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Articles 1 - 30 of 34
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Truth By Consensus: A Theoretical And Empirical Investigation, Gabriele Camera, Rod Garratt, Cyril Monnet
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.
Trust In Public Programmes And Distributive (In)Justice In Taxation, Orkhan Nadirov, Bruce Dehning
Trust In Public Programmes And Distributive (In)Justice In Taxation, Orkhan Nadirov, Bruce Dehning
Accounting Faculty Articles and Research
In the tax psychology literature, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the degree of distributive justice in taxation. This article aims to test the relationship between trust in public programmes and distributive justice in taxation at the cross-country level. The sample consists of 47 countries. Trust in public programmes and distributive justice in taxation are measured based on data collected from Wave 7 of the World Values Survey, which took place worldwide in 2017-2022. An Ordered Probit Model was utilised for the empirical analysis. This study finds that if taxpayers support preferential organisations like the police and universities, …
Building Credibility, Trust, And Safety On Video-Sharing Platforms, Shuo Niu, Zhicong Lu, Amy X. Zhang, Jie Cai, Carla F. Griggio, Hendrick Heuer
Building Credibility, Trust, And Safety On Video-Sharing Platforms, Shuo Niu, Zhicong Lu, Amy X. Zhang, Jie Cai, Carla F. Griggio, Hendrick Heuer
Computer Science
Video-sharing platforms (VSPs) such as YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch attract millions of users and have become influential information sources, especially among the young generation. Video creators and live streamers make videos to engage viewers and form online communities. VSP celebrities obtain monetary benefits through monetization programs and affiliated markets. However, there is a growing concern that user-generated videos are becoming a vehicle for spreading misinformation and controversial content. Creators may make inappropriate content for attention and financial benefits. Some other creators also face harassment and attack. This workshop seeks to bring together a group of HCI scholars to brainstorm technical …
Investing In Low-Trust Countries: On The Role Of Social Trust In The Global Mutual Fund Industry, Massimo Massa, Chengwei Wang, Hong Zhang, Jian Zhang
Investing In Low-Trust Countries: On The Role Of Social Trust In The Global Mutual Fund Industry, Massimo Massa, Chengwei Wang, Hong Zhang, Jian Zhang
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
We hypothesize that social trust, in mitigating contracting incompleteness, may have an important effect on the activeness and effectiveness of delegated portfolio management. Using a complete sample of worldwide open-end mutual funds, we find that trust is positively associated with the activeness of funds and that trust-related active share delivers superior performance (e.g., approximately 2% per year for cross-border investments). Moreover, "trust in the market" and "trust in managers" play important yet different roles for different types of cross-border delegated portfolio management. Our results suggest that trust acts as a fundamental building block for delegated portfolio management.
The Cultural Transmission Of Trust Norms: Evidence From A Lab In The Field On A Natural Experiment, Elira Karaja, Jared Rubin
The Cultural Transmission Of Trust Norms: Evidence From A Lab In The Field On A Natural Experiment, Elira Karaja, Jared Rubin
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
We conduct trust games in three villages in a northeastern Romanian commune. From 1775–1919, these villages were arbitrarily assigned to opposite sides of the Austrian and Ottoman/Russian border despite being located seven kilometers apart. This plausibly exogenous border assignment affected local institutions and late-18th century migration in a manner that likely also affected trust. Conditional on trust norms being affected by these centuries-old historical circumstances, our experimental design tests the degree to which such norms are transmitted intergenerationally. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that participants on the Austrian side that also have family roots in the village are indeed …
Viii—Gambling On Others And Relying On Others, Nicolas Cornell
Viii—Gambling On Others And Relying On Others, Nicolas Cornell
Articles
Gambling on another person and relying on another person are similar but intuitively distinct phenomena. This paper argues that gambling is distinguished by the stance that it necessarily involves towards the bet-upon conduct. It then contends that, where one has gambled upon the conduct of another, one has no standing to complain against that person for losses that result. This small point may have significant implications for how we think about speculative economic losses.
