Four Essays on Economic Preferences

This thesis consists of four independent chapters. Each chapter contributes experimental evidence to our knowledge on economic preferences. Chapter one shows that a preference for truth-telling per se is even more prevalent than previous research suggests. Chapter 2 investigates the relationship between economic preferences and psychological personality measures and arrives at the conclusion that the degree of association between the two concepts is rather small and that they are complementary in explaining heterogeneity in life outcomes. Chapter 3 validates non-incentivized survey measures for key economic preferences, i.e. risk taking, time discounting and social preferences, by examining their predictive power for behavior in incentivized economic choice experiments. Chapter 4 shows that the variation in preferences across countries as documented in Falk, Becker, Dohmen, Enke, Huffman, and Sunde (2015) has deep cultural origins. Chapter 1 attends to what is often called a non-standard preference: a preference for truth-telling per se.2 We implement a truth-telling experiment, in which misreporting cannot be detected and participants have a strong monetary incentive to misreport, with a representative population sample which we call at home. We nd that aggregate reporting behavior closely resembles the distribution that would result if everyone reported truthfully. This contrasts previous evidence from laboratory experiments which also documented substantial levels of truthful reporting as well, but consistently found considerable degrees of cheating. Since our partici pants made their reports via the phone while participants in laboratory experiments typically entered their reports into the computer, we conduct an additional laboratory experiment to rule out the possibility that the difference between behavior in our study and previous research is mainly driven by the difference in communication modes. Similarly, we can rule out that it is the difference in the subject pools - a representative sample versus the typical student participants in laboratory experiments - that explains the much higher level of truth-telling in our study: the behavior of the students in our representative sample does not differ from the behavior of the rest of the sample. Chapter 2 examines the relationship between economic preferences and psychological personality measures. Using data from incentivized laboratory experiments and representative samples of the German population it shows that the association between the two concepts is rather low and that the two concepts are complementary in explaining heterogeneity in life outcomes. Chapter 3 validates survey measures for the six key economic preferences - risk taking, time discounting, trust, altruism, positive and negative reciprocity - by assessing their (joint) explanatory power in explaining behavior in incentivized choice experiments. This results in a preference module consisting of two items per preference - one typically being a hypothetical version of the incentivized experiment and the other one being a subjective self-assessment. Next, we adjust the module by reducing complexity and excluding culturally loaded wording to allow implementability across heterogeneous participants, e.g. in terms of cultural or educational background, and across survey modes. We test this "streamlined" module in the field in 22 countries of diverse cultural backgrounds. The resulting feedback calls for only minor adjustments and overall confirms a good implementability of our preference module. Chapter 45 explores whether differences in culture can explain part of the varia tion in economic preferences we see across countries around the globe as documented in Falk, Becker, Dohmen, Enke, Huffman, and Sunde (2015) by using a specific feature of languages as a proxy for culture. Speakers of languages which require the speaker to grammatically mark the future when talking about future events are less patient and less prosocial than speakers of languages which lack such a grammatical requirement. Heterogeneity in preferences across countries and cultures seems to be partly driven by deep cultural differences

Air Temperature Variability in Illinois Based on Weather Station Records and the North American Regional Reanalysis from 1979 to 2006

Spatial and temporal near-surface air temperature 21 variabilities and trends were analyzed for 30 locations in Illinois based on annual data derived from station records and the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) dataset from 1979 to 2006. A high correlation was found between the two datasets regarding interannual variability at most locations. Temperatures were generally higher at urban stations than non-urban stations while non-urban NARR data points showed higher temperatures than urban data points. The differences in medians were not statistically significant in either dataset. Significant positive temperature trends were found in the majority of the weather stations and in all NARR data points, with generally stronger trends with the NARR data. Observed trends from the station records were generally stronger in metropolitan areas and weaker for non-urban areas while the reanalysis data did not show a remarkable difference between urban and non-urban trends

Results from two years of Matricaria inodora L. and Matricaria chamomilla L. monitoring (2012 + 2013) – greenhouse efficacy trials with Tribenuron and Florasulam and ALS target site resistance test at Pro 197 and Thr 574

