Can Markets Save Lives? An Experimental Investigation Of A Market For Organ Donations,
2010
Chapman University
Can Markets Save Lives? An Experimental Investigation Of A Market For Organ Donations, Cary Deck, Erik O. Kimbrough
ESI Working Papers
Many people die while waiting for organ transplants even though the number of usable organs is far larger than the number needed for transplant. Governments have devised many policies aimed at increasing available transplant organs with variable success. However, with few exceptions, policy makers are reluctant to establish markets for organs despite the potential for mutually beneficial exchanges. We ask whether organ markets could save lives. Controlled laboratory methods are ideal for this inquiry because human lives would be involved when implementing field trials. Our results suggest that markets can increase the supply of organs available for transplant, but that …
Personality And The Consistency Of Risk Taking Behavior: Experimental Evidence,
2010
Chapman University
Personality And The Consistency Of Risk Taking Behavior: Experimental Evidence, Cary Deck, Jungmin Lee, Javier Reyes
ESI Working Papers
Researchers have found that an individual’s risk attitude is not stable across elicitation methods. Results reported by Deck et al. (2009) suggest that personality may help explain the apparent inconsistency, offering support to Borghans et al.’s (2008) argument that economists should consider a multi‐domain approach to measuring risk attitudes. This paper uses laboratory methods to compare risk attitudes as measured by the Holt and Laury (2002) procedure under two different frames. We find that, as in Deck et al. (2009), one’s willingness to take financial risks (as measured by Weber et al. 2002) significantly affects behavior; however the effect is …
Perfect And Imperfect Real-Time Monitoring In A Minimum-Effort Game,
2010
Chapman University
Perfect And Imperfect Real-Time Monitoring In A Minimum-Effort Game, Cary Deck, Nikos Nikiforakis
ESI Working Papers
This paper presents the results from a minimum-effort game in which individuals can observe the choices of others in real time. We find that under perfect monitoring almost all groups coordinate at the payoff-dominant equilibrium. However, when individuals can only observe the actions of their immediate neighbors in a circle network, monitoring improves neither coordination nor efficiency relative to a baseline treatment without real-time monitoring. We argue that the inefficiency of imperfect monitoring is due to information uncertainty, that is, uncertainty about the interpretation of the information available regarding the actions of others.
Price Increasing Competition? Experimental Evidence,
2010
Chapman University
Price Increasing Competition? Experimental Evidence, Cary Deck, Jingping Gu
ESI Working Papers
Economic intuition suggests that increased competition generates lower prices. However, recent theoretical work shows that a monopolist may charge a lower price than a firm facing a competitor selling a differentiated product. The direction of the price change when competition is introduced is dependent upon the joint distribution of buyer values for the two products. We explore this relationship using controlled laboratory experiments. Our results indicate that the distribution of buyer values does affect prices in a manner consistent with the theoretical predictions, although price increasing competition is rare due in part to overly intense competition regardless of the distribution …
Intellectual Property And Antitrust Limits On Contract: Comment,
2010
San Jose State University
Intellectual Property And Antitrust Limits On Contract: Comment, Matthew J. Holian, Neil Nguyen
Faculty Publications
In their chapter in Dynamic Competition and Public Policy (2001, Cambridge University Press), Burtis and Kobayashi never defined their model's discount rate, making replicating their simulation results difficult. Through our own simulations, we were able to verify their results when using a discount rate of 0.10. We also identified two new types of equilibria that the authors overlooked, doubling the number of distinct equilibria in the model.
The Persistence Of Accounting Versus Economic Profit,
2010
San Jose State University
The Persistence Of Accounting Versus Economic Profit, Matthew J. Holian, Ali M. Reza
Faculty Publications
Drawing on Schumpeterian theory, this article presents estimates of a first-order autoregressive model of profit persistence for large US firms, using Economic Value Added (EVA), the popular measure of profits produced by Stern Stewart and Company, and simple (unadjusted) accounting measures from the Compustat database. We hypothesize about the differences we should expect to find between these two sets of estimates, and also provide a fresh normative assessment of the dynamic competitiveness of the US economy.
