Within-subject Intra- and Inter-method consistency of two experimental risk attitude elicitation

We compare the consistency of choices in two methods to used elicit risk preferences on an aggregate as well as on an individual level. We asked subjects to choose twice from a list of nine decision between two lotteries, as introduced by Holt and Laury (2002, 2005) alternating with nine decisions using the budget approach introduced by Andreoni and Harbaugh (2009). We find that while on an aggregate (subject pool) level the results are (roughly) consistent, on an individual (within-subject) level, behavior is far from consistent. Within each method as well as across methods we observe low correlations. This again questions the reliability of experimental risk elicitation measures and the ability to use results from such methods to control for the risk aversion of subjects when explaining effects in other experimental games.risk preferences, laboratory experiment, elicitation methods, subject heterogeneity

Facing a changing labour force in China: Determinants of trust and reciprocity in an experimental labour market

Due to economic and demographic changes highly educated women are increasingly important for the Chinese labour market. Gender is a well-studied determinant of behaviour in economic experiments, as are similarly academic major, age and income. We study determinants of trust and reciprocity for Chinese subjects in a labour market experiment using two variants of a gift exchange framework with employers and workers. We find that women are significantly less trusting and less reciprocal in one game variant while this relationship is only clear for reciprocity in the other variant

Study protocol: NITric oxide during cardiopulmonary bypass to improve Recovery in Infants with Congenital heart defects (NITRIC trial): a randomised controlled trial

Introduction Congenital heart disease (CHD) is a major cause of infant mortality. Many infants with CHD require corrective surgery with most operations requiring cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). CPB triggers a systemic inflammatory response which is associated with low cardiac output syndrome (LCOS), postoperative morbidity and mortality. Delivery of nitric oxide (NO) into CPB circuits can provide myocardial protection and reduce bypass-induced inflammation, leading to less LCOS and improved recovery. We hypothesised that using NO during CPB increases ventilator-free days (VFD) (the number of days patients spend alive and free from invasive mechanical ventilation up until day 28) compared with standard care. Here, we describe the NITRIC trial protocol. Methods and analysis The NITRIC trial is a randomised, double-blind, controlled, parallel-group, two-sided superiority trial to be conducted in six paediatric cardiac surgical centres. One thousand three-hundred and twenty infants <2 years of age undergoing cardiac surgery with CPB will be randomly assigned to NO at 20 ppm administered into the CPB oxygenator for the duration of CPB or standard care (no NO) in a 1:1 ratio with stratification by age (<6 and ≥6 weeks), single ventricle physiology (Y/N) and study centre. The primary outcome will be VFD to day 28. Secondary outcomes include a composite of LCOS, need for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation or death within 28 days of surgery; length of stay in intensive care and in hospital; and, healthcare costs. Analyses will be conducted on an intention-to-treat basis. Preplanned secondary analyses will investigate the impact of NO on host inflammatory profiles postsurgery. Ethics and dissemination The study has ethical approval (HREC/17/QRCH/43, dated 26 April 2017), is registered in the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12617000821392) and commenced recruitment in July 2017. The primary manuscript will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Trial registration number ACTRN12617000821392.</p

The importance of individual characteristics in experimental economic research

This thesis advances the knowledge of behavioural economics on the importance of individual characteristics – such as gender, personality or culture – for choices relevant to labour and insurance markets. It does so using economic experiments, survey tools and physiological data, collected in economic laboratories and in the field. More specifically, the thesis includes 5 experimental economic studies investigating individual-specific characteristics (gender, age, personality, cultural background) in decisions influenced by risk attitudes and social preferences. One of these characteristics is the physiological state of decision-makers, measured by heart rate variability. The results show that individual-specific characteristics play an important role for choices affected by social preferences, a finding to a lesser degree observable for risk preferences. This finding is confirmed under revealed incentivised choices and when studying (latent) physiological responses of decision-makers

The role of psychological and physiological factors in decision making under risk and in a dilemma

We study the difference in the result of two different risk elicitation methods by linking estimates of risk attitudes to gender, age, personality traits, a decision in a dilemma situation, and physiological states measured by heart rate variability (HRV). Our results indicate that differences between the methods can partly be explained by gender, but not by personality traits. Furthermore, HRV is linked to risktaking in the experiment for at least one of the methods, indicating that more stressed individuals display more risk aversion. Finally, we and that risk attitudes are not predictive of the ability to decide in a dilemma, but personality traits are. Surprisingly, there is also no apparent relationship between the physiological state during the dilemma situation and the ability to make a decision

