On reminder effects, drop-outs and dominance: evidence from an online experiment on charitable giving

We present the results of an experiment that (a) shows the usefulness of screening out drop-outs and (b) tests whether different methods of payment and reminder intervals affect charitable giving. Following a lab session, participants could make online donations to charity for a total duration of three months. Our procedure justifying the exclusion of drop-outs consists in requiring participants to collect payments in person flexibly and as known in advance and as highlighted to them later. Our interpretation is that participants who failed to collect their positive payments under these circumstances are likely not to satisfy dominance. If we restrict the sample to subjects who did not drop out, but not otherwise, reminders significantly increase the overall amount of charitable giving. We also find that weekly reminders are no more effective than monthly reminders in increasing charitable giving, and that, in our three months duration experiment, standing orders do not increase giving relative to one-off donations

Peer norm guesses and self-reported attitudes towards performance-related pay

Due to a variety of reasons, people see themselves differently from how they see others. This basic asymmetry has broad consequences. It leads people to judge themselves and their own behavior differently from how they judge others and others’ behavior. This research, first, studies the perceptions and attitudes of Greek Public Sector employees towards the introduction of Performance-Related Pay (PRP) systems trying to reveal whether there is a divergence between individual attitudes and guesses on peers’ attitudes. Secondly, it is investigated whether divergence between own self-reported and peer norm guesses could mediate the acceptance of the aforementioned implementation once job status has been controlled for. This study uses a unique questionnaire of 520 observations which was designed to address the questions outlined in the preceding lines. Our econometric results indicate that workers have heterogeneous attitudes and hold heterogeneous beliefs on others’ expectations regarding a successful implementation of PRP. Specifically, individual perceptions are less skeptical towards PRP than are beliefs on others’ attitudes. Additionally, we found that managers are significantly more optimistic than lower rank employees regarding the expected success of PRP systems in their jobs. However, they both expect their peers to be more negative than they themselves are

Validity of willingness to pay measures under preference uncertainty

This paper is part of the project ACCEPT, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (grant number 01LA1112A). The publication of this article was funded by the Open Access fund of the Leibniz Association. All data is available on the project homepage (https://www.ifw-kiel.de/forschung/umwelt/projekte/accept) and from Figshare (https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3113050.v1).Recent studies in the marketing literature developed a new method for eliciting willingness to pay (WTP) with an open-ended elicitation format: the Range-WTP method. In contrast to the traditional approach of eliciting WTP as a single value (Point-WTP), Range-WTP explicitly allows for preference uncertainty in responses. The aim of this paper is to apply Range-WTP to the domain of contingent valuation and to test for its theoretical validity and robustness in comparison to the Point-WTP. Using data from two novel large-scale surveys on the perception of solar radiation management (SRM), a little-known technique for counteracting climate change, we compare the performance of both methods in the field. In addition to the theoretical validity (i.e. the degree to which WTP values are consistent with theoretical expectations), we analyse the test-retest reliability and stability of our results over time. Our evidence suggests that the Range-WTP method clearly outperforms the Point-WTP method.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Green innovation and financial performance. A study on Italian firms

As the environmental agenda gains momentum all over the world, enterprises face the challenge of combining economic and environmental goals. An obvious, recurrent, and yet not fully answered question is whether, and under which circumstances, an improvement in a firm's environmental performance leads to higher profits. Looking at innovation data, the present study, addresses the question whether Environmental Innovation (EI) is synergic with other types of innovation. To this aim, we separately consider the competitive gains from efficiency increases and cost savings due to different types of environmental innovations (EI) affecting the supply and the demand sides of a firm's activity. Using the Italian CIS dataset (2006–2008), we identify synergic interactions between EI and some but not all other types of innovation

Risk Aversion, Over-Confidence and Private Information as Determinants of Majority Thresholds

We study, both theoretically and experimentally, the relationship between the majority threshold chosen by subjects in voting mechanisms and behavioral traits such as their risk attitude and their beliefs on others' political preferences. The main theoretical findings are supported by experimental data. The majority threshold chosen by a subject is positively and significantly correlated with her degree of risk aversion while it is negatively and significantly associated with her confidence on others' political preferences. Moreover, in a treatment in which participants privately observe the distribution of political preferences in a sub-group of participants, we find that the quality of information crowds-out subjective over-confidence

Non-Cooperative Games with Chained Confirmed Proposals

We propose a bargaining process with alternating proposals as a way of solving non-cooperative games, giving rise to Pareto-efficient agreements which will, in general, differ from the Nash equilibrium of the original games