International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
This paper investigates the relationship between mindfulness and well-being within the context of... more This paper investigates the relationship between mindfulness and well-being within the context of compliance with prophylactic measures in the time of COVID-19. We conducted a large-scale survey among a representative sample of the French population. We measured mindfulness, using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, and the extent to which respondents were impacted by COVID-19 in terms of their mood and quality of sleep, as well as how they complied with prophylactic measures. Our results suggest that more mindful individuals were less negatively impacted by COVID-19 with regard to their sleep and mood. Concerning the prophylactic measures, we obtained mixed results: more mindful participants were more likely to respect lockdowns, physical distancing and to cough in their sleeves, but did not wash their hands, wear masks or avoid touching their face more often than less mindful individuals.
We evaluate the effectiveness of non optimal and temporally inconsistent incentive policies for r... more We evaluate the effectiveness of non optimal and temporally inconsistent incentive policies for regulating the exploitation of a renewable common-pool resource. The corresponding game is an N-person discrete-time deterministic dynamic game of T periods fixed duration. Three policy instruments with parameters that remain constant for the whole horizon are evaluated: a pigouvian tax (flat tax), an ambient tax (ambient flat tax) and an instrument combining the two previous ones (mixed flat instrument). We test in the lab the predictions of the model solved for 3 distinct behavioural assumptions: (a) sub-game perfection, (b) myopic behaviour, and (c) joint payoff maximization. We find that subjects behave myopically in the unregulated situation, which agrees with previous results in the literature. Conditional on predictions, the mixed flat instrument and the flat tax are the most effective policies in approaching the optimum extraction path. However, in absolute terms the ambient flat tax and the mixed flat instrument curb most significantly the mean extraction path towards the optimum path. Paradoxically, these instruments are the less efficient ones.
We study embezzlement when donations have to pass through intermediaries to reach recipients, by ... more We study embezzlement when donations have to pass through intermediaries to reach recipients, by means of a sequential game tested in a laboratory experiment conducted in Tanzania. We investigate the impact on the amount embezzled of both the number of intermediaries in transfer chains and transparency about the donation. We show that donors are less generous in the presence of intermediaries. When transfer chains are shorter, aggregate embezzlement decreases, at least when donations are transparent. At the individual level, intermediaries embezzle less, the longer the transfer chain; this is due to less embezzlement at the beginning of the chain. We fail finding significant positive effects of transparency on the honesty of individual transfers through social judgment.
In this paper we provide evidence that trust and reciprocity, the two key elements of social capi... more In this paper we provide evidence that trust and reciprocity, the two key elements of social capital, are affected by country differences. Based on the amounts sent and returned in the investment game by student subjects we find evidence on trusting and reciprocal behaviour and we show significant crosscountry differences between the levels of trust and reciprocity. We also show that the answers for 'trust in strangers' type attitudinal questions have a significant effect either on trusting or reciprocal behaviour, while gender does not affect any of them. We report that reciprocity is affected by the same variables as trust: in particular stated trust has a significant influence on reciprocal behaviour, which can be explained by attitudes such as projective reasoning. Furthermore, we find that questionnaire based rankings of countries are poor predictors of trusting behaviour rankings, which is mainly due to the differences in strength of correlation between stated trust and trusting behaviour country-by-country.
We run a series of experiments in which subjects have to choose their level of contribution to a ... more We run a series of experiments in which subjects have to choose their level of contribution to a pure public good. The design differs from the standard public good game with respect to the decision procedure. Instead of deciding simultaneously in each round, subjects are randomly ordered in a sequence which differs from round to round. We compare sessions in which subjects can observe the exact contributions from earlier decisions ("sequential treatment with information") to sessions in which subjects decide sequentially but cannot observe earlier contributions ("sequential treatment without information"). The results indicate that sequentiality increases the level of contribution to the public good when subjects are informed about the contribution levels of lower ranked subjects while sequentiality alone has no effect on contributions. Moreover, we observe that earlier players try to influence positively the contributions of subsequent decision makers in the sequence, by making a large contribution. Such behaviour is motivated by the belief that subsequent players will reciprocate by also making a large contribution. We also discuss the effect of group size on aggregate contributions. Finally, we imagine a model of behaviours where agents' preferences incorporate a "weak" moral motivation element. This model organizes consistently the patterns observed in the lab.
