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Full-Text Articles in Economic Theory
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 …
Who Withdraws First? Line Formation During Bank Runs, Hubert János Kiss, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara, Alfonso Rosa-Garcia
Who Withdraws First? Line Formation During Bank Runs, Hubert János Kiss, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara, Alfonso Rosa-Garcia
ESI Working Papers
We study how lines form in front of banks. In our model, depositors choose first the level of effort to arrive early at the bank and then whether or not to withdraw their deposit. We argue that the informational environment (i.e., the possibility of observing the action of others) affects the emergence of bank runs and should, therefore, influence the line formation. We test this prediction experimentally. While the informational environment has no effect on the line formation when we look at the average level of effort, our findings suggest that the reasons to arrive early at the bank varies …
The Conservatism Principle And Asymmetric Preferences Over Reporting Errors, Jivas Chakravarthy, Timothy W. Shields
The Conservatism Principle And Asymmetric Preferences Over Reporting Errors, Jivas Chakravarthy, Timothy W. Shields
ESI Working Papers
At present, accounting conservatism is generally viewed from a measurement or reporting perspective. In contrast, we consider whether it relates to a moral rule of conduct. Conservatism has been described as deriving from a preference for reporting errors to be in the direction of understatement rather than overstatement. We experimentally pair Reporters who provide information with Users who rely on the information. We posit that under misaligned incentives that motivate aggressive reporting, Users view an aggressive report as reflecting Reporters’ exploitative intent and expect that a social norm prohibiting aggressive reporting applies. We predict that Users use noisy reporting errors …
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 …
Data For "Consistent Differences In A Virtual World Model Of Ape Societies", Bart J. Wilson, Sarah F. Brosnan, Elizabeth V. Lonsdorf, Crickette M. Sanz
Data For "Consistent Differences In A Virtual World Model Of Ape Societies", Bart J. Wilson, Sarah F. Brosnan, Elizabeth V. Lonsdorf, Crickette M. Sanz
Business and Economics Faculty Data Sets
The zip file contains the data for the paper entitled "Consistent Differences in a Virtual World Model of Ape Societies" which appears in Scientific Reports.
An Experiment On The Neolithic Agricultural Revolution. Causes And Impact On Inequality, Antonio J. Morales, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara
An Experiment On The Neolithic Agricultural Revolution. Causes And Impact On Inequality, Antonio J. Morales, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara
ESI Working Papers
Testing causal relationships expressed by mathematical models on facts about human behaviour across history is challenging. A prominent example is the Neolithic agricultural revolution [1]. Many theoretical models of the adoption of agriculture has been put forward [2] but none has been tested. The only exception is [3], that uses a computational approach with agent-based simulations of evolutionary games. Here, we propose two games that resemble the conditions of human societies before and after the agricultural revolution. The agricultural revolution is modelled as an exogenous shock in the lab (n=180, 60 independent groups), and the transition from foraging to farming …
Trust And Trustworthiness After Negative Random Shocks, Hernán Bejerano, Joris Gillet, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara
Trust And Trustworthiness After Negative Random Shocks, Hernán Bejerano, Joris Gillet, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara
ESI Working Papers
We investigate experimentally the effect of a negative endowment shock in a trust game to assess whether different causes of inequality have different effects on trust and trustworthiness. In our trust game there may be inequality in favor of the second mover and this may (or may not) be the result of a negative random shock (i.e., the outcome of a die roll) that decreases the endowment of the first-mover. Our findings suggest that inequality leads to differences in behavior. First-movers send more of their endowment and second-movers return more when there is inequality. However, we do not find support …
Co-Enforcement Of Common Pool Resources: Experimental Evidence From Turfs In Chile, Carlos A. Chávez, James J. Murphy, John K. Stranlund
Co-Enforcement Of Common Pool Resources: Experimental Evidence From Turfs In Chile, Carlos A. Chávez, James J. Murphy, John K. Stranlund
ESI Working Papers
This work presents the results of framed field experiments designed to study the co-enforcement of access to common pool resources. The experiments were conducted in the field with participants in the territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs) management scheme that regulates access to nearshore fisheries along the coast of Chile. In the experiments, TURF members not only decided on harvest but also invested in monitoring to deter poaching by outsiders. Treatments varied whether the monitoring investment was an individual decision or determined by a group vote. Per-unit sanctions for poaching were exogenous as if provided by a government authority, and …
