Discussion Paper No. 35
November 3, 2021
Discrete Choice with Presentation Effects
Author:
Abstract:
Experimenters have to make theoretically irrelevant decisions concerning user inter- faces and ordering or labeling of options. Such presentation decisions affect behavior and cause results to appear contradictory across experiments, obstructing utility esti- mation and policy recommendations. The present paper derives a model of choice allowing analysts to control for both presentation effects and stochastic errors in econometric analyses. I test the model in a comprehensive re-analysis of dictator game experiments. Controlling for presentation effects, preference estimates are con- sistent across experiments and predictive out-of-sample, highlighting the fundamen- tal role of presentation for choice, and this notwithstanding the possibility of reliable estimation and prediction.
Keywords:
discrete choice; presentation effects; utility estimation; counterfactual predictions; laboratory experiment;
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Discussion Paper No. 13
Measuring Applicant Quality to Detect Discrimination In Peer-to-Peer Lending
Author:
Abstract:
We measure the quality of applications for online peer-to-peer lend- ing in Germany and relate it to gender discrimination. The data context allows summarizing application quality as a single numeric measure, the expected internal rate of return. The measure serves as a control variable and is interacted with the applicants’ gender. We find that women enjoy higher funding rates than men, mainly be- cause they are less punished when they offer a low application qual- ity. The evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that the predom- inantly male lenders have a less precise understanding of women’s applications than of men’s applications.
Keywords:
gender discrimination; household finance; irrational beliefs;
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