Four Essays in Microeconomic Theory and Experimental Economics

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Cheap Signaling of Altruism

Replication files for project Cheap Signaling of Altruis

Trust and Reputation under Asymmetric Information

We study the role of information about the multiplier in a finitely repeated investment game. A high multiplier increases the reputational incentives of a trustee, leading to more repayments. Our perfect Bayesian equilibrium analysis shows that if the trustee is privately informed about the multiplier, both the expected frequency of investments and repayments as well as the expected payoffs of both players are higher compared to a situation where the multiplier is public knowledge. We test this result in a laboratory experiment. The data cannot confirm the predicted welfare dominance of private information about the multiplier. We discuss potential reasons for the deviation between theory and experimental data

Delegation to a Group

We study the choice of a principal to either delegate a decision to a group of careerist experts or to consult them individually and keep the decision-making power. Our model predicts a trade-off between information acquisition and information aggregation. On the one hand, the expected benefit from being informed is larger in case the experts are consulted individually. Hence, the experts either acquire the same or a larger amount of information, depending on the cost of information, than in case of delegation. On the other hand, any acquired information is better aggregated in the case of delegation, in which experts can deliberate secretly. To test the model’s key predictions, we run an experiment. The results from the laboratory confirm the predicted trade-off despite some deviations from theory on the individual level.publishe

Generation of pure GABAergic neurons by transcription factor programming

Approaches to differentiating pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) into neurons currently face two major challenges-(i) generated cells are immature, with limited functional properties; and (ii) cultures exhibit heterogeneous neuronal subtypes and maturation stages. Using lineage-determining transcription factors, we previously developed a single-step method to generate glutamatergic neurons from human PSCs. Here, we show that transient expression of the transcription factors Ascl1 and Dlx2 (AD) induces the generation of exclusively GABAergic neurons from human PSCs with a high degree of synaptic maturation. These AD-induced neuronal (iN) cells represent largely nonoverlapping populations of GABAergic neurons that express various subtype-specific markers. We further used AD-iN cells to establish that human collybistin, the loss of gene function of which causes severe encephalopathy, is required for inhibitory synaptic function. The generation of defined populations of functionally mature human GABAergic neurons represents an important step toward enabling the study of diseases affecting inhibitory synaptic transmission