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 …
A Portable Method Of Eliciting Respect For Social Norms, Erik O. Kimbrough, Alexander Vostroknutov
A Portable Method Of Eliciting Respect For Social Norms, Erik O. Kimbrough, Alexander Vostroknutov
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
Recent models of prosociality suggest that cooperation in laboratory games may be better understood as resulting from concern for social norms than from prosocial preferences over outcomes. Underlying this interpretation is the idea that people exhibit heterogeneous respect for shared norms. We introduce a new, abstract task to elicit a proxy for individual norm-following propensity by asking subjects to choose from two actions, where one is costly. We instruct subjects that “the rule is” to take the costly action. Their willingness to incur such a cost reveals respect for norms. We show that choices in this task are similar across …
Experimental Evidence On The Cyclicality Of Investment, Cortney S. Rodet, Andrew Smyth
Experimental Evidence On The Cyclicality Of Investment, Cortney S. Rodet, Andrew Smyth
ESI Working Papers
We report laboratory experiments investigating the cyclicality of investment. In our setting, optimal investment is counter-cyclical because investment costs fall following market downturns. However, we do not observe counter-cyclical investment. Instead, heuristic investment models where firms invest a fixed percentage of their liquidity, or a fixed percentage of anticipated market demand, better fit our data on average than does optimal investment. We also report a control treatment without cost changes and a treatment with asymmetric investment liquidity. Both of these extensions support our main result.
Testing The Boundaries Of The Double Auction: The Effects Of Complete Information And Market Power, Erik O. Kimbrough
Testing The Boundaries Of The Double Auction: The Effects Of Complete Information And Market Power, Erik O. Kimbrough
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
We report boundary experiments testing the robustness of price convergence in double auction markets for non-durable goods in which there is extreme earnings inequality at the competitive equilibrium (CE). Following up on a conjecture by Smith (1976a), we test whether the well-known equilibrating power of the double auction institution is robust to the presence of complete information about traders’ values and costs and the presence of symmetric market power. We find that complete information is insufficient to impede convergence to CE prices; however, introducing market power consistently causes prices to deviate from the CE, whether or not subjects possess complete …
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 …
No Mere Tautology: The Division Of Labor Is Limited By The Division Of Labor, Andrew Smyth, Bart J. Wilson
No Mere Tautology: The Division Of Labor Is Limited By The Division Of Labor, Andrew Smyth, Bart J. Wilson
ESI Working Papers
We explore the intersection of growth theory and the theory of the firm with an experiment. Economic growth is possible in our experiment when agents specialize to exploit increasing returns. We find that low opportunity costs are sufficient for Marshallian internal economies, but that Marshallian external economies are slow to emerge in four probing treatment conditions. Transaction costs do not hamper external economies as we anticipated prior to collecting data. When external economies falter, it is because new ideas about the cost and value of more extensive specialization fail to emerge. Ideas are what make further divisions of the …
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 …
How Product Innovation Can Affect Price Collusion, Andrew Smyth
How Product Innovation Can Affect Price Collusion, Andrew Smyth
ESI Working Papers
Price conspiracies appear endemic in many markets. This paper conjectures that low expected returns from product innovation can affect price collusion in certain markets. This conjecture is tested—and supported—by both archival and experimental data. In particular, average market prices in low innovation experiments are significantly greater than those in high innovation, but otherwise identical experiments, because price collusion is more successful in the low innovation experiments.
Equilibrium Play In Voluntary Ultimatum Games: Beneficence Cannot Be Extorted, Vernon L. Smith, Bart J. Wilson
Equilibrium Play In Voluntary Ultimatum Games: Beneficence Cannot Be Extorted, Vernon L. Smith, Bart J. Wilson
ESI Working Papers
One robust result in experimental economics is the failure to observe equilibrium play in the ultimatum game. A heretofore unnoticed feature of the game is that neither player voluntarily chooses to play the game. Motivated by Adam Smith’s proposition that beneficence—like that of non‐ equilibrium play in the ultimatum game—cannot be extorted by force, we offer the responder the opportunity to opt out of the game for a mere $1 payoff for both players. We observe high rates of equilibrium play with highly unequal splits when responders choose to play such ultimatum games with both fixed and variable sums.
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.
