Tainted nudge

Nudges are increasingly used by governments and organizations to promote behaviors like healthy eating or effective financial planning. Due to their cost-effectiveness, such nudges may earn a profit for the nudger. We investigate whether this profit taints nudges, as suggested by recent research showing that altruistic acts can be regarded less favourably if they result in private benefits to the actor. Across seven preregistered experiments, we demonstrate that prosocial nudges are indeed rated less positively if a profit is earned. But this tainting is limited: prosocial but profitable nudges are evaluated much more favourably than merely profitable ones, unless profit -motivated nudgers deceptively claim their motive is prosocial. Our findings apply to both for-profit and non-profit organizations and provide behaviorally informed guidelines for the introduction of nudge interventions. We suggest organizations can avoid the potential risk of backlash by openly disclosing the win-win nature of their prosocial nudges

The community of advantage

This paper gives an overview of my recently published book, The Community of Advantage: A Behavioural Economist’s Defence of the Market. I explain that my stance as author is that of a behavioural economist and an economic liberal. The book is an attempt to counter the widespread belief that the findings of behavioural economics justify regulatory interventions in the economy that would previously have been thought unacceptably paternalistic. I argue that competitive markets are desirable, not as an efficient means for satisfying the given preferences of assumedly rational individuals, but as an institutional structure that provides opportunities for whatever voluntary transactions people might want to make

Synthesis, molecular modeling and biological evaluation of two new chicoric acid analogs

Two conformationally constrained compounds similar to chicoric acid but lacking the catechol and carboxyl groups were prepared. In these analogues, the single bond between the two caffeoyl fragments has been replaced with a chiral oxirane ring and both aromatic residues modified protecting completely or partially the catechol moiety as methyl ether. Preliminary molecular modelling studies carried out on the two analogues showed interactions near the active site of HIV integrase; however, in comparison with raltegravir, the biological evaluation confirmed that CAA-1 and CAA-2 were unable to inhibit infection at lower concentration

Characterising competitive equilibrium in terms of opportunity

This paper analyses alternative profiles of opportunity sets for individuals in an exchange economy, without assuming that individuals’ choices reveal coherent preferences. It introduces the concept of a ‘market-clearing single-price regime’, representing a profile of opportunity sets consistent with competitive equilibrium. It also proposes an opportunity-based normative criterion, the Strong Opportunity Criterion, which is analogous with the core in preference-based analysis. It shows that every market-clearing single-price regime satisfies the Strong Opportunity Criterion and that, in the limit as an economy is replicated, only such regimes have this property

Risk compensation during COVID-19: The impact of face mask usage on social distancing

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Psychological Association via the DOI in this recordTo reduce the spread of COVID-19, governments around the world have recommended or required minimum physical distancing between individuals, as well as either mandating or recommending the use of face coverings (masks) in certain circumstances. When multiple risk reduction activities can be adopted, people may engage in risk compensation by responding to a reduced (perceived) risk exposure due to one activity by increasing risk exposure due to another. We tested for risk compensation in two online experiments that investigated whether either wearing a mask or seeing others wearing masks reduced physical distancing. We presented participants with stylized images of everyday scenarios involving themselves with or without a mask and a stranger with or without a mask. For each scenario, participants indicated the minimum distance they would keep from the stranger. In line with risk compensation, we found that participants indicated they would stand, sit, or walk closer to the stranger if either of them was wearing a mask. This form of risk compensation was stronger for those who believed masks were effective at preventing catching or spreading COVID-19, and for younger (18-40 years) compared to older (over 65 years) participants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC

Coordination when there are restricted and unrestricted options

One might expect that, in pure coordination games, coordination would become less frequent as the number of options increases. Contrary to this expectation, we report an experiment which found more frequent coordination when the option set was unrestricted than when it was restricted. To try to explain this result, we develop a method for eliciting the general rules that subjects use to identify salient options in restricted and unrestricted sets. We find that each such rule, if used by all subjects, would generate greater coordination in restricted sets. However, subjects tend to apply different rules to restricted and unrestricted sets

Consumption experience, choice experience and the endowment effect

We report experiments investigating how experience influences the endowment effect. Our experiments feature endowments which are bundles of unfamiliar consumption goods. We examine how a subject’s willingness to swap items from their endowment is influenced by prior experiences of tasting the goods in question and by prior experiences of choosing between them. We do not find a statistically significant endowment effect in our baseline treatment and, because of this, we are unable to test for an effect of consumption experience. We do find an endowment effect when the endowment is acquired in two instalments and, in this setting, we find some evidence that choice experience increases trading. In a follow up experiment, we find evidence that the absence of an endowment effect in our baseline treatment is due to subjects being more willing to swap when they do not have to give up the last unit of their endowment

Prospect theory and tax evasion: a reconsideration of the Yitzhaki puzzle

The standard expected utility (EUT) model of tax evasion predicts that evasion is decreasing in the marginal tax rate (the Yitzhaki puzzle). Recent literature shows cases in which incorporating prospect theory (PT) does and does not overturn the Puzzle. In a general environment that nests both PT and EUT preferences, we provide a detailed study of how the elements of PT affect the Puzzle. PT does not always reverse the Puzzle, hence we give and interpret conditions for when it does and does not. When allowing for stigma and/or variable audit probability, PT reverses the Puzzle in the same way and with the same limitations as does EUT, if equally augmented

How do risk attitudes affect measured confidence?

We examine the relationship between confidence in own absolute performance and risk attitudes using two confidence elicitation procedures: self-reported (non-incentivised) confidence and an incentivised procedure that elicits the certainty equivalent of a bet based on performance. The former procedure reproduces the “hard-easy effect” (underconfidence in easy tasks and overconfidence in hard tasks) found in a large number of studies using non-incentivised self-reports. The latter procedure produces general underconfidence, which is significantly reduced, but not eliminated when we filter out the effects of risk attitudes. Finally, we find that self-reported confidence correlates significantly with features of individual risk attitudes including parameters of individual probability weighting