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Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Preventing (Panic) Bank Runs, Hubert János Kiss, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara, Alfonso Rosa-Garcia
Preventing (Panic) Bank Runs, Hubert János Kiss, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara, Alfonso Rosa-Garcia
ESI Publications
We study experimentally an instrument to prevent bank runs in healthy banks. In particular, we extend the basic bank-run game, where depositors choose between withdrawing or keeping their money deposited, with a third option, the possibility to relocate funds to a priority account that is less profitable, but which guarantees a payoff even in a bank run. Theoretically, the use of this instrument dominates withdrawals for depositors without liquidity needs, and given this fact, depositors should optimally keep their deposits in the bank, so no bank run shall happen. In our experiment, we find evidence that the mechanism reduces not …
A Simple, Ecologically Rational Rule For Settling Found Property Disputes, Bart J. Wilson
A Simple, Ecologically Rational Rule For Settling Found Property Disputes, Bart J. Wilson
ESI Publications
Who has property in a found item X, which is contained in Y? The finder of X or the person who has property in Y? The common law says it depends. It depends upon whether the owner of Y knew about X, or whether X was lost or mislaid, or how small the weight of X is relative to Y (as compared to its value), or whether the finder was an employee of the owner of Y, to name just a few. Wilson (2020) hypothesizes that humans universally cognize property as being contained in a …
Do Negative Random Shocks Affect Trust And Trustworthiness?, Hernán Bejerano, Joris Gillet, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara
Do Negative Random Shocks Affect Trust And Trustworthiness?, Hernán Bejerano, Joris Gillet, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara
ESI Publications
We report data from a variation of the trust game aimed at determining whether (and how) inequality and random shocks that affect wealth influence the levels of trust and trustworthiness. To tease apart the effect of the shock and the inequality, we compare behavior in a trust game where the inequality is initially given and one where it is the result of a random shock that reduces the second mover's endowment. We find that first‐movers send less to second‐movers but only when the inequality results from a random shock. As for the amount returned, second‐movers return less when they are …
Do Negative Random Shocks Affect Trust And Trustworthiness?, Hernán Bejerano, Joris Gillet, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara
Do Negative Random Shocks Affect Trust And Trustworthiness?, Hernán Bejerano, Joris Gillet, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara
ESI Publications
We report data from a variation of the trust game aimed at determining whether (and how) inequality and random shocks that affect wealth influence the levels of trust and trustworthiness. To tease apart the effect of the shock and the inequality, we compare behavior in a trust game where the inequality is initially given and one where it is the result of a random shock that reduces the second mover's endowment. We find that first‐movers send less to second‐movers but only when the inequality results from a random shock. As for the amount returned, second‐movers return less when they are …
The Welfare Effects Of Civil Forfeiture, Michael Preciado, Bart J. Wilson
The Welfare Effects Of Civil Forfeiture, Michael Preciado, Bart J. Wilson
ESI Publications
Using a laboratory experiment we explore competing claims on the welfare effects of civil forfeiture. Experiment participants are tasked with making trade-offs in allocating resources “to fight crime” with and without the ability to seize and forfeit assets. It is an open question whether the societal impact of reducing crime is greater in a world with or without civil forfeiture. Proponents of civil forfeiture argue that the ill-gotten gains of criminals can be used by law enforcement to further fight crime. Opponents claim that the confiscation of assets by law enforcement distorts the prioritization of cases by focusing attention, not …
Human And Monkey Responses In A Symmetric Game Of Conflict With Asymmetric Equilibria, Sarah F. Brosnan, Sara A. Price, Kelly Leverett, Laurent Prétôt, Michael Beran, Bart J. Wilson
Human And Monkey Responses In A Symmetric Game Of Conflict With Asymmetric Equilibria, Sarah F. Brosnan, Sara A. Price, Kelly Leverett, Laurent Prétôt, Michael Beran, Bart J. Wilson
ESI Publications
To better understand the evolutionary history of human decision-making, we compare human behavior to that of two monkey species in a symmetric game of conflict with two asymmetric equilibria. While all of these species routinely make decisions in the context of social cooperation and competition, they have different socio-ecologies, which leads to different predictions about how they will respond. Our prediction was that anti-matching would be more difficult than matching in a symmetric coordination with simultaneous moves. To our surprise, not only do rhesus macaques frequently play one asymmetric Nash equilibrium, but so do capuchin monkeys, whose play in the …
Smile, Dictator, You’Re On Camera, Joy A. Buchanan, Matthew K. Mcmahon, Matthew Simpson, Bart J. Wilson
Smile, Dictator, You’Re On Camera, Joy A. Buchanan, Matthew K. Mcmahon, Matthew Simpson, Bart J. Wilson
ESI Publications
We investigate the degree to which people in a shopping mall express other-regarding behavior in the dictator game. Whereas many studies have attempted to increase the social distance between the dictator and experimenter and between the dictator and dictatee, we attempt to minimize that social distance between random strangers by video recording the decisions with the permission of the dictators to display their image on the Internet. Offers made by dictators are high relative to other experiments and a nontrivial number give the entire experimental windfall away, however a nontrivial number of people keep everything as well.