Trustors’ Disregard For Trustees Deciding Intuitively Or Reflectively: Three Experiments On Time Constraints, Antonio Cabrales, Antonio M. Espín, Praveen Kujal, Stephen Rassenti
Trustors’ Disregard For Trustees Deciding Intuitively Or Reflectively: Three Experiments On Time Constraints, Antonio Cabrales, Antonio M. Espín, Praveen Kujal, Stephen Rassenti
ESI Working Papers
Human decisions in the social domain are modulated by the interaction between intuitive and reflective processes. Requiring individuals to decide quickly or slowly triggers these processes and is thus likely to elicit different social behaviors. Meanwhile, time pressure has been associated with inefficiency in market settings and market regulation often requires individuals to delay their decisions via cooling-off periods. Yet, recent research suggests that people who make reflective decisions are met with distrust. If this extends to external time constraints, then forcing individuals to delay their decisions may be counterproductive in scenarios where trust considerations are important. In three Trust …
Institutions And Opportunistic Behavior: Experimental Evidence, Antonio Cabrales, Irma Clots-Figueras, Roberto Hernán-González, Praveen Kujal
Institutions And Opportunistic Behavior: Experimental Evidence, Antonio Cabrales, Irma Clots-Figueras, Roberto Hernán-González, Praveen Kujal
ESI Working Papers
Risk mitigating institutions have long been used by societies to protect against opportunistic behavior. We know little about how they are demanded, who demands them or how they impact subsequent behavior. To study these questions, we run a large-scale online experiment where insurance can be purchased to safeguard against opportunistic behavior. We compare two different selection mechanisms for risk mitigation, the individual and the collective (voting). We find that, whether individual or collective, there is demand for riskmitigating institutions amongst high-opportunism individuals, while low-opportunism individuals demand lesser levels of insurance. However, high-opportunism individuals strategically demand lower insurance institutions when they …
Trust And Retirement Preparedness: Evidence From Singapore, Benedict S. K. Koh, Olivia S. Mitchell, Joelle H. Fong
Trust And Retirement Preparedness: Evidence From Singapore, Benedict S. K. Koh, Olivia S. Mitchell, Joelle H. Fong
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
Trust is an essential component of any financial system, and distrust can undermine savings and economic growth. Our study draws on the Singapore Life Panel to assess how trust ties to older respondents’ (1) pension plan participation and withdrawals; (2) life, health, and long-term care insurance holdings; and (3) stock market engagement. We show that the widely-used ‘trust in people’ question is uncorrelated with household behaviours related to retirement preparedness. Instead, trust in private and public financial representatives is positively associated with pension savings, investments, and insurance holdings. Financial literacy also plays an important and consistent role in retirement decision-making.
Thaw Publications, Carl Landwehr, David Kotz
Thaw Publications, Carl Landwehr, David Kotz
Computer Science Technical Reports
In 2013, the National Science Foundation's Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace program awarded a Frontier grant to a consortium of four institutions, led by Dartmouth College, to enable trustworthy cybersystems for health and wellness. As of this writing, the Trustworthy Health and Wellness (THaW) project's bibliography includes more than 130 significant publications produced with support from the THaW grant; these publications document the progress made on many fronts by the THaW research team. The collection includes dissertations, theses, journal papers, conference papers, workshop contributions and more. The bibliography is organized as a Zotero library, which provides ready access to citation materials …
Trust And Trustworthiness In Procurement Contracts With Retainage, Matthew J. Walker, Elena Katok, Jason Shachat
Trust And Trustworthiness In Procurement Contracts With Retainage, Matthew J. Walker, Elena Katok, Jason Shachat
ESI Working Papers
In complex procurement projects, it is difficult to write enforceable contracts that condition price upon quality. Supplier non-performance becomes an acute risk, particularly when there is intense competition for the contract. An established incentive mechanism used to mitigate the problem of supplier non-performance is retainage, in which the buyer sets aside a portion of the purchase price. After project completion, the buyer determines the amount of retainage that is released to the seller, considering any defects that arise. While generally a feasible contract form to implement, the practical difficulties in assessing completion introduce a moral hazard for the buyer. We …
The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Economic Behaviours And Preferences: Experimental Evidence From Wuhan, Jason Shachat, Matthew J. Walker, Lijia Wei
The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Economic Behaviours And Preferences: Experimental Evidence From Wuhan, Jason Shachat, Matthew J. Walker, Lijia Wei
ESI Working Papers
We examine how the emergence of Covid-19 in Wuhan, and the ramifications of associated events, influence pro-sociality, trust and attitudes towards risk and ambiguity. We assess these influences using an experiment consisting of financially incentivized economic tasks. We establish causality via the comparison of a baseline sample collected pre-epidemic with five sampling waves starting from the imposition of a stringent lock- down in Wuhan and completed six weeks later. We find significant long-term increases - measured as the difference between the baseline and final wave average responses - in altruism, cooperation, trust and risk tolerance. Participants who remained in Wuhan …