The first ALS resistant Matricaria chamomilla (MATCH) biotype was found in 2006 in Schleswig Holstein in Witzwort (SCHLEICH-SAIDFAR et al., 2011). Since 2006 ALS resistant Matricaria chamomilla and Matricaria inodora (MATIN) were found at other locations near the North Sea coastline in Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony (ULBER et al., 2012). As there were more and more cases of reduced efficacy of sulfonylureas on mayweed, Dow AgroSciences decided in 2012 and 2013 to test MATCH and MATIN samples in Germany. In 2012 seed samples collected by Dow AgroSciences were planted in greenhouse environment and treated with tribenuron or florasulam. As a second step plants were checked for mutations of the ALS gene at positions Pro 197 and Thr 574 via Pyrosequencing. In Europe there is no known case of metabolic ALS-resistance (ULBER et al., 2012). It was found that mayweed plants showed a mutation at position Pro 197 only. In 2013 leaf samples were taken only and investigated for mutations of ALS position Pro 197 and Thr 574.Keywords: Dow AgroSciences, Germany, mayweed, resistanceErgebnisse aus zwei Jahren (2012 + 2013) eines Matricaria inodora- und Matricaria chamomilla–Monitoring – Biotest mit Tribenuron und Florasulam und ALS-Target-Site-Analyse an den Stellen Pro 197 und Thr 574ZusammenfassungDie erste nachgewiesene ALS-resistente Kamille (Matricaria chamomilla/recutita) stammt aus dem Jahr 2006 aus Witzwort in Schleswig-Holstein (SCHLEICH-SAIDFAR et al., 2011). Seit 2006 gab es einige weitere Kamille-Standorte, bei denen eine ALS-Resistenz nachgewiesen wurde (ULBER et al., 2012). Diese befanden sich in erster Linie an der Nordseeküste Schleswig-Holsteins und Niedersachsens. Da sich die ALS-resistente Kamille weiter ausbreitete, wurden 2012 und 2013 im Auftrag von Dow AgroSciences deutschlandweit Kamille-Proben (MATIN und MATCH) gesammelt und untersucht. In 2012 wurden Samenproben gesammelt, die dann im Biotest mit Tribenuron bzw. Florasulam behandelt und danach mit Pyrosequencing an den Stellen Pro 197 und Thr 574 auf Mutationen untersucht wurden. Da bei ALS-Resistenz bei zweikeimblättrigen Unkräutern europaweit keine metabolische Resistenz bekannt ist (ULBER et al., 2012), wurden 2013 deutschlandweit Blattproben gesammelt und an den Stellen Pro 197 und Thr 574 auf Mutation untersucht.Stichwörter: Deutschland, Dow AgroSciences, Kamille, Resisten

Introduction:in: Prayer and Power

Einführung in den Sammelband. Die einzelnen Beiträge des Bandes beleuchten die Phase der Hochblüte der Institution der Gottesgemahlinnen Ägyptens: von der Dritten Zwischenzeit bis in die frühe Spätzeit. Schwerpunkte liegen u.a. auf der Entwicklung des Priesteramtes, der Verflechtung religiöser und politischer Aspekte, dem kulturellen Hintergrund der Gottesgemahlinnen, aber auch beim Einfluss der Femininität auf das maskulin dominierte ägyptische Königtum.Introduction to the anthology. The contributions to this anthology focus on the heyday of the institution of the God’s Wives of Amun in Egypt during the Third Intermediate Period as well as the early Late Period. They address the influence of individual God’s wives in contrast to the influence of femininity in general. Above all, questions concerning their artistic representation, different religious, political and social aspects of the God’s Wives of Amun and their building activities are discussed in several articles

Specific binding of the regulatory protein ExpG to promoter regions of the galactoglucan biosynthesis gene cluster of Sinorhizobium meliloti: a combined molecular biology and force spectroscopy investigation

