Economic and Hypothetical Dictator Game Experiments: Incentive Effects at the Individual Level

The paper compares behavior in economic dictator game experiments played with actual money (amounts given by "dictator" subjects) with behavior in hypothetical dictator game experiments where subjects indicate what they would give, although no money is actually exchanged. The average amounts transferred in the two experiments are remarkably similar. Moreover, we uncover meaningful individual differences in real and hypothetical allocations and demonstrate the importance of two personality traits - agreeableness and extraversion - in reconciling them. We conclude that extraverts are "all talk;" agreeable subjects are "for real."Dictator Game, Incentives, Individual Differences, Personality

What’s in a Name? - An ethnical discrimination experiment

This paper presents the results from an ethnical discrimination experiment that was conducted in one of Sweden’s most “problematic” cities with respect to the integration process of refugees. The subjects confronted three different bargaining games; one trust game, one social exclusion and coalition formation game; and one battle of the sexes game. No general discrimination effect was detected. However, one specific effect was that Non-Swedes were less likely to be chosen as bargaining partners in the coalition formation game. Another specific effect was found in the males’ trust and ultimatum responses; Non-Swedes had higher returns on being generous compared to Swedes.bargaining; ethnical discrimination; experiments

Discrimination by Gender and Social Distance

We examine experimentally how a person's generosity depends on the sex of that person, on the sex of the person who is the target of the generous act, and on the degree of anonymity between the interacting parties. In our data fewer men than women give non-zero amounts; men receive less than women; and less is given when subjects receive money publicly on stage than when payments are private. The results shed light on gender-related selfishness and discrimination, and suggest that it may be problematic to organize experimental findings in terms of social distance.discrimination; gender; social distance; anonymity

Strategic Behavior across Gender: A Comparison of Female and Male Expert Chess Players

This paper aims to measure differences in risk behavior among expert chess players. The study employs a panel data set on international chess with 1.4 million games recorded over a period of 11 years. The structure of the data set allows us to use individual fixed-effect estimations to control for aspects such as innate ability as well as other characteristics of the players. Most notably, the data contains an objective measure of individual playing strength, the so-called Elo rating. In line with previous research, we find that women are more risk-averse than men. A novel finding is that males choose more aggressive strategies when playing against female opponents even though such strategies reduce their winning probability.culture, gender, competitiveness, risk aversion, mixed-sex competition

The Ultimatum Game and Gender Effect: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan

Laboratory experimentation was once considered impossible or irrelevant in economics. Recently, however, economic science has gone through a real ‘laboratory revolution’, and experimental economics is now a most lively subfield of the discipline. This study attempts to examine answers to questions of the changing behaviour of opposite sexes under conditions of both anonymity and knowledge of gender by playing the ultimatum game in Pakistan. It is observed that the behaviour of males and females in Pakistani society is quite different from that found in earlier studies. Insights from the previous experiments have already shown that normative economic theory had failed in its predictions of human behaviour. Currently, the ultimatum game is widely discussed in behavioural economic literature, and this paper will adjust the traditional ultimatum game into a new form wherein it will be tested in the country (Pakistan) with multidimensional behaviour of subjects. With regard to gender effect specifically, all previous studies came up with somewhat mixed results, since results do not always point in the same direction and it is rather early to draw far-reaching conclusions regarding the behavioural differences of men and women. More facts are required in order to move towards the development of a systematic theory. This work is a small attempt to investigate the changing behaviour of opposite sexes under different controlled conditions.Ultimatum Game, Human Sex Difference, Social Behaviour

An Experimental Study on the Relevance and Scope of Culture as a Focal Point

This paper uses an experimental approach to study whether nationality serves as a focal point. We let subjects from Japan, Korea, and China play stag-hunt coordination games in which we vary information about their partner. The results show that subjects are more likely to try to coordinate on the payoff-dominant equilibrium if the only piece of information they have about their partner is that they have the same nationality. However, if subjects receive additional information about their partner, subjects are not more likely to try to coordinate on the payoff dominant equilibrium. We also do not find that subjects are less likely to try to coordinate on the payoff-dominant equilibrium when their partner has a different nationality as compared to when the partner’s nationality is unknown. In addition, we observe that giving subjects information about their partner in general increases the risk of miscoordination. Thus, our findings suggest that nationality can serve as a coordination device but also that the scope of this device is limited.Coordination, Focal points, Cultural economics, Inter-cultural lab experiments, In-group behavior.