This paper offers a new mechanism in order to Nash-implement a Pareto optimal level of ambient po... more This paper offers a new mechanism in order to Nash-implement a Pareto optimal level of ambient pollution. As usual in the literature on non point source pollution, the proposed scheme is not conditional on individual emissions, since they are not observable; rather it is conditional on aggregate emission. But the novelty here is that we do not assume the regulator knows the agents' preferences, with which he could identify the target level of aggregate emission. Our mechanism dispenses with this information, yet it achieves Pareto optimality provided that the number of agents involved in the problem is known.
We provide new evidence about a positive correlation between the own amount sent and the own amou... more We provide new evidence about a positive correlation between the own amount sent and the own amount returned in the investment game. Our analysis relies on experimental data collected under the strategy method for establishing our main result. While the percentage returned is independent of the amount received for most of our subjects, it is strongly correlated to their amount sent as a trustor. Our analysis is based on a two-way classification of subjects : according to their trusting type and according to their reciprocal type. We show the existence of a strong correlation between trusting types and reciprocal types within subjects.
In nonpoint source pollution problems, the regulator does not observe each polluter's individual ... more In nonpoint source pollution problems, the regulator does not observe each polluter's individual emission, which prevents him from using the conventional policy instruments. Therefore new instruments have been designed to regulate this type of pollution. In an experiment, we compare the efficiency of some of these instruments: an input based tax, an ambient tax, and a group fine. We assume that the polluters themselves are affected by environmental damages. A control session without any regulation is also carried out in order to study the "status quo" situation. Our experimental data show that the input tax is almost perfectly efficient and very reliable, and the group fine is fairly efficient and reliable. Both instruments improve welfare with respect to the status quo. On the contrary, the ambient tax decreases social welfare with respect to the status quo, and its effect is very unreliable. Résumé : En situation de pollution diffuse, le régulateur n'observe pas les émissions individuelles de chacun des pollueurs, et ne peut donc pas recourir aux instruments de régulation traditionnels. De nouveaux instruments ont alors été proposés pour traiter ce type de pollution. Nous comparons expérimentalement l'efficacité de quelques-uns d'entre eux : une taxe sur les intrants, une taxe ambiante et une amende collective. Les pollueurs sont supposés être eux-mêmes affectés par la pollution ambiante. Un traitement témoin étudie aussi le comportement des polleurs en l'absence de régulation (le « statu quo »). La taxe sur les intrants s'avère la plus efficace et la plus fiable. L'amende collective obtient des résultats passables sur ces deux critères. Ces deux instruments augmentent le bien-être social par rapport au statu quo. A l'inverse, la taxe ambiante diminue le bien-être social et apparaît très peu fiable.
We compare the results of a one-shot investment game, studied earlier by Berg & al (1995), for Fr... more We compare the results of a one-shot investment game, studied earlier by Berg & al (1995), for France and Germany. In this game, player A is the trustor and player B the trustee. The average level of investment is significantly larger in Germany, but the level of reciprocity is not significantly different between the two countries. This implies that German B-players earned significantly more than French B-players. Furthermore, in both countries B-players earned significantly more than A-players. Our results support Fukuyama's conjecture that the level of trust is higher in Germany than in France, a situation which can explain a higher rate of investment and a higher level of performance. However, our results also show that the increased revenue which is attributable to the higher level of trust, is not shared in a more equitable way, but essentially increases B-players' payoffs. Finally, based on an intercultural trust experiment, we show that French A subjects did not find German B subjects less trustworthy and German A subjects did not find French B subjects less trustworthy.
