Automated student engagement analytics : a short cut to transition monitoring?

Non peer reviewe

Do People Keep Socially Unverifiable Promises?

Previous research has suggested that communication and especially promises increase cooperation in laboratory experiments. This has been taken as evidence for internal motivations such as guilt aversion or preference for promise keeping. The original goal of this paper was to examine promises under a double blind payoff procedure to test the alternative explanation that promise keeping was due to external influence and reputational concerns. We find no evidence that communication increases the overall level of cooperation in our double blind experiment. However, our results are due in part to the high level of cooperation that we observe, leading us to conduct additional single blind conditions. Ultimately, we find no evidence that communication or payoff procedures impact aggregate cooperation.Anonymity; experiment; promises; partnership; guilt aversion; psychological game theory; trust; lies; social distance; behavioral economics; hidden action

Words Speak Louder Than Money

Should one use words or money to foster trust of the other party if no means of enforcing trustworthiness are available? This paper reports an experiment studying the effectiveness of two types of mechanisms for promoting trust: a costly gift and a costless message as well as their mutual interaction. We nest our findings in the standard version of the investment game. Our data provide evidence that while both stand-alone mechanisms enhance trust, and a gift performs significantly worse than a message. Moreover, when a gift is combined with sending a message, it can be counterproductive.Communication; content analysis; experimental economics; gift giving; investment game; message; trust; trustworthiness

An experimental investigation of overdissipation in the all pay auction

Pervasive overbidding represents a well-documented feature of all-pay auctions. Aggregate bids exceed Nash predictions in laboratory experiments, and individuals often submit bids that guarantee negative profits. This paper examines three factors that may reduce pervasive overbidding: (a) repetition (experience), (b) reputation (strangers vs. partners) and (c) active participation. We find that aggregate over-dissipation diminishes but is not eliminated with repetition, and that repetition, in conjunction with active participation generates bids consistent with the static Nash predictions.

Words Speak Louder Than Money

This paper reports on an experiment studying the effectiveness of two types of mechanisms for promoting trust: pecuniary and non-pecuniary as well as their mutual interaction. Our data provide evidence that both mechanisms significantly enhance trust in comparison to the standard investment game. However, we find that the pecuniary mechanism performs significantly worse than the non-pecuniary one. Our results also point to the fact that pecuniary mechanism, which depends on monetary incentives, can be counterproductive when combined with mechanism which relies primarily on psychological incentives.Communication; Deposit; Experimental economics; Trust; Trustworthiness

Comment on "Promises and Partnership"

Charness and Dufwenberg (2006) find that promises increase cooperation and suggest that the behavior of subjects in their experiment is driven by guilt aversion. By modifying the procedures to include a double blind social distance protocol we test an alternative explanation that promise keeping was due to external influence and reputational concerns. Our data are statistically indistinguishable from those of Charness and Dufwenberg and therefore provide strong evidence that their observed effects regarding the impact of communication are due to internal factors and not due to an outside bystander.Experiment; promises; partnership; guilt aversion; psychological game theory; trust; lies; social distance; behavioral economics; hidden action

An Experimental Study of Bubble Formation in Asset Markets Using the Tâtonnement Trading Institution

We report the results of an experiment designed to study the role of institutional structure in the formation of bubbles and crashes in laboratory asset markets. In a setting employing double auctions and call markets as trading institutions, bubbles and crashes are a quite robust phenomenon. The only factor appearing to reduce bubbles is experience across markets. In this study, we employ the tâtonnement trading institution, which has not been previously explored in laboratory asset markets, despite its historical and contemporary relevance. The results show that bubbles are significantly reduced, suggesting that the trading institution plays a crucial role in the formation of bubbles.Experimental Asset Markets; Price Bubbles; Trading Institutions; Tâtonnement

Forgive or Buy Back: An Experimental Study of Debt Relief

A large share of the debt claims owed by the world’s poorest countries has been cancelled through the HIPC (highly indebted poor countries) debt relief initiative. It is believed that, with less debt burden, the HIPC will be able to devote more resources to investment and thus promote their own growth and benefit their creditors in the long run. But does debt forgiveness really provide the best incentive for those countries who suffers from debt overhang? In this paper, we adopt experimental methods to study the impact of two different schemes for relieving debt. The two schemes we consider here are debt forgiveness and debt buyback, with the latter being more market-based since it allows indebted countries to repurchase their own debt on the secondary market at a discount. We find that creditors tend to reduce more debt when the relief takes the form of debt forgiveness than that of buyback. Debtors under the scheme of forgiveness are not significantly more reciprocal than those of buyback. After controlling for the amount of debt relief, creditors are significantly worse off under forgiveness whereas debtors are indifferent between the two schemes. Overall, debt forgiveness yields less desirable outcomes than debt buybacks.Laboratory Experiments

Use of 3D printing in teaching to bring together structure-activity relationships, drug design and public engagement with pharmacology

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

An Experimental Study of Bubble Formation in Asset Markets Using the Tâtonnement Pricing Mechanism

We report the results of an experiment designed to study the role of institutional structure in the formation of bubbles and crashes in laboratory asset markets. In a setting employing double auctions and call markets as trading institutions, bubbles and crashes are a quite robust phenomenon. The only factor appearing to reduce bubbles is experience across markets. In this study, we employ the tâtonnement trading institution, which has not been previously explored in laboratory asset markets. The results show that bubbles are eliminated, suggesting that the trading institution plays a crucial role in the formation of bubbles.Bubbles; Trading Institutions; Pricing Mechanisms; Tâtonnement