Multiple Openings And Competitiveness Of Forward Markets: Experimental Evidence, José Luis Ferreira, Praveen Kujal, Stephen Rassenti
Multiple Openings And Competitiveness Of Forward Markets: Experimental Evidence, José Luis Ferreira, Praveen Kujal, Stephen Rassenti
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
We test the competition enhancing effect of selling forward in experimental Cournot duopoly and quadropoly with multiple forward markets. We find that two forward periods yields competitive outcomes and that the results are very close to the predicted theoretical results for quantity setting duopolies and quadropolies. Our experiments lend strong support to the hypothesis that forward markets are competition enhancing. We then test a new market that allows for endogenously determined indefinitely many forward periods that only close when sellers coordinate on selling a zero amount in a forward market. We find that the outcomes under an endogenous close rule …
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 …
The Effects Of Make And Take Fees In Experimental Markets, Vince Bourke, David Porter
The Effects Of Make And Take Fees In Experimental Markets, Vince Bourke, David Porter
ESI Working Papers
We conduct a series of experiments to examine the effects of the make and take fee structure currently used by equity exchanges in the U.S. We examine the effects of these fees on measures of market quality (allocative efficiency, trading volume, book depth, and the bid-ask spread). With the exception of increased book depth, we document no significant effects of make and take fees relative to a baseline case in which trading fees are assessed on both sides of a transaction.
Sharing As Risk Pooling In A Social Dilemma Experiment, Todd L. Cherry, E. Lance Howe, James J. Murphy
Sharing As Risk Pooling In A Social Dilemma Experiment, Todd L. Cherry, E. Lance Howe, James J. Murphy
ESI Working Papers
In rural economies with missing or incomplete markets, idiosyncratic risk is frequently pooled through informal networks. Idiosyncratic shocks, however, are not limited to private goods but can also restrict an individual from partaking in or benefiting from a collective activity. In these situations, a group must decide whether to provide insurance to the affected member. In this paper, we describe results of a laboratory experiment designed to test whether a simple sharing institution can sustain risk pooling in a social dilemma with idiosyncratic risk. We test whether risk can be pooled without a commitment device and, separately, whether effective risk …
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.
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 …
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 …
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.
Language And Cooperation In Hominin Scavenging, Bart J. Wilson, Samuel R. Harris
Language And Cooperation In Hominin Scavenging, Bart J. Wilson, Samuel R. Harris
ESI Working Papers
Bickerton (2009, 2014) hypothesizes that language emerged as the solution to a scavenging problem faced by proto‐humans. We design a virtual world to explore how people use words to persuade others to work together for a common end. By gradually reducing the vocabularies that the participants can use, we trace the process of solving the hominin scavenging problem. Our experiment changes the way we think about social dilemmas. Instead of asking how does a group overcome the selfinterest of its constituents, the question becomes, how do constituents persuade one another to work together for a common end that yields a …
Cost Share Adjustment Processes For Cooperative Group Decisions About Shared Goods: A Design Approach, Edna T. Loehman, Richard Kiser, Stephen Rassenti
Cost Share Adjustment Processes For Cooperative Group Decisions About Shared Goods: A Design Approach, Edna T. Loehman, Richard Kiser, Stephen Rassenti
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
For group decision about shared goods, the nature of the shared good and how its cost is to be shared among group members must be determined. Complexity arises from heterogeneity in preferences and endowments and nonlinear cost. To facilitate group decision, this paper proposes special type of group decision support system, a cost share adjustment process (CSAP), in which cost shares are adjusted iteratively via algorithmic rules until unanimity is reached, ideally producing a socially optimal, cost feasible, and fair outcome. In contrast to public good literature, our designs apply for situations of nonlinear cost, with economies of scale and …
Accounting Standards And Financial Market Stability: An Experimental Examination, Shengle Lin, Glenn Pfeiffer, David Porter
Accounting Standards And Financial Market Stability: An Experimental Examination, Shengle Lin, Glenn Pfeiffer, David Porter
ESI Working Papers
We examine the effect on asset mispricing of different accounting methods in an experimental asset market characterized by bubbles and crashes. In particular, we study three alternative asset value reporting treatments: (1) Fair Value (also known as Mark-to-Market – M2M), (2) Historical Cost (HC) and (3) Marked to Fundamental Value (M2F). In addition, each of these treatments is replicated in two different financial leverage conditions. In the first condition (No Loan) traders must purchase assets from their available cash balances without the option of borrowing. In the second condition, (Loan), traders are given the option of taking out loans based …