Stated versus inferred beliefs: A methodological inquiry and experimental test

If asking subjects their beliefs during repeated game play changes the way those subjects play, using those stated beliefs to evaluate and compare theories of strategic behavior is problematic. We experimentally verify that belief elicitation can alter paths of play in a repeated asymmetric matching pennies game. In this setting, belief elicitation improves the goodness of fit of structural models of belief learning, and the prior beliefs implied by such structural models are both stronger and more realistic when beliefs are elicited than when they are not. These effects are, however, confined to the player type who sees a strong asymmetry between payoff possibilities for her two strategies in the game. We also find that “inferred beliefs” (beliefs estimated from past observed actions of opponents) can be better predictors of observed actions than the “stated beliefs” resulting from belief elicitation.beliefs; stated beliefs; belief elicitation; inferred beliefs; estimated beliefs; belief updating; repeated games; experimental methods

THE SIZE OF THE PRIZE: TESTING RENT-DISSIPATION WHEN TRANSFER QUANTITY IS ENDOGENOUS

We present a transfer-seeking model of political economy in which the size of the transfer is determined endogenously, and in which over-dissipation of rents is predicted even under conditions of risk-neutrality and perfect rationality. We implement an empirical test of this model by collecting behavioral data in a laboratory experiment. We confirm the existence of behavior that leads to over-dissipation of rents in games with both symmetric and asymmetric political power. We also confirm the hypotheses that lowering the political power of one player can lead to smaller rent-seeking expenditures and to larger transfers. We observe behavior that deviates from dominant strategies.Political Economy,

Morocco's free trade agreement with the European community : a quantitative assessment

Morocco is interested in developing a reciprocal free trade agreement with the European Community (EC), although it already enjoys free access to EC markets in industrial products and is not obligated to give EC exporters reciprocal access. But Moroccan agricultural exports are impeded by agricultural protection in the European Community. A free trade agreement would require that Morocco lower its moderately high tariffs against its most important trading partner. Tariff reductions against the European Community but not against the rest of the world may provide benefits provided the trade diversion costs of preferential tariff reduction do not dominate. The authors apply a 39 sector general equilibrium model of the Moroccan economy which includes the sectors most likely to be affected by such an agreement. They investigate the economic effects of the prospective free trade agreement as well as five other trade liberalization scenarios for Morocco. Some of their most important findings are: The welfare benefits to Morocco from a free trade agreement with the European Community would be about 1.5 percent GDP. Such substantial welfare gains partly reflect the benefits of reducing dispersion in the tariff regime. Welfare benefits of about 2.5 percent of GDP would accrue from liberalizing trade with the rest of the world - with only slightly higher adjustment costs. Liberalizing trade with the world would provide greater benefits because it would eliminate the trade diversion costs associated with discriminatory trade liberalization. (Although the fact that significant benefits would accrue from discriminatory liberalization against imports from either the European Community or the rest of the world indicates that trade diversion is not dominant.) As a result of improved access to the European Community, employment and output in the vegetable and citrus fruit sectors would expand. But the phosphate sector stands to gain most from the free trade agreement because liberalization wouldinduce a depreciation in the real exchange rate. Morocco's cereal, meat, dairy, and sugar sectors would loose more in terms of employment, because of significantly lower import prices from the European Community. The nontraded goods sector would also contract slightly. The value added tax would have to be increased to compensate for the loss in tariff revenues, on which Morocco depends. Estimates are provided as ranges, with probability assessments, because of the element of uncertainty.Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade Policy,Rules of Origin,Economic Theory&Research,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT

Culture, nationality and demographics in ultimatum games

We use experimental data collected in Russia and in the United States using a simple ultimatum game to evaluate two alternative hypotheses that may account for previously observed behavior in multinational experiments. One hypothesis postulates that behavioral differences observed in bargaining experiments arise from country-specific cultural environments. We submit the alternative hypothesis that different behavior in such experiments stems from differences in the demographic characteristics of the subject pools within each country. Because of its simplicity, our experimental design allows us to discriminate between these two hypotheses. Our findings support the alternative hypothesis.multinational experiments, ultimatum bargaining

Dynamic Consistency in Denmark: A Longitudinal Field Experiment

Evidence that individuals have dynamically consistent preferences is usually generated by studying the discount rates of the individual over different horizons, but where those rates are elicited at a single point in time. If these elicited discount rates vary by horizon the individual is typically claimed to have preferences that imply a dynamic inconsistency, although this inference requires additional assumptions such as intertemporal separability. However, what one really wants to know is if the same subject has the same discount rate function when that individual is asked at a later point in time. Such panel tests then require than one allow for possible changes in the states of nature that the subject faces, since they may confound any in-sample comparisons of discount rate functions at different points in time. We report the results of a large-scale panel experiment undertaken in the field that allows us to examine this issue. In June 2003 we elicited subjective discount rates from 253 subjects, representative of the adult Danish population. Between September 2003 and November 2004 we re-visited 97 of these subjects and repeated these tasks. In each visit we also elicited information on their individual characteristics, as well as their expectations about the state of their own economic situation and macroeconomic variables. We find evidence in favor of dynamic consistency.

