The Market Place for Ideas: An Analysis of Knowledge Diffusion in Academic Journals

econometrics, experimental techniques, economics of science

How portable is level-0 behavior? A test of level-k theory in game with non-neutral frames

We test the portability of level-0 assumptions in level-k theory in an experimental investigation of behavior in Coordination, Discoordination, and Hide and Seek games with common, non-neutral frames. Assuming that level-0 behavior depends only on the frame, we derive hypotheses that are independent of prior assumptions abou tsalience. Those hypotheses are not confirmed. Our findings contrast with previous research which has fitted parameterized level-k models to Hide and Seek data. We show that, as a criterion of successful explanation, the existence of a plausible model that replicates the main patterns in these data has a high probability of false positives

Vote and Voice::An experiment on the effects of inclusive governance rules

We present an experiment that examines three mechanisms through which the extent of inclusivity in an organization’s governance arrangements might affect its performance. We distinguish extent of inclusivity along two dimensions: members of the organization may or may not be able to (a) vote on collective decisions (‘vote’) and (b) discuss with others what should be done (‘voice’). We find that the inclusivity can affect performance and that each dimension of inclusivity matters, but for different decision problems within an organization. The ‘voice’ matters for motivation whereas ‘voting’ matters for processing and aggregating information; and the decisive difference for performance comes from ‘voice’, not ‘voting’

Endowment inequality in public goods games: A re-examination

We present a clean test of whether inequality in endowments affects contributions to a public good. It is a clean test because, to our knowledge, it is the first to control for possible endowment effects. We find that the key adverse effect of inequality arises because the rich reduce their contributions when there is inequality

The political influence of peer groups: experimental evidence in the classroom

People who belong to the same group often behave alike. Is this because people with similar preferences naturally associate with each other or because group dynamics cause individual preferences and/or the information that they have to converge? We address this question with a natural experiment. We find no evidence that peer political identification affects individual identification. But we do find that peer engagement affects political identification: a more politically engaged peer group encourages individual political affiliation to move from the extremes to the centre

‘Doggedness’ or ‘disengagement’?:An experiment on the effect of inequality in endowment on behaviour in team competitions

Teams often suffer from a free rider problem with respect to individual contributions. That putting teams into competition with each other can mitigate this problem is an important recent insight. However, we know little about how inequality in endowment between teams might influence this beneficial effect from competition. We address this question with an experiment where teams contribute to a public good that then determines their chances of winning a Tullock contest with another team. The boost to efforts from competition disappears when inequality is high. This is mainly because the ‘rich’ ‘disengage’: they make no more contribution to a public good than they would when there is no competition. There is evidence that the ‘poor’ respond to moderate inequality ‘doggedly’, by expending more effort compared to competition with equality, but this ‘doggedness’ disappears too when inequality is high

Media pluralism: What matters for governance and regulation?

Media pluralism is valued in most jurisdictions because it contributes to a well-informed citizenry. The authors examine what media policy and regulatory levers appear to affect five types of citizen knowledge across the European Union. They conclude that concentration of titles matters more than ownership in newsprint; and that neither type of concentration matters in broadcasting in the same way, but the regulatory regime for public service broadcasting does, particularly for political knowledge

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