Institutions, Opportunism And Prosocial Behavior: Some Experimental Evidence, Antonio Cabrales, Irma Clots-Figueras, Roberto Hernán-González, Praveen Kujal
Institutions, Opportunism And Prosocial Behavior: Some Experimental Evidence, Antonio Cabrales, Irma Clots-Figueras, Roberto Hernán-González, Praveen Kujal
ESI Working Papers
Formal or informal institutions have long been adopted by societies to protect against opportunistic behavior. However, we know very little about how these institutions are chosen and their impact on behavior. We experimentally investigate the demand for different levels of institutions that provide low to high levels of insurance and its subsequent impact on prosocial behavior. We conduct a large-scale online experiment where we add the possibility of purchasing insurance to safeguard against low reciprocity to the standard trust game. We compare two different mechanisms, the private (purchase) and the social (voting) choice of institutions. Whether voted or purchased, we …
The Persistent Power Of Promises, Florian Ederer, Frédéric Schneider
The Persistent Power Of Promises, Florian Ederer, Frédéric Schneider
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper investigates how the passage of time affects trust, trustworthiness, and cooperation. We use a hybrid lab and online experiment to provide the first evidence for the persistent power of communication. Even when 3 weeks pass between messages and actual choices, communication raises cooperation, trust, and trustworthiness by about 50 percent. Lags between the beginning of the interaction and the time to respond do not substantially alter trust or trustworthiness. Our results further suggest that the findings of the large experimental literature on trust that focuses on laboratory scenarios in which subjects are forced to choose their actions immediately …
The Persistent Power Of Promises, Florian Ederer, Frédéric Schneider
The Persistent Power Of Promises, Florian Ederer, Frédéric Schneider
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Using a large-scale hybrid laboratory and online trust experiment with pre-play communication this paper investigates how the passage of time affects trust, trustworthiness, and cooperation. We provide evidence for the persistent power of communication. Even when three weeks pass between messages and actual choices and even when these choices are made outside of the lab, communication (predominantly through the use of promises) raises cooperation, trust, and trustworthiness by about 50 percent. Delays between the beginning of the interaction and the time to reciprocate neither substantially alter trust or trustworthiness nor affect how subjects choose to communicate.
The Hidden Benefits Of Abstaining From Control, Gabriel Burdin, Simon Halliday, Fabio Landini
The Hidden Benefits Of Abstaining From Control, Gabriel Burdin, Simon Halliday, Fabio Landini
Economics: Faculty Publications
This paper studies the role of negative reciprocity, positive reciprocity and preferences for autonomy in explaining agents’ reactions to control in experimental principal-agent games. While most of the social psychology literature emphasizes the role of autonomy, recent economic research has provided an alternative explanation based on reciprocity. To understand the behavioral mechanisms underlying such reactions, we conduct an experiment in which we compare two treatments: one in which control is exerted directly by the principal; and the other in which it is exerted by a third party enjoying no residual claimancy rights (third-party control). The results indicate that when either …
Trust In Humans And Robots: Economically Similar But Emotionally Different, Eric Schniter, Timothy W. Shields, Daniel Sznycer
Trust In Humans And Robots: Economically Similar But Emotionally Different, Eric Schniter, Timothy W. Shields, Daniel Sznycer
ESI Working Papers
Trust-based interactions with robots are increasingly common in the marketplace, workplace, on the road, and in the home. However, a looming concern is that people may not trust robots as they do humans. While trust in fellow humans has been studied extensively, little is known about how people extend trust to robots. Here we compare trust-based investments and emotions from across three nearly identical economic games: human-human trust games, human-robot trust games, and human-robot trust games where the robot decision impacts another human. Robots in our experiment mimic humans: they are programmed to make reciprocity decisions based on previously observed …
Individualism, Collectivism, And Trade, Aidin Hajikhameneh, Erik O. Kimbrough
Individualism, Collectivism, And Trade, Aidin Hajikhameneh, Erik O. Kimbrough
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
While economists recognize the important role of formal institutions in the promotion of trade, there is increasing agreement that institutions are typically endogenous to culture, making it difficult to disentangle their separate contributions. Lab experiments that assign institutions exogenously and measure and control individual cultural characteristics can allow for clean identification of the effects of institutions, conditional on culture, and help us understand the relationship between behavior and culture, under a given institutional framework. We focus on cultural tendencies toward individualism/collectivism, which social psychologists highlight as an important determinant of many behavioral differences across groups and people. We design an …
The Growth Of Government, Trust In Government, And Evidence On Their Coevolution, Steven Gordon, John Garen, J. R. Clark
The Growth Of Government, Trust In Government, And Evidence On Their Coevolution, Steven Gordon, John Garen, J. R. Clark
Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers
