Papers - All

Peter A Riach, Judith Rich

Cited by*: 21 Downloads*: 27

Pairs of carefully-matched, written applications were made to advertised job vacancies in England to test for sexual discrimination in hiring. Two standard resumes were constructed for each occupation to control for all relevant supply-side variables, such as qualifications, experience and age. Consequently any differential response recorded can be attributed to demand-side discrimination. Statistically significant discrimination against men was found in the `female occupation' - secretary, and against women in the `male occupation' - engineer. Statistically significant, and unprecedented, discrimination against men was found in two `mixed occupations' - trainee chartered accountant and computer analyst programmer.

Inkyoung Hur, Sung-Hee Kim, Anya Samek, Ji Soo Yi

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 50

We investigate the effect of different interactive technologies on the decision-making process in an information search laboratory experiment. In our experiment, the participant makes a selection from a list of differently-valued objects with multiple attributes. We compare presenting information in static form to two methods of interactive presentation. In the first, the participant can manually sort objects by attribute, a capability similar to that found in spreadsheet software. In the second, we present an interactive visual tool that (1) automatically sorts all objects by attribute and (2) uses visual cues for comparisons. Manual sorting capability does not cause an improvement in decisions in this context. On the other hand, the visual tool increases the value of the objects selected by the participant and decreases time spent deliberating. We also find that our interactive presentations affect the decision-making process of participants by changing the number of intermediate options considered. Our results highlight the importance of investigating the effect of technology on information search, and suggest that appropriate interactive visual displays may improve search in practice.

Anya Samek

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 3

Reputation systems provide decision support for e-commerce. A shortcoming of existing systems is that all transactions are rated equally, and the impact of reputation systems for differently valued goods is not well understood. In an experiment, we study a heterogeneous good market. We find that the reputation system increases surplus by increasing transactions in the high value good. Allowing for heterogeneous goods reduces information, as buyers cannot determine whether the seller previously transacted in low/high value goods. We test a new system, which displays reputation separately for each good. We provide evidence that this additional information is utilized in decisions.

Adriaan R Soetevent

Cited by*: 63 Downloads*: 51

The role of anonymity in giving is examined in a field experiment performed in thirty Dutch churches. For a period of 29 weeks, the means by which offerings are gathered is determined by chance, prescribing for each offering the use of either 'closed' collection bags or open collection baskets. When using baskets, attendants' contributions can be identified by their direct neighbors, and attendants can observe the total amount given by the people who preceded them. Initially, contributions to the services' second offerings increase by 10% when baskets are used, whereas no effect is found for first offerings. The positive effect of using baskets peters out over the experimental period. Additional data on the coins collected show that in both offerings, people switch to giving larger coins when baskets are used.

Douglas V DeJong, Robert Forsythe, Wilfred C Uecker

Cited by*: 13 Downloads*: 12

Using the data from sealed offer laboratory markets, we compare the price and quality choices of student subjects with those of businessmen subjects. The businessmen subjects were public accounting firm partners and corporate financial officers. This is of interest since the financial officer-auditor relationship is one particular application of the elementary principal-agent model which the laboratory environment was designed to test. Using several different performance measures we are unable to reject the null hypothesis that the average performance of the two subject pools were the same. However, the market using businessmen subjects generally exhibited greater variance than the market using students.

Cannon Koo, John A List, Michael Margolis, Jason F Shogren

Cited by*: 31 Downloads*: 9

Second-price auctions are designed to induce people to reveal their private preferences for a good. Laboratory evidence suggests that while these auctions do a reasonable job on aggregate, they fall short at the individual level, especially for bidders who are off-margin of the market-clearing price. Herein we introduce and explore whether a random nth-price auction can engage all bidders to bid sincerely. Our results first show that the random nth-price auction can induce sincere bidding in theory and practice. We then compare the random nth-price to the second-price auction. We find that the second-price auction works better on-margin, and the random nth-price auction works better off-margin.

Anne M Farrell, Susan D Krische, Karen L Sedatole

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 4

Complementing proprietary archival data with an experiment, we examine employees' subjective valuations of their employee stock options and explore a stock option education program as a mechanism for influencing those valuations. We argue that the conflicting evidence on employee subjective valuations in prior studies can be attributed in part to knowledge differences. Our archival and experimental results show most employees value their options lower than the corresponding Black-Scholes cost. We find that a stock option education program that provides descriptive information about the Black-Scholes option pricing model and quantitative information about option values using that model increases not only employees' subjective valuations but also their self-reported loyalty and motivation. We complement our primary results with analyses of the cross-sectional determinants of subjective valuations, the differential effects on valuations of different components of the education program, and the heuristics used to formulate subjective valuations.

John A List, Charles F Mason

Cited by*: 0 Downloads*: 20

Are individuals expected utility maximizers? This question represents much more than academic curiosity. In a normative sense, at stake are the fundamental underpinnings of the bulk of the last half-century's models of choice under uncertainty. From a positive perspective, the ubiquitous use of benefit-cost analysis across government agencies renders the expected utility maximization paradigm literally the only game in town. In this study, we advance the literature by exploring CEO's preferences over small probability, high loss lotteries. Using undergraduate students as our experimental control group, we find that both our CEO and student subject pools exhibit frequent and large departures from expected utility theory. In addition, as the extreme payoffs become more likely CEOs exhibit greater aversion to risk. Our results suggest that use of the expected utility paradigm in decision making substantially underestimates society's willingness to pay to reduce risk in small probability, high loss events.

Jayson L Lusk, Ted C Schroeder

Cited by*: 125 Downloads*: 80

This study compares hypothetical and nonhypothetical responses to choice experiment questions. We test for hypothetical bias in a choice experiment involving beef ribeye steaks with differing quality attributes. In general, hypothetical responses predicted higher probabilities of purchasing beef steaks than nonhypothetical resposnes. Thus, hypothetical choices overestimate total willingness-to-pay for beef steaks. However, marginal willingness-to-pay for a change in steak quality is, in general, not statistically different across hypothetical and actual payment settings.

John A List, Mark Strazicich

Cited by*: 39 Downloads*: 22

Time paths of carbon dioxide emissions in twenty-one industrial countries are examined from 1960-1997 to test for stochastic and conditional convergence. Both panel unit root tests and cross-section regressions are performed. Overall, we find significant evidence that CO2 emissions have converged.