Masuda et al. (Games Econ Behav 83:73–85, 2014) showed that the minimum approval mechanism (AM) i... more Masuda et al. (Games Econ Behav 83:73–85, 2014) showed that the minimum approval mechanism (AM) implements the efficient level of public good theoretically and experimentally in a linear public good game. We extent this result to a two-players common pool resource (CPR) game. The AM adds a second stage into the extraction game. In the first stage, each group member proposes his level of extraction. In the second stage, the proposed extractions and associated payoffs are displayed and each player is asked to approve or to disapprove both proposed extractions. If both players approve, the proposals are implemented. Otherwise, a uniform level of extraction, the disapproval benchmark (DB), is imposed onto each player. We consider three different DBs: the minimum proposal (MIN), the maximum proposal (MAX) and the Nash extraction level (NASH). We derive theoretical predictions for each DB following backward elimination of weakly dominated strategies (BEWDS). We first underline the strengt...
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific r... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Population preferences for inclusive COVID-19 policy responses Thierry Blayac, Dimitri Dubois, Sébastien Duchêne, Phu Nguyen-Van, Bruno Ventelou, Marc Willinger
We examine how the Brexit announcement influenced the long-run market performance of British and ... more We examine how the Brexit announcement influenced the long-run market performance of British and European listed firms. Using daily data and a sample composed of 3,015 European listed firms (805 UK and 2,210 non-UK), we find that, over a 12-month horizon, the Brexit announcement negatively affected the long-run market performance of UK firms (regardless of their business activities) and European non-British (non-UK hereafter) firms that conduct most of their business activities within the British area. We also provide evidence that, after the Brexit announcement, analysts’ earnings forecasts and the realized accounting decreased and the return volatility increased for UK firms
We study experimentally the outcome of a 50 periods repetition of a two-player coordination game,... more We study experimentally the outcome of a 50 periods repetition of a two-player coordination game, which admits two-pure strategy Nash equilibria that are Pareto-ranked: a payoff-dominant equilibrium and a risk-dominant equilibrium. The experiment consists of a 2x3 factorial design, with two different matching rules –global an local interaction–, and three sizes for the basin of attraction of the risk-dominant equilibrium. Under global interaction, each player can be matched in each period with any player in the population. Under local interaction, each player can be matched only with one of his two neighbours. Our results confirm earlier experimental results obtained under global interaction (for a survey see Ochs (1995)). On the contrary, the results contrast sharply with Keser, Ehrhart & Berninghaus (1998), who found that subjects interacting ‘locally’ with their neighbours around a circle, coordinate mostly on the risk-dominant equilibrium. Moreover, we found no evidence for a fa...
Recent research in finance shows that the magnitude of stock prices influences analysts’ price fo... more Recent research in finance shows that the magnitude of stock prices influences analysts’ price forecasts (Roger et al., 2018). In this paper, we report the results o fa novel experiment where some of the participants in a continuous double auction market act as analysts and forecast future prices. Participants engage in two successive markets: one in which the fundamental value is a small price and one in which the fundamental value is a large price. Our results indicate that analysts’ forecasts are more optimistic in small price markets compared to large price markets. We also find that analysts strongly anchor on past price trends when building their price forecasts. Overall, our findings support the existence of a small price bias.
We investigate whether "binding agreements" can provide a solution to the social dilemm... more We investigate whether "binding agreements" can provide a solution to the social dilemma that arises in the presence of pure public goods. By signing a binding agreement, players can prevent free riding by the contributors to a public good. However, a well known theoretical result is that the outcome of the endogenous formation of agreements is not necessarily efficient. In our setting, the individual level of contribution to the public good increases with the size of the coalition reaching an agreement and the global coalition is always the socially optimal structure. Agreements form sequentially and the equilibrium outcome is an asymmetric structure, which consists of two coalitions. Our experiment therefore lends force to the theoretical result that outcomes may be inefficient. In fact, we observe an outcome which is even less efficient than that predicted by the equilibrium agreement structure. However, it seems that when subjects reach agreements they do so with the i...