Bartels FW, Baumgarth B, Anselmetti D, Ros R, Becker A. Specific binding of the regulatory protein ExpG to promoter regions of the galactoglucan biosynthesis gene cluster of Sinorhizobium meliloti: a combined molecular biology and force spectroscopy investigation. Journal of structural biology. 2003;143(2):145-152.Specific protein-DNA interaction is fundamental for all aspects of gene transcription. We focus on a regulatory DNA-binding protein in the Gram-negative soil bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti 2011, which is capable of fixing molecular nitrogen in a symbiotic interaction with alfalfa plants. The ExpG protein plays a central role in regulation of the biosynthesis of the exopolysaccharide galactoglucan, which promotes the establishment of symbiosis. ExpG is a transcriptional activator of exp gene expression. We investigated the molecular mechanism of binding of ExpG to three associated target sequences in the exp gene cluster with standard biochemical methods and single molecule force spectroscopy based on the atomic force microscope (AFM). Binding of ExpG to expA1, expG-expD1, and expE1 promoter fragments in a sequence specific manner was demonstrated, and a 28 bp conserved region was found. AFM force spectroscopy experiments confirmed the specific binding of ExpG to the promoter regions, with unbinding forces ranging from 50 to 165pN in a logarithmic dependence from the loading rates of 70-79000 pN/s. Two different regimes of loading rate-dependent behaviour were identified. Thermal off-rates in the range of k off = (1.2 ± 1.0) × 10 -3 s -1 were derived from the lower loading rate regime for all promoter regions. In the upper loading rate regime, however, these fragments exhibited distinct differences which are attributed to the molecular binding mechanism

Detailed studies of the binding mechanism of the Sinorhizobium meliloti transcriptional activator ExpG to DNA

Baumgarth B, Bartels FW, Anselmetti D, Becker A, Ros R. Detailed studies of the binding mechanism of the Sinorhizobium meliloti transcriptional activator ExpG to DNA. Microbiology. 2005;151(1):259-268.The exopolysaccharide galactoglucan promotes the establishment of symbiosis between the nitrogen-fixing Gram-negative soil bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti 2011 and its host plant alfalfa. The transcriptional regulator ExpG activates expression of galactoglucan biosynthesis genes by direct binding to the expA1, expG/expD1 and expE1 promoter regions. ExpG is a member of the MarR family of regulatory proteins. Analysis of target sequences of an ExpG(His)6 fusion protein in the exp promoter regions resulted in the identification of a binding site composed of a conserved palindromic region and two associated sequence motifs. Association and dissociation kinetics of the specific binding of ExpG(His)6 to this binding site were characterized by standard biochemical methods and by single-molecule spectroscopy based on the atomic force microscope (AFM). Dynamic force spectroscopy indicated a distinct difference in the kinetics between the wild-type binding sequence and two mutated binding sites, leading to a closer understanding of the ExpG-DNA interaction

The Preference Survey Module: A Validated Instrument for Measuring Risk, Time, and Social Preferences

This paper presents an experimentally validated survey module to measure six key economic preferences – risk aversion, discounting, trust, altruism, positive and negative reciprocity – in a reliable, parsimonious and cost-effective way. The survey instruments included in the module were the best predictors of preferences revealed in incentivized choice experiments. We also offer a streamlined version of the module that has been optimized and piloted for applications where time efficiency and simplicity are paramount, such as international telephone surveys

Global Evidence on Economic Preferences

This paper studies the global variation in economic preferences. For this purpose, we present the Global Preference Survey (GPS), an experimentally validated survey dataset of time preference, risk preference, positive and negative reciprocity, altruism, and trust from 80,000 individuals in 76 countries. The data reveal substantial heterogeneity in preferences across countries, but even larger within-country heterogeneity. Across individuals, preferences vary with age, gender, and cognitive ability, yet these relationships appear partly country specific. At the country level, the data reveal correlations between preferences and bio-geographic and cultural variables such as agricultural suitability, language structure, and religion. Variation in preferences is also correlated with economic outcomes and behaviors. Within countries and subnational regions, preferences are linked to individual savings decisions, labor market choices, and prosocial behaviors. Across countries, preferences vary with aggregate outcomes ranging from per capita income, to entrepreneurial activities, to the frequency of armed conflicts

Perceiving molecular evolution processes in Escherichia coli by comprehensive metabolite and gene expression profiling

Transcript and metabolite abundance changes were analyzed in evolved and ancestor strains of Escherichia coli in three different evolutionary condition