Effects of exclusion on social preferences

In three party ultimatum games the proposer can first decide whether to exclude one responder, what increases the available pie. The experiments control for intentionality of exclusion and veto power of the third party. We do not find evidence for indirect reciprocity of the remaining responder after the exclusion of the other. Similarly, not excluding the second responder is only insignificantly reciprocated by it. Overall, we find little evidence that intentional exclusion has substantial effects on behavior.Exclusion, bargaining, ultimatum game, social preferences, experiment

Ex Interim Voting in Public Good Provision

We report the results of an experimental study that compares voting mechanisms in the provision of public goods. Subjects can freely decide how much they want to contribute. Whether the public good is finally provided is decided by a referendum under full information about all contributions. If provision is rejected, contributions are reduced by a fee and reimbursed. We compare unanimity with majority voting and both to the baseline of cheap talk. Contributions are highest under unanimity. Yet, results concerning overall efficiency are mixed. When provision occurs, only unanimity enhances efficiency. Overall, however, unanimity leads to too many rejections.Experimental economics, learning, minimal social situation, myopia

Political Economy of Natural Disasters

This thesis explores in five empirical papers the political economy of natural disasters using the case study of Iran. Within these five chapters, the social and economic consequences of natural disasters are evaluated on different levels, namely province level, county level, and individual level. In the first paper (Chapter 2), I study the relationship between natural disasters and economic growth, using a spatial Durbin panel model and covering the period from 2010 to 2016 and including 29 Iranian provinces. The results of the empirical investigation suggest that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between the spatially lagged occurrence of natural disasters and the change of the first difference of the natural logarithm of GDP per capita. This confirms the existence of spatial spillover effects of natural disasters to neighboring provinces. The second paper (Chapter 3) examines the impact of the 2003 Bam earthquake in the Iranian Kerman Province, using the synthetic control method (SCM) and nighttime light (NTL) data from 1992 to 2020 for 31 provinces and 429 counties. According to the results, Kerman Province, Bam County, and the neighboring counties experienced a boost in economic activity in the years following the earthquake, which can be explained by the type and severity of the event, the underlying composition of the economy, the total area impacted, and the international media attention. With the same methodology, the third paper (Chapter 4) studies the impact of the 2001 flood in Golestan Province and found a drop of economic activity in the years following the flood disaster. In the fourth paper (Chapter 5), we have investigated the state of disaster literacy in Tehran City, based on a survey with 502 participants which was conducted in 2020/2021. The results of the empirical investigation using logistic regressions suggest that the household’s income level, the trust in Iran’s natural disaster management, the fear of natural disasters, the perceived frequency of natural disasters, and internet usage show positive associations with the disaster literacy items. Additionally, we reveal a spatial inequality within Tehran City, where the Northern subsample has significantly higher scores of the self-developed disaster literacy index (DLI) than the Southern subsample. Finally, the fifth paper (Chapter 6) studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the family development in Iran with a representative survey of 1214 participants which was conducted in 2022. The results of the empirical investigation using logistic regressions suggest that the concern about the continuation of the pandemic and the respondents’ vaccination status show negative associations with childbirth during the pandemic, and the experiences of life loss and job loss are positively associated with a decrease of the respondents’ child desires. In contrast, spending more time with the family is positively associated with an increase of the respondents’ child desires. The experience of unemployment due to the pandemic is positively associated with marriage during the pandemic. Additionally, we found heterogenous effects depending on the respondents’ gender, location, and social class. Overall, the results show how the COVID-19 pandemic affected marriage and fertility dynamics, and thus demographic development, in Iran

Do Social Networks Inspire Employment? - An Experimental Analysis -

There is robust field data showing that a frequent and successful way of looking for a job is via the intermediation of friends and relatives. Here we want to test this experimentally. Participants first play a simple public goods game with two interaction partners ('friends'), and share whatever they earn this way with two different sharing partners ('cousins') who have different friends. Thus one's social network contains two 'friends' and two 'cousins'. In the second phase of the experiment participants learn about a job opportunity for themselves and one additional vacancy and decide whom of their network they want to recommend and, if so, in which order. In case of coemployment, both employees compete for a bonus. Will one recommend others for the additional job in spite of this competition, will one prefer 'friends' or 'cousins' and how does this depend on contributions (of 'friends') or shared profits (with 'cousins')? Our findings are partly quite puzzling. Most participants, for instance, recommend quite actively but compete very fiercely for the bonus.

Exploring the Effects of Unequal and Secretive Pay

We experimentally test whether intentional and observable discriminatory pay of symmetric agents in the Winter (2004) game causes low paid agents to reduce effiort. We control for intentionality of wages by either allowing a principal to determine wages or by implementing a random process. Our main observations are that discrimination has no negative effiect on effiorts and principals do not shy away from using discriminatory pay if it is observable. Rather, with experience discrimination enhances efficiency as it facilitates coordination among agents. The only evidence for reciprocity is that subjects receiving a low payment from a principal (discriminatory or not) exert signiï¬cantly less effort

Do social networks inspire employment? : An experimental analysis

There is robust field data showing that a frequent and successful way of looking for a job is via the intermediation of friends and relatives. Here we want to test this experimentally. Participants first play a simple public goods game with two interaction partners ('friends'), and share whatever they earn this way with two different sharing partners ('cousins') who have different friends. Thus one's social network contains two 'friends' and two 'cousins'. In the second phase of the experiment participants learn about a job opportunity for themselves and one additional vacancy and decide whom of their network they want to recommend and, if so, in which order. In case of coemployment, both employees compete for a bonus. Will one recommend others for the additional job in spite of this competition, will one prefer 'friends' or 'cousins' and how does this depend on contributions (of 'friends') or shared profits (with 'cousins')? Our findings are partly quite puzzling. Most participants, for instance, recommend quite actively but compete very fiercely for the bonus