In this paper we aim at investigating whether introducing more transparency may help reducing emb... more In this paper we aim at investigating whether introducing more transparency may help reducing embezzlement. This is done by running a series of laboratory experiments based on a modified dictator game with intermediaries who have the opportunity to embezzle money between the donor and the final receiver. Precisely our design is a 2x2 design. We vary both the number of intermediaries (from no intermediary, short chain with one intermediary to a long chain with two intermediaries) as well as the degree of information of the final receiver about the initial amount sent by the sender (no information or full information). We ran our experiment in Tanzania, considered as one of the most corrupted countries in the world according to Transparency International. Our subject pool consists of 1080 participants from two locations in Tanzania : Dar el Salaam and Mazimbu. Our main findings indicate that reducing the number of intermediaries increases significantly the average amount received by t...
We investigate the approval mechanism (AM) for a common pool resource (CPR) game with three playe... more We investigate the approval mechanism (AM) for a common pool resource (CPR) game with three players, underlining the role of unanimity and majority rules. The game involves two stages. In stage 1, players simultaneously and privately choose a proposed level of extraction from the CPR. In the second stage, they simultaneously decide whether to approve or disapprove others’ choices. If the group approves, players’ first stage proposed extractions are implemented. Otherwise, a uniform extraction level, called disapproval benchmark (DB), is implemented onto each group member. We combine two approval rules, majority and unanimity, with two DBs, the minimum extraction level (MIN DB) and the Nash extraction level (NASH DB). These combinations offer four different treatments for testing the approval mechanism (AM). Our experimental findings show that the AM reduces significantly overextraction in each treatment, and that the unanimity rule is more effective than the majority rule to lower e...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
This paper investigates the relationship between mindfulness and well-being within the context of... more This paper investigates the relationship between mindfulness and well-being within the context of compliance with prophylactic measures in the time of COVID-19. We conducted a large-scale survey among a representative sample of the French population. We measured mindfulness, using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, and the extent to which respondents were impacted by COVID-19 in terms of their mood and quality of sleep, as well as how they complied with prophylactic measures. Our results suggest that more mindful individuals were less negatively impacted by COVID-19 with regard to their sleep and mood. Concerning the prophylactic measures, we obtained mixed results: more mindful participants were more likely to respect lockdowns, physical distancing and to cough in their sleeves, but did not wash their hands, wear masks or avoid touching their face more often than less mindful individuals.
We evaluate the effectiveness of non optimal and temporally inconsistent incentive policies for r... more We evaluate the effectiveness of non optimal and temporally inconsistent incentive policies for regulating the exploitation of a renewable common-pool resource. The corresponding game is an N-person discrete-time deterministic dynamic game of T periods fixed duration. Three policy instruments with parameters that remain constant for the whole horizon are evaluated: a pigouvian tax (flat tax), an ambient tax (ambient flat tax) and an instrument combining the two previous ones (mixed flat instrument). We test in the lab the predictions of the model solved for 3 distinct behavioural assumptions: (a) sub-game perfection, (b) myopic behaviour, and (c) joint payoff maximization. We find that subjects behave myopically in the unregulated situation, which agrees with previous results in the literature. Conditional on predictions, the mixed flat instrument and the flat tax are the most effective policies in approaching the optimum extraction path. However, in absolute terms the ambient flat tax and the mixed flat instrument curb most significantly the mean extraction path towards the optimum path. Paradoxically, these instruments are the less efficient ones.
