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Behavioral Economics Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Behavioral Economics

A Process For Field Studies In Behavioral Economics, Victoria Ferraro May 2017

A Process For Field Studies In Behavioral Economics, Victoria Ferraro

Senior Honors Projects

Field experiments enable economists to test whether theory adequately captures behavior in natural settings, or whether evidence supports reevaluating the reasoned abstractions comprising the theory. Economics, and social science more generally, has increasingly valued the evidence provided by field studies. These studies typically require a relationship with an external partner site providing the environment for the study, but existent research offers little guidance for developing these relationships and designing procedures for effective collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to provide greater insight into what is necessary to conduct field experiments in economics, particularly behavioral economics in private market settings. …


Does A Better Running Back Mean More Rushing? Game Theory And The Nfl, Eric Lofquist May 2017

Does A Better Running Back Mean More Rushing? Game Theory And The Nfl, Eric Lofquist

Honors Scholar Theses

In this paper I attempt to answer the question of whether or not teams in the National Football League (NFL) rush less with a better running back. This seems counterintuitive, but game theory supposes that this is true. Defenses facing a better running back will generally expect the offense to rush more and therefore defend the run more often. The offense, foreseeing the defense’s actions, will choose to pass more to counteract the run defense. This is the basis of the difference between the strategic effect and the direct effect in mixed strategies. The direct effect is when a player …


Coordination When There Are Restricted And Unrestricted Options, Shaun P. Hargreaves Heap, David Rojo Arjona, Robert Sugden Feb 2017

Coordination When There Are Restricted And Unrestricted Options, Shaun P. Hargreaves Heap, David Rojo Arjona, Robert Sugden

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

One might expect that, in pure coordination games, coordination would become less frequent as the number of options increases. Contrary to this expectation, we report an experiment which found more frequent coordination when the option set was unrestricted than when it was restricted. To try to explain this result, we develop a method for eliciting the general rules that subjects use to identify salient options in restricted and unrestricted sets. We find that each such rule, if used by all subjects, would generate greater coordination in restricted sets. However, subjects tend to apply different rules to restricted and unrestricted sets.


Are Fair Weather Fans Affected By Weather? Rainfall, Habit Formation And Live Game Attendance, Qi Ge, Brad Humphreys, Kun Zhou Jan 2017

Are Fair Weather Fans Affected By Weather? Rainfall, Habit Formation And Live Game Attendance, Qi Ge, Brad Humphreys, Kun Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We analyze habit formation in sports attendance utilizing rainfall as an unexpected, transitory shock to attendance costs. Using attendance data from Major League Baseball (MLB) and NOAA weather data, we analyze the impact of variation in game day weather conditions on current and future MLB attendance. The empirical strategy permits identification of both the formation and persistence of habit from exogenous weather shocks. Past adverse weather shocks increase future attendance by about 200 fans per game. Our study contributes to the literature developing empirical evidence of habit formation in the field and provides policy implications for optimal ticket pricing strategies.