Indirect Reciprocity, Resource Sharing, And Environmental Risk: Evidence From Field Experiments In Siberia, E. Lance Howe, James J. Murphy, Drew Gerkey, Colin Thor West
Indirect Reciprocity, Resource Sharing, And Environmental Risk: Evidence From Field Experiments In Siberia, E. Lance Howe, James J. Murphy, Drew Gerkey, Colin Thor West
ESI Publications
Integrating information from existing research, qualitative ethnographic interviews, and participant observation, we designed a field experiment that introduces idiosyncratic environmental risk and a voluntary sharing decision into a standard public goods game. Conducted with subsistence resource users in rural villages on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Northeast Siberia, we find evidence consistent with a model of indirect reciprocity and local social norms of helping the needy. When participants are allowed to develop reputations in the experiments, as is the case in most small-scale societies, we find that sharing is increasingly directed toward individuals experiencing hardship, good reputations increase aid, and the …
Advancing The Understanding Of Behavior In Social-Ecological Systems: Results From Lab And Field Experiments, Marco A. Janssen, Therese Lindahl, James J. Murphy
Advancing The Understanding Of Behavior In Social-Ecological Systems: Results From Lab And Field Experiments, Marco A. Janssen, Therese Lindahl, James J. Murphy
ESI Publications
"Experiments have made important contributions to our understanding of human behavior, including behavior relevant for understanding social-ecological systems. When there is a conflict between individual and group interests in social-ecological systems, social dilemmas occur. From the many types of social-dilemma formulations that are used to study collective action, common-pool resource and public-good dilemmas are most relevant for social-ecological systems. Experimental studies of both common-pool resource and public-good dilemmas have shown that many predictions based on the conventional theory of collective action, which assumes rational, self-interested behavior, do not hold. More cooperation occurs than predicted (Ledyard 1995), “cheap talk” increases cooperation …
Further Towards A Theory Of The Emergence Of Property, Bart J. Wilson
Further Towards A Theory Of The Emergence Of Property, Bart J. Wilson
ESI Publications
This article explores the emergence of property as a moral convention. To understand this process I make use of several laboratory experiments on property in its nascence. These experiments illustrate how a rule of property arises from our knowledge of what is morally right, and not vice versa. I also argue that while the ultimate end of property is our interest in using things, the proximate end of property is not losing them, i.e., the end of a rule of property is to secure from morally unfounded harm.
Risky Business: An Analysis Of Teacher Risk Preferences, Daniel H. Bowen, Stuart Buck, Cary Deck, Jonathan N. Mills, James V. Shuls
Risky Business: An Analysis Of Teacher Risk Preferences, Daniel H. Bowen, Stuart Buck, Cary Deck, Jonathan N. Mills, James V. Shuls
ESI Publications
A range of proposals aim to reform teacher compensation, recruitment, and retention. Teachers have generally not embraced these policies. One potential explanation for their objections is that teachers are relatively risk averse. We examine this hypothesis using a risk-elicitation task common to experimental economics. By comparing preferences of new teachers with those entering other professions, we find that individuals choosing to teach are significantly more risk averse. This suggests that the teaching profession may attract individuals who are less amenable to certain reforms. Policy-makers should take into account teacher risk characteristics when considering reforms that may clash with preferences.
Dynamic Optimization And Conformity In Health Behavior And Life Enjoyment Over The Life Cycle, Hernán D. Bejarano, Hillard Kaplan, Stephen Rassenti
Dynamic Optimization And Conformity In Health Behavior And Life Enjoyment Over The Life Cycle, Hernán D. Bejarano, Hillard Kaplan, Stephen Rassenti
ESI Publications
This article examines individual and social influences on investments in health and enjoyment from immediate consumption. Our lab experiment mimics the problem of health investment over a lifetime (Grossman, 1972a,b). Incentives to find the appropriate expenditures on life enjoyment and health are given by making in each period come period a function of previous health investments. In order to model social effects in the experiment, we randomly assigned individuals to chat/observation groups. Groups were permitted to freely chat between repeated lifetimes. Two treatments were employed: In the Independent-rewards treatment, an individual's rewards from investments in life enjoyment depend only on …
The Social Strategy Game: Resource Competition Within Female Social Networks Among Small-Scale Forager-Horticulturalists, Stacey L. Rukas, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking
The Social Strategy Game: Resource Competition Within Female Social Networks Among Small-Scale Forager-Horticulturalists, Stacey L. Rukas, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking
ESI Publications
This paper examines social determinants of resource competition among Tsimane Amerindian women of Bolivia. We introduce a semi-anonymous experiment (the Social Strategy Game) designed to simulate resource competition among women. Information concerning dyadic social relationships and demographic data were collected to identify variables influencing resource competition intensity, as measured by the number of beads one woman took from another. Relationship variables are used to test how the affiliative or competitive aspects of dyads affect the extent of prosociality in the game. Using a mixed-modeling procedure, we find that women compete with those with whom they are quarreling over accusations of …