Papers - Framed

Omar Al-Ubaydli, John A List

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A commonly held view is that laboratory experiments provide researchers with more "control" than natural field experiments, and that this advantage is to be balanced against the disadvantage that laboratory experiments are less generalizable. This paper presents a simple model that explores circumstances under which natural field experiments provide researchers with more control than laboratory experiments afford. This stems from the covertness of natural field experiments: laboratory experiments provide researchers with a high degree of control in the environment which participants agree to be experimental subjects. When participants systematically opt out of laboratory experiments, the researcher's ability to manipulate certain variables is limited. In contrast, natural field experiments bypass the participation decision altogether and allow for a potentially more diverse participant pool within the market of interest. We show one particular case where such selection is invaluable: when treatment effects interact with participant characteristics.

John A List

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No abstract available

Luke N Condra, Mohammad Isaqzadeh, Sera Linardi

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We unpack the psychological influence of a Muslim cleric's power over the poor in an experiment in Afghanistan. The same cleric requests contributions for a hospital from day-laborers when dressed as a civilian and as a cleric. In Civilian condition, 50% contribute and 17% make large contributions; in Cleric condition, 83% contribute but large contributions fall. Through counterfactual simulations, we find that the clerical garb compels unmotivated subjects to contribute (selection), but causes those who initially were generous to reduce their contribution (crowding out). The backlash is present only among those with formal education but is counteracted when the cleric adds a recitation of Qur'anic verses. Overall, this suggests that education mediates whether people automatically associate religious authorities with the omnipresent.

Uzma Afzal, Giovanna d'Adda, Marcel Fafchamps, Farah Said

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Theoretical and empirical work on intra-household decision making capture empowerment through bargaining weights given to individual preferences, and infer such weights from household consumption allocations. In this paper we test two key hypotheses underlying this work: first, that spousal influence is the same for all private consumption goods; and second, that women have pent up demand for pure agency. We use data from a survey and a novel laboratory experiment implemented with adult couples in Pakistan. We find that women's influence on household decisions is decreasing in the importance of the decision. We find no evidence that women have pent up demand for agency. Instead, women are less willing to pay for agency when facing an unknown man. We interpret this evidence as suggesting that women in our study population have internalized gender norms, and that these norms regulate interactions between genders most strongly outside of the household. We also find little evidence, within our experimental setting, that willingness to pay for agency is affected by the instrumental value of agency.

Eszter Czibor, Sander Onderstal, Randolph Sloof, Mirjam van Praag

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We conduct a framed field experiment in a Dutch university to compare student effort provision and exam performance under the two most prevalent evaluation practices: absolute (criterion-referenced) and relative (norm-referenced) grading. Based on the empirical stylized fact of gender differences in competitiveness we hypothesize that the rank-order tournament created by relative grading will increase male, but not female, performance. Contrary to our expectations, we find no impact of competitive grading on preparation behavior or exam scores among either gender. Our result may be attributed to the low value students in our sample attach to academic excellence.

Shagata Mukherjee, Michael K Price

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This study takes a first step to advance our understanding of the strategic interaction between the constituent components of default in microfinance and how to mitigate them. We conduct controlled microfinance field experiments in rural India to provide a systematic analysis of the relationship between gender, group liability and moral hazard. By varying the contract structure across different microfinance games, our experiment decomposes the two moral hazard (ex-ante and ex-post) channels and find that their effect on default are counteractive rather than additive for women clients. The study facilitates heterogeneity analysis of gender on moral hazard across comparable matrilineal and patrilineal societies in two neighboring states of India. We find that matrilineal women are less risk averse and are more likely to invest in the risky project (ex-ante moral hazard) than women in patrilineal societies. Moreover, we find a reversal of gender effect on strategic default (ex-post moral hazard) across the two societies, suggesting the importance of social norms and gender roles on financial behavior. Our results indicate that policymaking in microfinance should be designed by considering the heterogeneity of diverse societies, gender roles, norms and the underlying socio-economic factors that motivate financial behavior among borrowers.

Manuela Angelucci, Silvia Prina, Heather Royer, Anya Samek

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How do peers influence the impact of incentives? Despite much work on incentives, little is known about the spillover effects of incentives. We investigate two mechanisms by which these effects can occur: through peers' actions and peers' incentives. In a field experiment on snack choice (grapes versus cookies), we randomize who receives incentives, the fraction of peers incentivized, and whether or not it can be observed that peers' choices are incentivized among over 1,500 children in the school lunchroom. Incentives increase the likelihood of initially choosing grapes. However, peer spillover effects can be large enough to undo these positive effects.

David H Reiley

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This paper tests the empirical predictions of recent theories of the endogenous entry of bidders in auctions. Data come from a field experiment, involving sealed-bid auctions for collectible trading cards over the Internet. Manipulating the reserve prices in the auctions as an experimental treatment variable generates several results. First, observed participation behavior indicates that bidders consider their bid submission to be costly, and that bidder participation is indeed an endogenous decision. Second, the participation is more consistent with a mixed-strategy entry equilibrium than with a deterministic equilibrium. Third, the data reject the prediction that the profit- maximizing reserve price is greater than or equal to the auctioneer's salvage value for the good, showing instead that a zero reserve price provides higher expected profits in this case.

Glenn W Harrison, John A List

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No abstract available

John A List

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No abstract available