Competitive Screening of a Heterogeneous Labor Force and Corporate Teamwork Attitude

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of competition on the structure of incentive schemes, workforce composition and the degree of cooperation within firms. We show that in equilibrium high-ability workers, in order to distinguish themselves from the less able workforce, choose the incentive schemes that strongly rely on their own as well as their teammates' performance. They work harder on their own task and are more team-oriented than less skilled workers. Our paper stresses the sorting role of the incentives and provides a rationale for the emergence of different corporate teamwork practices

Rank expectations, feedback and social hierarchies

We develop and test experimentally a theoretical model of the role of self-esteem, generated by private feedback regarding relative performance, on the behavior of agents working on an effort provision task for a flat wage. Agents work harder and expect to rank better when they are told they may learn their ranking, relative to cases when they are told feedback will not be provided. Individuals who learn that they have ranked better than expected decrease their output but expect an even better rank in the future, while those who were told they ranked worse than expected increase their output and at the same time lower their rank expectations going forward. These effects are stronger in earlier rounds of the task, while subjects learn how they compare to their peers. This rank hierarchy is established early on, and remains relatively stable afterwards. Private relative rank information helps create a ratcheting effect in the group's average output, which is mainly due to the fight for dominance at the top of the hierarchy. Hence, in environments where monetary incentives are weak, moral hazard may be mitigated by providing feedback to agents regarding their relative performance, and by optimally choosing the reference peer group.rankings, incentives, feedback, moral hazard, intrinsic motivation, ego utility, self-esteem

Tacit Lobbying Agreements: An Experimental Study

We experimentally study the common wisdom that money buys political influence. In the game, one lobbyist has the opportunity to influence redistributive tax policies in her favor by transferring money to two competing candidates. The success of the lobbying investment depends on whether or not the candidates are willing to respond and able to collude on low-tax policies that do not harm their relative chances in the elections. In the experiment, we find that lobbying is never successful when the lobbyist and candidates interact just once. By contrast, it yields substantially lower redistribution in about 40% of societies with finitely-repeated encounters. However, lobbying investments are not always profitable, and profit-sharing between the lobbyist and candidates depends on prominent equity norms. Our experimental results shed new light on the complex process of buying political influence in everyday politics and help explain why only relatively few corporate firms do actually lobby.lobbying, redistribution, elections, bargaining, collusion

Tacit Lobbying Agreements: An Experimental Study

We experimentally study the common wisdom that money buys political influence. In the game, one lobbyist has the opportunity to influence redistributive tax policies in her favor by transferring money to two competing candidates. The success of the lobbying investment depends on whether or not the candidates are willing to respond and able to collude on low-tax policies that do not harm their relative chances in the elections. In the experiment, we find that lobbying is never successful when the lobbyist and candidates interact just once. By contrast, it yields substantially lower redistribution in about 40% of societies with finitely-repeated encounters. However, lobbying investments are not always profitable, and profit-sharing between the lobbyist and candidates depends on prominent equity norms. Our experimental results shed new light on the complex process of buying political influence in everyday politics and help explain why only relatively few corporate firms do actually lobby.lobbying, redistribution, elections, bargaining, collusion

An experimental study of adolescent behavior under peer observation: Adolescents are more impatient and inconsistent, not more risk-taking, when observed by peers

The majority of deaths in adolescence have been attributed to “risky” behaviors (Eaton et al., 2012) and therefore could be avoided had the adolescent made a different decision. In this paper, using two laboratory experiments we assess the impact of peer observation (a possible culprit of bad decision-making in adolescence) on the behavior of adolescents in risky conditions. We carefully separate risk attitudes from impatience, present bias, ambiguity attitudes, and inconsistency and in contradiction to what has been suggested in developmental psychology, we find that adolescents’ risk and ambiguity attitudes are not affected by observation. Instead, when observed by peers, adolescents become more impatient and inconsistent

Flexible valuations for consumer goods as measured by the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism

Economists have long been interested in mechanisms that lead to truthful revelation of the relative values individuals place on diff erent goods. In this paper we take one of the most popular of such mechanisms, and show that valuations obtained using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) procedure depend on the distribution of prices presented to subjects when the mechanism is implemented. We show that this eff ect of price distribution occurs quite frequently, significantly impacts reported valuations, and that it is unlikely to be caused by misconceptions about BDM. This eff ect is the largest when pricing distributions show a large peak just above or just below an individual's average valuation of the good being considered. We also show that a simple non-incentive compatible subject rating of the desirability of goods can be used to predict the likelihood that pricing distributions will influence BDM valuations. Valuations for goods subjects report that they most want to purchase are most likely to be influenced by distributional structure. Our results challenge some of the dominant theoretical models of how BDM-like valuation procedures relate to standard notions of utility

Present bias for monetary and dietary rewards: evidence from Chinese teenagers

Economists model self-control problems through time-inconsistent preferences. Empirical tests of these preferences largely rely on experimental elicitation methods using monetary rewards, with several recent studies failing to find present bias for money. In this paper, we compare estimates of present bias for money with estimates for healthy and unhealthy foods. In a within-subjects longitudinal experiment with 697 low-income Chinese high school students we find strong present bias for both money and food, and that individual measures of present bias are moderately correlated across reward types. Our experimental measures of time preferences over money predict field behaviours better than preferences elicited over foods

Loss aversion and competition in Vickrey auctions: Money ain't no good

A key prediction of expectations-based reference-dependent preferences and loss aversion in second-price auctions with private values is that the number of bidders should affect bids in auctions for real objects but not in auctions with induced monetary values. In order to test this distinctive comparative statics prediction, we develop an experiment where subjects bid in multiple auctions for real objects as well as auctions with induced values, each time facing a different number of rivals. Our results are broadly consistent with expectations-based reference-dependent preferences and loss aversion. We find that in real-object auctions bids decline with the intensity of competition whereas in induced-value auctions, instead, bids do not vary with the intensity of competition. Our results suggest that bidders may behave differently in real-object auctions than in induced-value ones, casting some doubt on the extent to which findings from induced-value laboratory experiments can be transferred to the field

Waterfall illusion in risky choice – exposure to outcome-irrelevant gambles affects subsequent valuation of risky gambles

Based on recent discoveries in economics, neuroscience, and psychology, we hypothesize that pure exposure to high-payoff or low-payoff gambles can change people's subsequent reported valuations of gambles and confirm this hypothesis in a laboratory experiment. In particular, the same participants within the same experimental session provide higher valuations for the same gambles after they have been exposed to low-payoff gambles compared to after they have been exposed to high-payoff gambles. These results are consistent with the current understanding of how the nervous system encodes payoffs and imply that even brief experiences that do not change wealth can impact an individual's reported valuations of risky options

Loss Aversion and Competition in Vickrey Auctions: Money Ain't No Good

We present results from an experiment with a within-subject design aimed at testing a unique prediction of expectations-based reference-dependent preferences and loss aversion in private-value second-price (Vickrey) auctions. If bidders have expectationsbased reference-dependent preferences, the total number of participants in an auction should affect bids in auctions for real objects but not in auctions with induced monetary values. Our findings are consistent with expectations-based reference-dependent preferences and loss aversion. In real-object auctions, subjects' bids are affected by the number of competitors and, on average, they decline with the intensity of competition. In induced-value auctions, instead, bids are unaffected by the intensity of competition. We also successfully replicate an experiment from Sprenger (2015) aimed at distinguishing expectations-based loss aversion from models of Disappointment Aversion. This provides additional evidence that our findings in the auction experiments are due to expectations-based loss aversion