We study embezzlement when donations have to pass through intermediaries to reach recipients, by ... more We study embezzlement when donations have to pass through intermediaries to reach recipients, by means of a sequential game tested in a laboratory experiment conducted in Tanzania. We investigate the impact on the amount embezzled of both the number of intermediaries in transfer chains and transparency about the donation. We show that donors are less generous in the presence of intermediaries. When transfer chains are shorter, aggregate embezzlement decreases, at least when donations are transparent. At the individual level, intermediaries embezzle less, the longer the transfer chain; this is due to less embezzlement at the beginning of the chain. We fail finding significant positive effects of transparency on the honesty of individual transfers through social judgment.
In this paper we provide evidence that trust and reciprocity, the two key elements of social capi... more In this paper we provide evidence that trust and reciprocity, the two key elements of social capital, are affected by country differences. Based on the amounts sent and returned in the investment game by student subjects we find evidence on trusting and reciprocal behaviour and we show significant crosscountry differences between the levels of trust and reciprocity. We also show that the answers for 'trust in strangers' type attitudinal questions have a significant effect either on trusting or reciprocal behaviour, while gender does not affect any of them. We report that reciprocity is affected by the same variables as trust: in particular stated trust has a significant influence on reciprocal behaviour, which can be explained by attitudes such as projective reasoning. Furthermore, we find that questionnaire based rankings of countries are poor predictors of trusting behaviour rankings, which is mainly due to the differences in strength of correlation between stated trust and trusting behaviour country-by-country.
We run a series of experiments in which subjects have to choose their level of contribution to a ... more We run a series of experiments in which subjects have to choose their level of contribution to a pure public good. The design differs from the standard public good game with respect to the decision procedure. Instead of deciding simultaneously in each round, subjects are randomly ordered in a sequence which differs from round to round. We compare sessions in which subjects can observe the exact contributions from earlier decisions ("sequential treatment with information") to sessions in which subjects decide sequentially but cannot observe earlier contributions ("sequential treatment without information"). The results indicate that sequentiality increases the level of contribution to the public good when subjects are informed about the contribution levels of lower ranked subjects while sequentiality alone has no effect on contributions. Moreover, we observe that earlier players try to influence positively the contributions of subsequent decision makers in the sequence, by making a large contribution. Such behaviour is motivated by the belief that subsequent players will reciprocate by also making a large contribution. We also discuss the effect of group size on aggregate contributions. Finally, we imagine a model of behaviours where agents' preferences incorporate a "weak" moral motivation element. This model organizes consistently the patterns observed in the lab.
This paper offers a new mechanism in order to Nash-implement a Pareto optimal level of ambient po... more This paper offers a new mechanism in order to Nash-implement a Pareto optimal level of ambient pollution. As usual in the literature on non point source pollution, the proposed scheme is not conditional on individual emissions, since they are not observable; rather it is conditional on aggregate emission. But the novelty here is that we do not assume the regulator knows the agents' preferences, with which he could identify the target level of aggregate emission. Our mechanism dispenses with this information, yet it achieves Pareto optimality provided that the number of agents involved in the problem is known.
We provide new evidence about a positive correlation between the own amount sent and the own amou... more We provide new evidence about a positive correlation between the own amount sent and the own amount returned in the investment game. Our analysis relies on experimental data collected under the strategy method for establishing our main result. While the percentage returned is independent of the amount received for most of our subjects, it is strongly correlated to their amount sent as a trustor. Our analysis is based on a two-way classification of subjects : according to their trusting type and according to their reciprocal type. We show the existence of a strong correlation between trusting types and reciprocal types within subjects.