Estimating Risk Attitudes in Denmark

We estimate individual risk attitudes using controlled experiments in the field in Denmark. These risk preferences are elicited by means of field experiments involving real monetary rewards. The experiments were carried out across Denmark using a representative sample of 253 people between 19 and 75 years of age. Risk attitudes are estimated for various individuals differentiated by socio-demographic characteristics such as income and age. Our results indicate that the average Dane is risk averse, and that risk neutrality is an inappropriate assumption to apply. We also find that risk attitudes do vary significantly with respect to several important socio-demographic variables. These conclusions are robust to the use of relatively flexible specifications of risk preferences. When individual characteristics of the sample are ignored, relative risk aversion appears not to be constant over the domain of income considered here, and rises rapidly as income increases above "small" amounts. However, relative risk aversion appears to be constant when one corrects for individual heterogeneity, although there is considerable uncertainty in the characterization of risk attitudes for low stakesRisk preferences, field experiments, heterogeneity

Risk Attitudes, Randomization to Treatment, and Self-Selection Into Experiments

Randomization to treatment is fundamental to statistical control in the design of experiments. But randomization implies some uncertainty about treatment condition, and individuals differ in their preferences towards taking on risk. Since human subjects often volunteer for experiments, or are allowed to drop out of the experiment at any time if they want to, it is possible that the sample observed in an experiment might be biased because of the risk of randomization. On the other hand, the widespread use of a guaranteed show-up fee that is non-stochastic may generate sample selection biases of the opposite direction, encouraging more risk averse samples into experiments. We undertake a field experiment to directly test these hypotheses that risk attitudes play a role in sample selection. We follow standard procedures in the social sciences to recruit subjects to an experiment in which we measure their attitudes to risk. We exploit the fact that we know certain characteristics of the population sampled, adults in Denmark, allowing a statistical correction for sample selection bias using standard methods. We also utilize the fact that we have a complex sampling design to provide better estimates of the target population. Our results suggest that randomization bias is not a major empirical problem for field experiments of the kind we conducted if the objective is to identify marginal effects of sample characteristics. However, there is evidence that the use of show-up fees may have generated a sample that was more risk averse than would otherwise have been observed.

Social norms and social choice

Experiments can provide rich information on behavior conditional on the institutional rules of the game being imposed by the experimenter. We consider what happens when the subjects are allowed to choose the institution through a simple social choice procedure. Our case study is a setting in which sanctions may or may not be allowed to encourage "righteous behavior". Laboratory experiments show that some subjects in public goods environments employ costly sanctions against other subjects in order to enforce what appears to be a social norm of contribution. We show that this artificial society is not an attractive place to live, by any of the standard social choice criteria. If it came about because of evolutionary forces, as speculated, then The Blind Watchmaker was having one of his many bad days at the workbench. In fact, none of our laboratory societies with perfect strangers matching ever chose to live in such a world. Our findings suggest that the conditions under which a group or a society would choose a constitution that is based on voluntary costly sanctions are very special.

Testing static game theory with dynamic experiments: a case study of public goods

Game theory provides predictions of behavior in many one-shot games. On the other hand, most experimenters usually play repeated games with subjects, to provide experience. To avoid subjects rationally employing strategies that are appropriate for the repeated game, experimenters typically employ a "random strangers" design in which subjects are randomly paired with others in the session. There is some chance that subjects will meet in multiple rounds, but it is claimed that this chance is so small that subjects will behave as if they are in a one-shot environment. We present evidence from public goods experiments that this claim is not always true.Game theory, experiments, public goods

Bargaining behavior, demographics and nationality: a reconsideration of the experimental evidence

Bargaining behavior appears to vary across nations. What drives these apparent differences? We reconsider the evidence provided by previous experiments, and undertake some new experiments that expand the controls for demographics. We show that inferences about country effects are sensitive to the way in which the data are analyzed and the controls that are incorporated. Separating out differences in initial behavior versus trend shows significant differences in both. Adding interaction effects between countries, gender, and ethnic background shows that cultural differences are more complex than the factors captured by either nationality or gender alone. Some subgroups behave in ways which are clearly closer to the subgame perfect equilibrium prediction than others.