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Full-Text Articles in Behavioral Economics

Why Risk It? The Effect Of Risk And Time Preferences On Microfinance Loan Default, Nike Start Apr 2013

Why Risk It? The Effect Of Risk And Time Preferences On Microfinance Loan Default, Nike Start

Nike Start

Microfinance is widely recognized as a powerful method for poverty alleviation. However, little is known about the characteristics of those who default on their loans. Understanding the behavior of borrowers is an important component of mitigating adverse selection and the moral hazard of lending. Both of these concepts embody some of the greatest challenges faced by microfinance institutions, and they provide the major motivation for this study. Accordingly, the main objective of this research is to investigate whether non-delinquent borrowers and delinquent borrowers of a microfinance institution reveal any difference in their level of risk preference and time preference. This …


Inequality, Communication And The Avoidance Of Disastrous Climate Change In A Public Goods Game, Alessandro Tavoni, Astrid Dannenberg, Giorgos Kallis, Andreas Loeschel Jul 2011

Inequality, Communication And The Avoidance Of Disastrous Climate Change In A Public Goods Game, Alessandro Tavoni, Astrid Dannenberg, Giorgos Kallis, Andreas Loeschel

Alessandro Tavoni

International efforts to provide global public goods often face the challenges of coordinating national contributions and distributing costs equitably in the face of uncertainty, inequality, and free-riding incentives. In an experimental setting, we distribute endowments unequally among a group of people who can reach a fixed target sum through successive money contributions, knowing that if they fail they will lose all their remaining money with 50% probability. In some treatments we give players the option to communicate intended contributions. We find that inequality reduces the prospects of reaching the target, but that communication increases success dramatically. Successful groups tend to …


Taking, Giving And Taking To Give: Experimental Evidence Of Preferences Over Actions, Andrew Hayashi Jan 2011

Taking, Giving And Taking To Give: Experimental Evidence Of Preferences Over Actions, Andrew Hayashi

Andrew Hayashi

The desirability of an outcome often depends on the action that must be taken to bring it about. Using a within-subject design that permits the identification of individual preferences, I report experimental evidence from disinterested dictator games suggesting that preferences over income distributions depend on whether implementing those distributions requires the allocation of gains, the imposition of losses or the redistribution of pre-existing endowments. Subjects exhibit a stronger preference for equality when the action required to implement it involves the unequal allocation of income or redistribution of wealth than when it requires the unequal imposition of losses, an effect that …


Charitable Memberships, Volunteering, And Discounts: Evidence From A Large-Scale Online Field Experiment, Andreas Lange, Andrew J. Stocking May 2009

Charitable Memberships, Volunteering, And Discounts: Evidence From A Large-Scale Online Field Experiment, Andreas Lange, Andrew J. Stocking

Andrew J Stocking

Despite the increasing use by charities, significant uncertainty exists about optimal online fundraising mechanisms, especially when large donor pools show substantial heterogeneities. We use an online natural field experiment with over 700,000 subjects to test theory on price discounts and show large differences in donation behavior between donors who have previously given money and/or volunteered. For example, framing the charity’s membership price as a discount increases response rates and decreases conditional contributions from former volunteers, but not from past money donors. Our study thereby demonstrates the importance of conditioning fundraising strategies on the specifics of past donation dimensions.


A Review Of The L-Band Auction, Peter Cramton Sep 2008

A Review Of The L-Band Auction, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

In May 2008, Ofcom’s L-band auction concluded. This was Ofcom’s second combinatorial clock auction. The auction used an innovative format intended to encourage an efficient assignment of the 17 lots. Eight bidders competed for the lots. In sharp contrast to the first combinatorial clock auction, the 10-40 GHz auction, in which each of the ten bidders won spectrum, in the L-band auction there was a single winner—Qualcomm won all the lots. This note briefly reviews the auction.


A Review Of The 10-40 Ghz Auction, Peter Cramton Sep 2008

A Review Of The 10-40 Ghz Auction, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

In February 2008, Ofcom’s 10-40 GHz auction concluded. This was Ofcom’s first combinatorial clock auction. The auction used an innovative format intended to encourage an efficient assignment of the 27 lots. Each of the ten bidders won one or more lots. All 27 lots were assigned. This note briefly reviews the auction.


An Overview Of Combinatorial Auctions, Peter Cramton, Yoav Shoham, Richard Steinberg Dec 2007

An Overview Of Combinatorial Auctions, Peter Cramton, Yoav Shoham, Richard Steinberg

Peter Cramton

No abstract provided.


Market-Based Alternatives For Managing Congestion At New York’S Laguardia Airport, Peter Cramton, Michael O. Ball, Lawrence M. Ausubel, Frank Berardino, George Donohue, Mark Hansen, Karla Hoffman Apr 2007

Market-Based Alternatives For Managing Congestion At New York’S Laguardia Airport, Peter Cramton, Michael O. Ball, Lawrence M. Ausubel, Frank Berardino, George Donohue, Mark Hansen, Karla Hoffman

Peter Cramton

We summarize the results of a project that was motivated by the expiration of the “High Density Rule,” which defined the slot controls employed at New York’s LaGuardia Airport for more than 30 years. The scope of the project included the analysis of several administrative measures, congestion pricing options and slot auctions. The research output includes a congestion pricing procedure and also the specification of a slot auction mechanism. The research results are based in part on two strategic simulations. These were multi-day events that included the participation of airport operators, most notably the Port Authority of New York and …


Combinatorial Auctions, Peter Cramton, Yoav Shoham, Richard Steinberg Jan 2006

Combinatorial Auctions, Peter Cramton, Yoav Shoham, Richard Steinberg

Peter Cramton

A comprehensive book on combinatorial auctions―auctions in which bidders can bid on packages of items. The book consists of original material intended for researchers, students, and practitioners of auction design. It includes a foreword by Vernon Smith, an introduction to combinatorial auctions, and twenty-three cross-referenced chapters in five parts. Part I covers mechanisms, such as the Vickrey auction and the ascending proxy auction. Part II is on bidding and efficiency issues. Part III examines computational issues and algorithmic considerations, especially the winner determination problem―how to identify the (tentative) winning set of bids that maximizes revenue. Part IV discusses implementation and …