Essays on delegation and social norms

This thesis presents the results of my doctoral studies at Middlesex University London. It contains different papers related to Labour Markets and presents some results on production, delegation and dishonest behaviour. The first study compares how group size interacts with both constrained and un-constrained resource environments, finding that resource limitations diminish production over time and that all the groups learn with experience. The second explores the effects of incentives in dishonest behaviour in both the gain and loss domain finding that contrary to theoretical predictions, subjects do not cheat more when they are facing a loss. The third, studies the distributions derived from different delegation scenarios. We find that the distributions derived from optional delegation are more egalitarian than the ones made under compulsory delegation. Finally, I study gender differences in delegation finding that gender biases only arise in compulsory delegation, and not under endogenous delegation, and at an agent level

Self-selecting into being a dictator: distributional consequences

We allow for principals to self-select into delegating, or not, the allocation decision to an agent in a modified dictator game. The standard dictator game arises when principal´s choose to make the allocation decision themselves. Dictators thus obtained transfer lower amounts to receivers, relative to when the decision making is passed to an agent under delegation (or in the standard dictator game). Principals choose to be a dictator nearly half of the time. The average amount transferred by individuals who delegate in more than half of the rounds is significantly higher than the quantity transferred by those who choose to delegate in less than half of the rounds. Finally, the distributional consequences of delegating, or not, vary with less inequality obtained when the decision is delegated

Gender differences in cheating: loss vs gain framing

We use the die-paradigm to study gender differences in cheating behavior. We find that i) both males and females do not cheat in the absence of financial incentives, ii) both males and females cheat (but not maximally) if reports are associated with financial gains or losses, and iii) males and females do not cheat differentially

The effect of wage proposals on efficiency and income distribution

Pre-play non-binding communication in organizations is prevalent. We study the implications of pre-play wage proposals and information revelation in a labour relationship in a laboratory experiment. In the baseline, that depicts a typical labour market interaction, the employer makes a wage offer to the worker who may then accept or reject it. In a subsequent treatment, workers, moving first, make private, non-binding, wage proposals to the employer. Our findings suggest that wage proposals promote higher wages, efficiency, and income equality. We run an additional experiment as a robustness check where we make the wage proposals public. We find that most of the results hold. Similar wage proposals are observed in the Public and Private information treatments, while accepted wages in the public treatment are higher than the baseline and significantly lower than under private information. It seems that workers conform to the available information on the wage of their co-worker from the last period when proposals are public. Interestingly, while both benefit over the baseline, public information on wage proposals benefits firms more than workers. We also develop a theoretical model to rationalize our results. The experimental results provide broad support for our hypotheses

Cheating, incentives, and money manipulation

We use different incentive schemes to study truth-telling in a die-roll task when people are asked to reveal the number rolled privately. We find no significant evidence of cheating when there are no financial incentives associated with the reports, but do find evidence of such when the reports determine financial gains or losses (in different treatments). We find no evidence of loss aversion in the standard case in which subjects receive their earnings in a sealed envelope at the end of the session. When subjects manipulate the possible earnings, we find evidence of less cheating, particularly in the loss setting; in fact, there is no significant difference in behavior between the non-incentivized case and the loss setting with money manipulation. We interpret our findings in terms of the moral cost of cheating and differences in the perceived trust and beliefs in the gain and the loss frames

Using artificial neural networks to predict impingement and dislocation in total hip arthroplasty

Dislocation after total hip arthroplasty (THA) remains a major issue and an important post-surgical complication. Impingement and subsequent dislocation are influenced by the design (head size) and position (anteversion and abduction angles) of the acetabulum and different movements of the patient, with external extension and internal flexion the most critical movements. The aim of this study is to develop a computational tool based on a three-dimensional (3D) parametric finite element (FE) model and an artificial neural network (ANN) to assist clinicians in identifying the optimal prosthesis design and position of the acetabular cup to reduce the probability of impingement and dislocation. A 3D parametric model of a THA was used. The model parameters were the femoral head size and the acetabulum abduction and anteversion angles. Simulations run with this parametric model were used to train an ANN, which predicts the range of movement (ROM) before impingement and dislocation. This study recreates different configurations and obtains absolute errors lower than 5.5° between the ROM obtained from the FE simulations and the ANN predictions. The ROM is also predicted for patients who had already suffered dislocation after THA, and the computational predictions confirm the patient’s dislocations. Summarising, the combination of a 3D parametric FE model of a THA and an ANN is a useful computational tool to predict the ROM allowed for different designs of prosthesis heads

Osteocondritis disecante de la cabeza del 2º metacarpiano en un niño: a propósito de un caso

La osteocondritis disecante en articulaciones de la mano es un proceso muy raro, sólo existen dos casos previos publicados en la literatura. Presentamos un paciente de 10 años de edad con dolor e impotencia funcional de la articulación metacarpofalángica de la mano izquierda de semanas de evolución. Con el diagnós - tico final de osteocondritis disecante realizamos una resección del fragmento libre asociadas a perforaciones con aguja fina. Tras el primer año de seguimiento el paciente se encuentra asintomático y se observa remodelación casi completa de la superficie articular.Ostheocondritis in the hand is a rare process. Only two cases were reported in the previous litera - ture. In this report we present a 10 years old boy with pain and a few functional limitation in second metacarpal phalangeal joint for weeks. With the final diagnosis of osteochondritis dissecans we performed surgery. Intraope - ratively the cartilage flap was removed and some drilling was realized. Before one year the patient was asympto - matic and we observed an improvement of articular surface

Rammed earth walls in Mediterranean climate: material characterization and thermal behaviour

Rammed earth is considered a very sustainable construction system due to its low embodied energy, long service life and high recyclability. However, authors found that there is a lack of experimental results at real scale regarding rammed earth thermal behaviour. For this reason, this paper is first focused on the characterization of two different types of earth in order to check the suitability of being used in rammed earth walls. After the characterization, two experimental cubicle-shape buildings were built in Barcelona and Puigverd de Lleida (Spain) in order to test the thermal behaviour of their walls in two different climatic conditions. Temperature profiles inside walls have been monitored using thermocouples and temperature profile of southern walls was analysed in free floating conditions during summer and winter periods of 2013. Results show that thermal amplitude from outside to inside temperatures are decreased by rammed earth walls, achieving constant temperatures in inner surface of southern walls.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version