Gender and other determinants of trust and reciprocity in an experimental labour market amongst Chinese students

Due to economic and demographic changes highly educated women play an important role on the Chinese labour market. Gender has been shown to be an important characteristic that influences behaviour in economic experiments, as have, to a lesser degree, academic major, age and income. We provide a study looking at trust and reciprocity and their determinants in a labour market laboratory experiment. Our experimental data is based on two games, the Gift Exchange Game (GEG) and a variant of this game (the Wage Promising Game, WPG) where the employer's wage offer is non-binding and the employer can choose the wage freely after observing the workers effort. We and that women are less trusting and reciprocal than men in the GEG while this cannot be found in the WPG. Letting participants play the GEG and the WPG, allows us to disentangle reciprocal and risk attitudes. While in the employer role, it seems to be that risk attitude is the main factor, this is not confirmed analysing decisions in the worker role

Are stunted child – overweight mother pairs a real defined entity or a statistical artifact?

In a methodological contribution, Dieffenbach &amp; Stein (DS) (The Journal of Nutrition, 142(4), 771–773.) concluded that the double burden of malnutrition (DBM), represented by stunted child – overweight mother pairs (SCOM), is a statistical artifact, meaning that SCOM does not describe a unique phenomenon because the observed rates of SCOM across a number of countries were not strongly different from the product of observed rates of maternal overweight (OM) and child stunting (SC), which DS referred to as the expected rate of SCOM. However, a growing literature continues to use SCOM as an indicator of the DBM. This study shows that the analysis by DS is not sufficient to conclude that SCOM can be explained by the co-occurrence of OM and SC due to chance alone because the analysis by DS was conducted at the country level, but applied to SCOM, which is a household-level variable. Using Demographic and Health Surveys data from 202 country-year data sets, we do not confirm important implicit assumptions that are required for the claim by DS to be supported. We also outline that comparing the expected to the observed rate of SCOM is primarily informative when putting it in relation to factors that influence the supply and demand of food consumed by households. When considering these factors, we find further evidence that it is misleading to consider SCOM as a statistical artifact, as the difference between the observed and the expected rate of SCOM significantly differs by household wealth. Recognizing that SCOM is a distinct phenomenon is important for policymakers who develop double-duty strategies that address malnutrition, and for researchers who need useful indicators to study the determinants of malnutrition at the household level.</p

The role of psychological and physiological factors in decision making under risk and in a dilemma

Different methods to elicit risk attitudes of individuals often provide differing results despite a common theory. Reasons for such inconsistencies may be the different influence of underlying factors in risk-taking decisions. In order to evaluate this conjecture, a better understanding of underlying factors across methods and decision contexts is desirable. In this paper we study the difference in result of two different risk elicitation methods by linking estimates of risk attitudes to gender, age, and personality traits, which have been shown to be related. We also investigate the role of these factors during decision-making in a dilemma situation. For these two decision contexts we also investigate the decision-maker's physiological state during the decision, measured by heart rate variability (HRV), which we use as an indicator of emotional involvement. We found that the two elicitation methods provide different individual risk attitude measures which is partly reflected in a different gender effect between the methods. Personality traits explain only relatively little in terms of driving risk attitudes and the difference between methods. We also found that risk taking and the physiological state are related for one of the methods, suggesting that more emotionally involved individuals are more risk averse in the experiment. Finally, we found evidence that personality traits are connected to whether individuals made a decision in the dilemma situation, but risk attitudes and the physiological state were not indicative for the ability to decide in this decision context.JRC.I.2-Public Health Policy Suppor

Within-subject intra- and inter-method consistency of two experimental risk attitude elicitation methods

We compare the consistency of choices in two methods to used elicit risk preferences on an aggregate as well as on an individual level. We asked subjects to choose twice from a list of nine decision between two lotteries, as introduced by Holt and Laury (2002, 2005) alternating with nine decisions using the budget approach introduced by Andreoni and Harbaugh (2009). We find that while on an aggregate(subject pool) level the results are (roughly) consistent, on an individual(within-subject) level,behavior is far from consistent. Within each method as well as across methods we observe low correlations. This again questions the reliability of experimental risk elicitation measures and the ability to use results from such methods to control for the risk aversion of subjects when explaining e�ects in other experimental games