The coevolution of trust in government alongside the growth of government is an aspect of the latter topic that has not been explored. Moreover, trust is viewed as part of social capital, facilitating social and economic transactions and the governance of society, and its decline has caused concern. We consider this coevolution in the context of a political economy model and a public interest view of government growth, incorporating the role of trust in government. Though a negative association of the growth in government with trust in government is broadly consistent with the historical data since the late 1950s, we …
Sleep Restriction And Circadian Effects On Social Decisions, David L. Dickinson, Todd Mcelroy
Sleep Restriction And Circadian Effects On Social Decisions, David L. Dickinson, Todd Mcelroy
ESI Publications
Our study examines how chronic sleep restriction and suboptimal times-of-day affect decisions in a classic set of social tasks. We experimentally manipulate and objectively measured sleep in 184 young-adult subjects, who were also randomly assigned an early morning or late evening experiment session during which decision tasks were administered. Sleep restriction and suboptimal time-of-day are both estimated to either directly or indirectly (via an impact on sleepiness) reduce altruism, trust, and trustworthiness. We conclude that commonly experienced adverse sleep states, most notably chronic sleep restriction, significantly reduce prosocial behaviors, and can therefore limit benefits from short-term social interactions.
The Cultural Transmission Of Trust Norms: Evidence From A Lab In The Field On A Natural Experiment, Jared Rubin, Elira Karaja
The Cultural Transmission Of Trust Norms: Evidence From A Lab In The Field On A Natural Experiment, Jared Rubin, Elira Karaja
ESI Working Papers
We conduct trust games in three villages in a northeastern Romanian commune. From 1775-1919, these villages were arbitrarily assigned to opposite sides of the Habsburg and Ottoman/Russian border despite being located seven kilometers apart. Russian and Ottoman Öscal institutions were more rapacious than Habsburg institutions, which may have eroded trust of outsiders (relative to co-villagers). Our design permits us to rigorously test this conjecture, and more generally, whether historically institutionalized cultural norms are transmitted intergenerationally. We Önd that participants on the Ottoman/Russian side are indeed less likely to trust outsiders but more likely to trust co-villagers.
Humans’ (Incorrect) Distrust Of Reflective Decisions, Antonio Cabrales, Antonio M. Espín, Praveen Kujal, Stephen Rassenti
Humans’ (Incorrect) Distrust Of Reflective Decisions, Antonio Cabrales, Antonio M. Espín, Praveen Kujal, Stephen Rassenti
ESI Working Papers
Recent experiments suggest that social behavior may be shaped by the time available for decision making. It is known that fast decision making relies more on intuition whereas slow decision making is affected by reflective processes. Little is known, however, about whether people correctly anticipate the effect of intuition vs. reflection on others’ decision making. This is important in everyday situations where anticipating others’ behavior is often essential. A good example of this is the extensively studied Trust Game where the trustor, by sending an amount of money to the trustee, runs the risk of being exploited by the trustee’s …
Reading Fiction And Economic Preferences Of Rural Youth In Burkina Faso, Michael J. Kevane
Reading Fiction And Economic Preferences Of Rural Youth In Burkina Faso, Michael J. Kevane
Economics
This paper presents results from a reading program for youth living in villages in south-western Burkina Faso. Standard experimental games were used to measure the effects of increased reading of fiction on several attitudes and preferences important for economic development. After six months of access and encouragement to read appropriate young adult fiction, there were few differences in any of four measured outcomes (trust, contribution to public goods, risk, and patience) between those participating in the reading program and the control group. Since the rise of mass-distributed novels in the 1800s, many have hypothesized that fiction would have significant effects …
Legal Risk And Investor Protection For Retail Investment Products: An Empirical Study Of Lawsuits Regarding Mutual Funds And Structured Notes In Taiwan, Christopher C. H. Chen
Legal Risk And Investor Protection For Retail Investment Products: An Empirical Study Of Lawsuits Regarding Mutual Funds And Structured Notes In Taiwan, Christopher C. H. Chen
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
This article analyses the results of 322 lawsuits regarding retail mutual funds and structured notes in Taiwan between 2000 and 2012 and their relationship with other factors such as investors’ personal characteristics, main arguments and causes of action. This article has the following major findings: (1) the winning rate for investors was quite low, meaning that banks face low legal risk from misselling claims; (2) investors were not better off by filing a complaint to the Banker’s Association; (3) we have not proved the courts showing preference for investors with certain personal traits due to limited information available; (4) a …
To Trust, Or Not To Trust: Cognitive Reflection In Trust Games, Brice Corgnet, Antonio M. Espín, Roberto Hernán-González, Praveen Kujal, Stephen Rassenti
To Trust, Or Not To Trust: Cognitive Reflection In Trust Games, Brice Corgnet, Antonio M. Espín, Roberto Hernán-González, Praveen Kujal, Stephen Rassenti
ESI Publications
We present results from two studies that show a positive relation between cognitive reflection and trusting behavior, but no significant relation with trustworthy behavior. Our finding holds regardless of individual distributional social preferences and risk aversion. Our results add to a growing body of literature that illustrates the role of cognitive ability in helping explain outcomes in economic experiments.
