Professionals and students in a lobbying experiment

This paper reports on a series of signaling game experiments in which an informed sender can send a costly message in order to persuade an uninformed responder. We compare the behavior of two subjects pools: 143 undergraduate students and 30 public affairs officials that are professionally familiar with strategic information transmission. The experiments comprised two parameter treatments: one with low costs for sending messages, and one with high costs. Our main conclusion is that there are neither significant nor systematic differences in the behavior of the two subject-pools.

Stabilization of phenomenon and meaning: On the London & London episode as a historical case in philosophy of science

In recent years, the use of historical cases in philosophy of science has become a proper topic of reflection. In this article I will contribute to this research by means of a discussion of one very famous example of case-based philosophy of science, namely the debate on the London & London model of superconductivity between Cartwright, Suárez and Shomar on the one hand, and French, Ladyman, Bueno and Da Costa on the other. This debate has been going on for years, without any satisfactory resolution. I will argue here that this is because both sides impose on the historical case a particular philosophical conception of scientific representation that does not do justice to the historical facts. Both sides assume, more specifically, that the case concerns the discovery of a representational connection between a given experimental insight – the Meissner effect – and the diamagnetic meaning of London and London’s new equations of superconductivity. I will show, however, that at the time of the Londons’ publication, neither the experimental insight nor the meaning of the new equations was established: both were open for discussion and they were stabilized only later. On the basis of this historical discussion, I will then propose an alternative approach to the case study: the case should not be seen as a site of confrontation between pre-existing philosophical accounts, but rather as a way to historically elaborate and develop philosophical concepts. I will then show how approaching the historical episode in this way suggests an alternative approach to the philosophical study of representation, according to which it involves the establishment, over time, of a stable connection between constellations of different elements that, through discussion and engagement with alternative views and approaches, come to constitute phenomenon and meaning

Perspectivism and the epistemology of experimentation: from the evaluation to the production of reliable experiments

My aim in this paper is to propose a way to study the role of perspectives in the production and justification of experimental knowledge. My starting point for this will be Anjan Chakravartty’s claim that Ronald Giere’s perspectival account of the role of instruments in the production of such claims entails relativism in the form of irreducibly incompatible truths. This led Michela Massimi to argue that perspectivism, insofar as it wants to form a realist position, is only concerned with the justification of such claims: whether they are produced reliably is, on her view, a perspective-independent fact of the matter. Following a suggestion by Giere on how scientists handle incompatible results, I will then argue that Massimi’s perspectivism can be extended to also cover the production of such claims, without falling into relativism. I will elaborate this suggestion by means of Uljana Feest’s work on how scientists handle incompatible experimental results. I will argue that, if we reconceptualize perspectives as embodied and situated ways of going about in experimentation that can be made explicit through interpretation, we can obtain a fruitful understanding of the role of perspectives in both the production and justification of experimental knowledge. While this role is primarily exploratory, it can still allow for a substantial form of realism

Heuristics versus Norms: On the Relativistic Responses to the Kaufmann Experiments

The aim of this article is to provide a historical response to Michel Janssen’s (2009) claim that the special theory of relativity establishes that relativistic phenomena are purely kinematical in nature, and that the relativistic study of such phenomena is completely independent of dynamical considerations regarding the systems displaying such behaviour. This response will be formulated through a historical discussion of one of Janssen’s cases, the experiments carried out by Walter Kaufmann on the velocity-dependence of the electron’s mass. Through a discussion of the different responsed formulated by early adherents of the principle of relativity (Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Hermann Minkowski and Max von Laue) to these experiments, it will be argued that the historical development of the special theory of relativity argues against Janssen’s historical presentation of the case, and that this raises questions about his general philosophical claim. It will be shown, more specifically, that Planck and Einstein developed a relativistic response to the Kaufmann experiments on the basis of their study of the dynamics of radiation phenomena, and that this response differed significantly from the response formulated by Minkowski and Laue. In this way, it will be argued that there were, at the time, two different approaches to the theory of relativity, which differed with respect to its relation to theory, experiment and history: Einstein and Planck’s heuristic approach, and Minkowski and Laue’s normative approach. This indicates that it is difficult to say, historically speaking, that the special theory of relativity establishes the kinematical nature of particular phenomena. Instead, it will be argued that the theory of relativity should not be seen as a theory but rather as outlining an approach, and that the nature of particular scientific phenomena is something that is open to scientific debate and dispute

Preferences for Redistribution and Pensions: What Can We Learn from Experiments?

Redistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes. It is still largely an open question what people‘s preferences are regarding redistribution—both through pensions schemes as well as more generally. It would seem that economists have little to say about this question, as they routinely assume that people are predominantly selfish. Economic experiments have revealed, however, that most people do in fact have redistributional preferences that are not merely inspired by self-interest. This paper reviews this experimental evidence. For that purpose we distinguish between three fundamentally different types of situations. The first deals with distributional preferences behind a veil of ignorance. What type of income distribution do people prefer when they do not know whether they will end up in an advantaged or disadvantaged position? A main result here is that, contrary to what John Rawls suggested, people do not prefer the maximin rule, but rather favor a utilitarian justice concept appended with a safety net for the poorest. Another result is that people are willing to accept income inequalities—as long as these are due to choices for which people can be held accountable. In the second type of situation, individuals make choices in front of the veil of ignorance and know their position. Experiments show that preferences for redistribution are strongly dependent on a person‘s own position. People in a relatively disadvantaged position want more redistribution than those in a relatively advantaged position, which shows that preferences for redistribution are clearly affected by self-interest. Still, even many of those in an advantaged position display a preference forredistribution. This holds, in particular, if inequality is due to chance rather than effort. There are also significant differences in preferences between the genders and between people with different political orientations. Finally, we discuss situations in which income is determined by interdependent rather than individual choices. People are dependent upon the cooperation of others for the achievement of their (income) goals. Experiments show that behavioral factors such as trust and reciprocity play a crucial role, and they also indicate that these factors are strongly affected by the institutional setting. In the closing parts of the paper we discuss whether and how these experimental results speak to the redistribution issues of pensions. For example, do they argue for or against mandatory participation? Should we have less redistribution and more actuarial fairness? How does this depend on the type of redistribution involved?public economics ;

Preferences for Redistribution and Pensions. What can we Learn from Experiments?

Redistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes. Nevertheless, it is still an open question what people’s preferences are regarding this form of redistribution. This paper reviews experimental evidence on preferences regarding redistribution and asks what this evidence tells us about preferences for redistribution through pension schemes. We distinguish between three fundamentally different types of situations. The first deals with distributional preferences behind a veil of ignorance. What type of income distribution do people prefer when they do not know whether they will end up in an advantaged or disadvantaged position? The evidence shows that, contrary to John Rawls' suggestion, people do not prefer the maximin rule, but rather favor a utilitarian justice concept appended with a safety net for the poorest. Furthermore, people are willing to accept income inequalities when they are due to choices for which people can be held responsible. In the second type of situation, individuals make choices in front of the veil of ignorance and know their position. Here the evidence shows that preferences for redistribution are strongly dependent on a person’s own position. Disadvantaged people want more redistribution than those who are relatively advantaged, indicating that preferences for redistribution are biased by self-interest. Still, even many of those in an advantaged position display a preference for redistribution. Finally, we discuss situations in which income is determined by interdependent rather than individual choices. Here experiments show that behavioral factors such as trust and reciprocity play a crucial role, and that these factors are strongly affected by the institutional setting. In the closing parts of the paper we discuss whether and how these experimental results speak to the redistribution issues of pensions.redistribution, fairness, pension, insurance, experiment

The Effect of Competition on Risk Taking in Contests

We investigate, theoretically and experimentally, the effect of competition on risk taking in a contest in which players only decide on the level of risk they wish to take. Taking more risk implies a chance of a higher performance, but also implies a higher chance of failure. We vary the level of competition in two ways: by varying the number of players (2 players versus 8 players), and by varying the sensitivity of the contest to differences in performance (lottery contest versus all-pay auction). Our results show that there is a significant interaction effect between the two treatments, suggesting that players are particularly prone to take more risks if both the number of players and the sensitivity to performance are higher

Receiving Credit:On Delegation and Responsibility

Evidence has shown that blame for a “bad" decision can be shifted by delegating the decision to someone else. We conduct experiments to examine whether the reverse is also true: Does one receive credit for taking a “good" decision as compared to delegating the decision to someone else? Our results indicate that the answer is affirmative. A person receives higher rewards when she makes a fair decision herself than when a delegate does. This indicates that responsibility attribution is a double-edged sword that applies to both bad and good outcomes