In nonpoint source pollution problems, the regulator does not observe each polluter's individual ... more In nonpoint source pollution problems, the regulator does not observe each polluter's individual emission, which prevents him from using the conventional policy instruments. Therefore new instruments have been designed to regulate this type of pollution. In an experiment, we compare the efficiency of some of these instruments: an input based tax, an ambient tax, and a group fine. We assume that the polluters themselves are affected by environmental damages. A control session without any regulation is also carried out in order to study the "status quo" situation. Our experimental data show that the input tax is almost perfectly efficient and very reliable, and the group fine is fairly efficient and reliable. Both instruments improve welfare with respect to the status quo. On the contrary, the ambient tax decreases social welfare with respect to the status quo, and its effect is very unreliable. Résumé : En situation de pollution diffuse, le régulateur n'observe pas les émissions individuelles de chacun des pollueurs, et ne peut donc pas recourir aux instruments de régulation traditionnels. De nouveaux instruments ont alors été proposés pour traiter ce type de pollution. Nous comparons expérimentalement l'efficacité de quelques-uns d'entre eux : une taxe sur les intrants, une taxe ambiante et une amende collective. Les pollueurs sont supposés être eux-mêmes affectés par la pollution ambiante. Un traitement témoin étudie aussi le comportement des polleurs en l'absence de régulation (le « statu quo »). La taxe sur les intrants s'avère la plus efficace et la plus fiable. L'amende collective obtient des résultats passables sur ces deux critères. Ces deux instruments augmentent le bien-être social par rapport au statu quo. A l'inverse, la taxe ambiante diminue le bien-être social et apparaît très peu fiable.
We compare the results of a one-shot investment game, studied earlier by Berg & al (1995), for Fr... more We compare the results of a one-shot investment game, studied earlier by Berg & al (1995), for France and Germany. In this game, player A is the trustor and player B the trustee. The average level of investment is significantly larger in Germany, but the level of reciprocity is not significantly different between the two countries. This implies that German B-players earned significantly more than French B-players. Furthermore, in both countries B-players earned significantly more than A-players. Our results support Fukuyama's conjecture that the level of trust is higher in Germany than in France, a situation which can explain a higher rate of investment and a higher level of performance. However, our results also show that the increased revenue which is attributable to the higher level of trust, is not shared in a more equitable way, but essentially increases B-players' payoffs. Finally, based on an intercultural trust experiment, we show that French A subjects did not find German B subjects less trustworthy and German A subjects did not find French B subjects less trustworthy.
Masuda et al. (Games Econ Behav 83:73–85, 2014) showed that the minimum approval mechanism (AM) i... more Masuda et al. (Games Econ Behav 83:73–85, 2014) showed that the minimum approval mechanism (AM) implements the efficient level of public good theoretically and experimentally in a linear public good game. We extent this result to a two-players common pool resource (CPR) game. The AM adds a second stage into the extraction game. In the first stage, each group member proposes his level of extraction. In the second stage, the proposed extractions and associated payoffs are displayed and each player is asked to approve or to disapprove both proposed extractions. If both players approve, the proposals are implemented. Otherwise, a uniform level of extraction, the disapproval benchmark (DB), is imposed onto each player. We consider three different DBs: the minimum proposal (MIN), the maximum proposal (MAX) and the Nash extraction level (NASH). We derive theoretical predictions for each DB following backward elimination of weakly dominated strategies (BEWDS). We first underline the strengt...
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific r... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Population preferences for inclusive COVID-19 policy responses Thierry Blayac, Dimitri Dubois, Sébastien Duchêne, Phu Nguyen-Van, Bruno Ventelou, Marc Willinger
We examine how the Brexit announcement influenced the long-run market performance of British and ... more We examine how the Brexit announcement influenced the long-run market performance of British and European listed firms. Using daily data and a sample composed of 3,015 European listed firms (805 UK and 2,210 non-UK), we find that, over a 12-month horizon, the Brexit announcement negatively affected the long-run market performance of UK firms (regardless of their business activities) and European non-British (non-UK hereafter) firms that conduct most of their business activities within the British area. We also provide evidence that, after the Brexit announcement, analysts’ earnings forecasts and the realized accounting decreased and the return volatility increased for UK firms
We study experimentally the outcome of a 50 periods repetition of a two-player coordination game,... more We study experimentally the outcome of a 50 periods repetition of a two-player coordination game, which admits two-pure strategy Nash equilibria that are Pareto-ranked: a payoff-dominant equilibrium and a risk-dominant equilibrium. The experiment consists of a 2x3 factorial design, with two different matching rules –global an local interaction–, and three sizes for the basin of attraction of the risk-dominant equilibrium. Under global interaction, each player can be matched in each period with any player in the population. Under local interaction, each player can be matched only with one of his two neighbours. Our results confirm earlier experimental results obtained under global interaction (for a survey see Ochs (1995)). On the contrary, the results contrast sharply with Keser, Ehrhart & Berninghaus (1998), who found that subjects interacting ‘locally’ with their neighbours around a circle, coordinate mostly on the risk-dominant equilibrium. Moreover, we found no evidence for a fa...
