Do consumers prefer offers that are easy to compare? An experimental investigation

Abstract Consumers make mistakes when facing complex purchasing decision problems but if at least some consumers disregard any offers that is difficult to compare with others then firms will adopt common ways to present their offers and thus make choice easier. We design an original experiment to identify consumers’ choice heuristics in the lab. Subjects are asked to choose from menus of offers and we measure the extent to which they favor those offers that are easy to compare with others in the menu. A sufficient number of subjects do so with sufficient intensity for offers presented in common terms to generate higher revenues than offers that are expressed in an idiosyncratic way.Bounded Rationality; Cognitive Limitations; Standards; Consumer Choice; Experimental Economics; Heuristics; Pricing Formats; Spurious Complexity

Do consumers prefer offers that are easy to compare? An experimental investigation

Consumers make mistakes when facing complex purchasing decision problems but if at least some consumers choose only among offers that are easy to compare with others then firms will adopt common ways to present their offers and thus make choice easier (Gaudeul and Sugden, 2011). We design an original experiment to identify consumers' choice heuristics in the lab. Subjects are presented with menus of offers and do appear to favour offers that are easy to compare with others in the menu. While not all subjects do so, this is enough to deter firms from introducing spurious complexity in the way they present products.Bounded Rationality, Cognitive Limitations, Common Standards, Consumer Choice, Experimental Economics, Heuristics, Libertarian Paternalism, Pricing Formats, Spurious Complexity

LHCb base-line level-0 trigger 3D-flow implementation

The LHCb Level-0 trigger implementation with the 3D-Flow system offers full programmability, allowing it to adapt to unexpected operating conditions and enabling new, unpredicted physics. The implementation is described in detail and refers to components and technology available today. The 3D-Flow Processor system is a new, technology-independent concept in very fast, real-time system architectures. Based on the replication of a single type of circuit of 100 k gates, which communicates in six directions: bi-directional with North, East, West, and South neighbors, unidirectional from Top to Bottom, the system offers full programmability, modularity, ease of expansion and adaptation to the latest technology. A complete study of its applicability to the LHCb calorimeter triggers is presented. Full description of the input data handling, either in digital or mixed digital-analog form, of the data processing, and the transmission of results to the global level-0 trigger decision unit are provided. Any level-0 trigger algorithm (2*2, 3*3, 4*4, etc.) with up to 20 steps, can be implemented with zero dead-time, while sustaining input data rate (up to 32-bit per input channel, per bunch crossing) at 40 MHz. For each step, each 3D-Flow processor can execute up to 26 operations, inclusive of compare, ranging, finding local maxima, and efficient data exchange with neighboring channels. (One-to-one correspondence between input channel and trigger tower.) Populated with only two main types of components, front-end FPGAs and 3D-Flow processors, a single type of board, it is shown how the whole Level-0 calorimeter trigger can be accommodated into six crates (9U), each containing 16 identical boards. All 3D-Flow inter-chip Bottom to Top ports connection are all contained on the board (data are multiplexed 2:1, PCB traces are shorter than 6 cm); all 3D-flow inter-chip North, East, West, and South ports connections, between boards and crates, are multiplexed (8+2):1 and are shorter than 1.5 m. Full implementation of a 3D-Flow system, for the most complex trigger algorithm, requires 320 cables to north and south crates and 40 cables to east and west crates (Cable cost=$2 each). For applications requiring a simpler real-time algorithm (e.g., requiring less than 20 steps, which is equivalent to 10 layers of 3D-Flow- processors), then the number of connections for the inter-boards (North and South), and inter-crates (East and West) will also be reduced to the number of layers used by the simpler algorithm, thus not requiring to install all cables (e.g., applications requiring only nine layers of 3D-Flow processors will save 32 cables to the North, 32 to the South, four to the East, and four to the West crates). Details are also given on timing and synchronization issues, ASIC design verification, real-time performance monitoring and design (software and hardware) development tools. (37 refs)

The Heart of Fiji\u27s Land Tenure Conflict: The Law of Tradition and \u3ci\u3eVakavanua\u3c/i\u3e, the Customary Way of the Land

In an effort to ease racial tension and the resulting political unrest, recent law reform in Fiji has focused on land tenure. Political coups in the wake of expiring agricultural leases demonstrate that the current tenure system fails to provide the security and predictability demanded by both Fijian owners and Indian tenants. Current law reform theory advocates adapting the rule of law to the local context to promote human rights and self-determination. A problem lies, however, in identifying the institutions and interests that define Fiji\u27s local context. In addition to the country\u27s divided ethnic population, Fiji\u27s tradition is largely defined by the former colonial institutions, while custom continues to define daily life. The current constitution, which provides for the paramountcy of Fijian interests, supports land management policies that preserve traditional communal tenure. The practice of customary tenure by farmers, however, continues to diverge from the law as defined by tradition. Adapting the laws governing the Native Land Trust Board to better reflect customary practice may successfully address the land tenure conflict. To this end, the Native Land Trust Board should reevaluate the mataqali system and legitimate vakavanua leasing arrangements, which manifest a grass-roots transformation from subsistence to market economy. Those arrangements may better preserve what the constitutional provisions for paramountcy were intended to protect, namely, Fijian cultural identity expressed in vakavanua, the transformation between the past and present in the way of the land

Crowdfunding: Determinants of success and funding dynamics

Over the past years crowdfunding emerged as an alternative funding channel for entrepreneurs. In contrast to traditional financiers (banks, venture capital firms or angel investors), crowdfunding allows individuals to fund entrepreneurs directly even with small amounts. We received individual-level data from Startnext, the biggest crowdfunding platform in Germany, enabling us to investigate funding dynamics, explore pledgers' motivations and analyze projects' success determinants. We find substantial heterogeneity of how success (about half of the 2,252 projects in our dataset get funded) is reached. When two thirds of the funding duration has passed, the majority of projects (59%) that eventually get funded are not on a successful track. However, pledges in the final phase can only partially be explained by a rush to get still unfunded projects succeed. Overall, 18.7% of pledges are made to projects that already reached their funding target and our analysis shows that the increased funding towards the deadline is due to pledges to projects that already made it, particularly pre-selling pledges

The Sound of Others: Surprising Evidence of Conformist Behavior

It has been shown that subjects tend to follow others' behavior even when the external signals are uninformative. In this paper we go one step further, showing that conformism occurs even when the choices of others are not even presented to the subjects, but just indirectly perceived. We use the "Click" version of the Bomb Risk Elicitation Task, in which subjects can infer the behavior of others only from the mass of clicks heard. This signal is payoff-irrelevant and largely uninformative about the actual choices of the other participants. Moreover, it is never mentioned in the instructions and therefore it must be spontaneously (and possibly unconsciously) perceived in order to be used. We control the exposure of subjects to clicks by implementing treatments with and without earmuffs. Moreover, we test whether the introduction of a minimal form of commonality, i.e., facing a common rather than individual resolution of uncertainty, makes conformism more likely to emerge. We find strong evidence of conformist behavior even in such an adverse environment. Simply hearing the others clicking affects subjects' behavior. Introducing a common random draw results in a further dramatic shift of the average choices, in particular by women