Ageism, Honesty, And Trust, Eric Schniter, Timothy W. Shields
Ageism, Honesty, And Trust, Eric Schniter, Timothy W. Shields
ESI Publications
Age-based discrimination is considered undesirable, yet we know little about age stereotypes and their effects on honesty and trust. To investigate this aspect of ageism, we presented older adults (over age 50) and younger adults (under age 25) with incentivized belief elicitation tasks about anticipated interaction behaviors and then a series of same, different, and unknown-aged group interactions in a strategic-communication game. All adults shared consensual stereotypes about uncooperative younger adults and cooperative older adults that demonstrated “wisdom of crowds”. While the out-group was consistently stereotyped as relatively different and more dishonest and suspicious than observed to be, the in-group …
The Coordination Value Of Monetary Exchange: Experimental Evidence, Gabriele Camera, Marco Casari
The Coordination Value Of Monetary Exchange: Experimental Evidence, Gabriele Camera, Marco Casari
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
What institutions can sustain cooperation in groups of strangers? Here we study the role of monetary systems. In an experiment, subjects sometimes needed help and sometimes could incur a cost to help an anonymous counterpart. In the absence of money, the intertemporal exchange of help, which could be supported by a norm of community punishment of defectors, did not emerge. Introducing intrinsically worthless tokens substantially altered patterns of behavior. Monetary trade emerged, which increased predictability of play and promoted cooperation when strangers could trade help for a token.
Commercial Relations: From Adam Smith To Field Experiments, Maria Pia Paganelli
Commercial Relations: From Adam Smith To Field Experiments, Maria Pia Paganelli
Economics Faculty Research
Adam Smith is often referred to as the father of economics and as a promoter of free markets. In what follows, I let the first claim stand and concentrate on the second: that Adam Smith is a promoter of free markets. In particular, I take for granted, with all the necessary caveats, that Smith is a promoter of free markets (but cf. e.g. Fleischacker 2004 ; McLean 2006 ) and concentrate on how Smith promotes free markets. Smith promotes free markets for at least two reasons: efficiency and morality. There is already a vast and detailed literature on the economic …
Adam Smith's Essentials: On Trust, Faith, And Free Markets, Jerry M. Evensky
Adam Smith's Essentials: On Trust, Faith, And Free Markets, Jerry M. Evensky
Economics - All Scholarship
When trust is shaken, individuals pull back and the market system contracts. Where trust grows, individual energy and creativity are unleashed and the system grows. In Adam Smith’s vision of humankind’s progress, trust is the central theme. The Great Recession represents a classic case of a crisis of trust. Looking back to the work of Smith offers insight into the role of citizens and the State in creating an fruitful market environment based on trust, and the challenge of this process, given the human frailty of individuals (unfortunately, we are not angels) and the potential for State power to be …
Recordkeeping Alters Economic History By Promoting Reciprocity, Sudipta Basu, John Dickhaut, Gary Hecht, Kristy Towry, Gregory Waymire
Recordkeeping Alters Economic History By Promoting Reciprocity, Sudipta Basu, John Dickhaut, Gary Hecht, Kristy Towry, Gregory Waymire
ESI Publications
We experimentally demonstrate a causal link between recordkeeping and reciprocal exchange. Recordkeeping improves memory of past interactions in a complex exchange environment, which promotes reputation formation and decision coordination. Economies with recordkeeping exhibit a beneficially altered economic history where the risks of exchanging with strangers are substantially lessened. Our findings are consistent with prior assertions that complex and extensive reciprocity requires sophisticated memory to store information on past transactions. We offer insights on this research by scientifically demonstrating that reciprocity can be facilitated by information storage external to the brain. This is consistent with the archaeological record, which suggests that …