Recent research in finance shows that the magnitude of stock prices influences analysts’ price fo... more Recent research in finance shows that the magnitude of stock prices influences analysts’ price forecasts (Roger et al., 2018). In this paper, we report the results o fa novel experiment where some of the participants in a continuous double auction market act as analysts and forecast future prices. Participants engage in two successive markets: one in which the fundamental value is a small price and one in which the fundamental value is a large price. Our results indicate that analysts’ forecasts are more optimistic in small price markets compared to large price markets. We also find that analysts strongly anchor on past price trends when building their price forecasts. Overall, our findings support the existence of a small price bias.
We investigate whether "binding agreements" can provide a solution to the social dilemm... more We investigate whether "binding agreements" can provide a solution to the social dilemma that arises in the presence of pure public goods. By signing a binding agreement, players can prevent free riding by the contributors to a public good. However, a well known theoretical result is that the outcome of the endogenous formation of agreements is not necessarily efficient. In our setting, the individual level of contribution to the public good increases with the size of the coalition reaching an agreement and the global coalition is always the socially optimal structure. Agreements form sequentially and the equilibrium outcome is an asymmetric structure, which consists of two coalitions. Our experiment therefore lends force to the theoretical result that outcomes may be inefficient. In fact, we observe an outcome which is even less efficient than that predicted by the equilibrium agreement structure. However, it seems that when subjects reach agreements they do so with the i...
In this paper we aim at investigating whether introducing more transparency may help reducing emb... more In this paper we aim at investigating whether introducing more transparency may help reducing embezzlement. This is done by running a series of laboratory experiments based on a modified dictator game with intermediaries who have the opportunity to embezzle money between the donor and the final receiver. Precisely our design is a 2x2 design. We vary both the number of intermediaries (from no intermediary, short chain with one intermediary to a long chain with two intermediaries) as well as the degree of information of the final receiver about the initial amount sent by the sender (no information or full information). We ran our experiment in Tanzania, considered as one of the most corrupted countries in the world according to Transparency International. Our subject pool consists of 1080 participants from two locations in Tanzania : Dar el Salaam and Mazimbu. Our main findings indicate that reducing the number of intermediaries increases significantly the average amount received by t...
We investigate the approval mechanism (AM) for a common pool resource (CPR) game with three playe... more We investigate the approval mechanism (AM) for a common pool resource (CPR) game with three players, underlining the role of unanimity and majority rules. The game involves two stages. In stage 1, players simultaneously and privately choose a proposed level of extraction from the CPR. In the second stage, they simultaneously decide whether to approve or disapprove others’ choices. If the group approves, players’ first stage proposed extractions are implemented. Otherwise, a uniform extraction level, called disapproval benchmark (DB), is implemented onto each group member. We combine two approval rules, majority and unanimity, with two DBs, the minimum extraction level (MIN DB) and the Nash extraction level (NASH DB). These combinations offer four different treatments for testing the approval mechanism (AM). Our experimental findings show that the AM reduces significantly overextraction in each treatment, and that the unanimity rule is more effective than the majority rule to lower e...
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