan 2024

Personal Lies, Gary Charness, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara

ESI Working Papers

Using the mind game, we provide experimental evidence that people are more likely to lie when they disclose non-personal information (e.g., reporting a number they thought of) compared with personal information (e.g., reporting the last digit of their birth year). Our findings suggest that the type of information is an important factor for lying behavior.


Experimental Research On Contests, Subhashish M. Chowdhury, Dan Kovenock, Anwesha Mukherjee Jan 2024

Experimental Research On Contests, Subhashish M. Chowdhury, Dan Kovenock, Anwesha Mukherjee

ESI Working Papers

Contests are situations in which agents compete by irreversibly expending costly resources in an attempt to win a prize. Due to their applications in conflict, rent-seeking, organizational incentives, sports, litigation, and political campaigns, contests are widely applied in the social sciences. In this survey we summarize some main results and recent developments of experimental studies in contest theory. We also point out their broader applications in the social sciences.