Essays on Salience in Coordination Games: Gender, Punishment and Communication

The issue of coordination is one that has received significant attention in the experimental literature. In this thesis I delve deeper into this by combining and exploring a number of issues from the literature in economics and the social sciences in the context of coordination games. More specifically in all three chapters a common theme of the examination of the efficiency-equality trade off in coordination games prevails. In the first chapter I take inspiration from Holm’s (2000) paper ''Gender Based Focal Points'' and look further into aspects of both the equity-efficiency trade off in coordination games and gender information. In the second chapter we combine elements of the coordination literature with the literature on the effects of punishment: Most previous investigations of punishment have concentrated on the effects of punishment when free riding is a possibility (for example Fehr & Gächter, 2000, Abbink et al., 2010) and here we are able to report results from an experiment where free riding is not a possibility. In the third chapter we investigate the effects of communication in coordination games. We take our initial inspiration from Cooper et al. (1990) and Farrell (1987) and expand on these papers by examining the effects of rich and free form communication between subjects and also expanding the type of games used in the experiment. We find a number of interesting results which will be described in more detail with this thesis. In chapter one we find that an inefficient compromise very quickly loses its appeal to subjects as its inefficiency increases. We also find that unisex pairings are more successful in term of expected payoffs from coordination games as compared to mixed gender pairings. In chapter two we find that, whilst gender information and punishment do not tend to affect behaviour in isolation, the two treatment variables combined do lead to observed behavioural changes. We also find gender differences in punishment behaviours with males becoming more aggressive in punishment when playing against a male and males punishing more aggressively than females. In chapter three we find that payoff structure is highly relevant in how the availability of communication affects choices in the game. Through our novel experimental design we show that subjects will use an equitable split of earnings as a focal point for coordination rather than out of an intrinsic preference for an equitable split of earnings

Altruism and Gender in the Trust Game

This paper analyses gender differences in the trust game. Our experiment implements the triadic design proposed by Cox (2004) to discriminate between transfers resulting from trust or trustworthiness and transfers resulting from altruistic preferences. We observe that women exhibit a higher degree of altruism than men for both trust and trustworthiness but relatively more for trustworthiness. This result provides an explanation to the experimental finding that women reciprocate more than men.gender differences; trust; trustworthiness; altruism; gender pairing

Male and Female Competitive Behavior - Experimental Evidence

Male and female choices differ in many economic situations, e.g., on the labor market. This paper considers whether such differences are driven by different attitudes towards competition. In our experiment subjects choose between a tournament and a piece-rate pay scheme before performing a real task. Men choose the tournament significantly more often than women. Women are mainly influenced by their degree of risk aversion, but men are not. Men compete more against men than against women, but compete against women who are thought to compete. The behavior of men seems primarily to be influenced by social norms whose nature and origin we discuss.competition; experiment; gender; piece rater; relative ability; risk aversion; tournament

Male and Female Competitive Behavior: Experimental

Male and female choices differ in many economic situations, e.g., on the labor market. This paper considers whether such differences are driven by different attitudes towards competition. In our experiment subjects choose between a tournament and a piece-rate pay scheme before performing a real task. Men choose the tournament significantly more often than women. Women are mainly influenced by their degree of risk aversion, but men are not. Men compete more against men than against women, but compete against women who are thought to compete. The behavior of men seems primarily to be influenced by social norms whose nature and origin we discuss.competition; tournament; piece rate; gender; risk-aversion; relative ability; experiment