Discussion Paper No. 268
November 10, 2021
All-Pay Competition with Captive Consumers
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We study a game in which two firms compete in quality to serve a market consisting of consumers with different initial consideration sets. If both firms invest below a certain threshold, they only compete for those consumers already aware of their existence. Above this threshold, a firm is visible to all and the highest investment attracts all consumers. On the one hand, the existence of initially captive consumers introduces an anti-competitive element: holding fixed the behavior of its rival, a firm with a larger captive segment enjoys a higher payoff from not investing at all. On the other hand, the fact that a firm’s initially captive consumers can still be attracted by very high quality introduces a pro-competitive element: a high investment becomes more profitable for the underdog when the captive segment of the dominant firm increases. The share of initially captive consumers therefore has a non-monotonic effect on the investment levels of both firms and on consumer surplus. We relate our findings to competition cases in digital markets.
Keywords:
consideration set; regulation; all-pay auction; endogenous prize; digital markets;
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Discussion Paper No. 243
November 9, 2021
Covid-19 Crisis Fuels Hostility against Foreigners
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Intergroup conflicts represent one of the most pressing problems facing human society. Sudden spikes in aggressive behavior, including pogroms, often take place during periods of economic hardship or health pandemics, but little is known about the underlying mechanism behind such change in behavior. Many scholars attribute it to scapegoating, a psychological need to redirect anger and to blame an out-group for hardship and problems beyond one's own control. However, causal evidence of whether hardship triggers out-group hostility has been lacking. Here we test this idea in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on the common concern that it may foster nationalistic sentiments and racism. Using a controlled money-burning task, we elicited hostile behavior among a nationally representative sample (n = 2,186) in a Central European country, at a time when the entire population was under lockdown and border closure. We find that exogenously elevating salience of thoughts related to Covid-19 pandemic magnifies hostility and discrimination against foreigners, especially from Asia. This behavioral response is large in magnitude and holds across various demographic sub-groups. For policy, the results underscore the importance of not inflaming racist sentiments and suggest that efforts to recover international trade and cooperation will need to address both social and economic damage.
Keywords:
COVID-19 pandemic; scapegoating; hostility; inter-group conflict; discrimination; experiment;
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Discussion Paper No. 233
Cooperation in a Company: A Large-Scale Experiment
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We analyze cooperation within a company setting in order to study the relationship between cooperative attitudes and financial as well as non-financial rewards. In total, 910 employees of a large software company participate in an incentivized online experiment. We observe high levels of cooperation and the typical conditional contribution patterns in a modified public goods game. When linking experiment and company record data, we observe that cooperative attitudes of employees do not pay off in terms of financial rewards within the company. Rather, cooperative employees receive non-financial benefits such as recognition or friendship as the main reward medium. In contrast to most studies in the experimental laboratory, sustained levels of cooperation in our company setting relate to non-financial values of cooperation rather than solely to financial incentives.
Keywords:
cooperation; social dilemma; field experiment; company;
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Discussion Paper No. 228
Behavior-Based Price Discrimination under Endogenous Privacy
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This paper analyzes consumers’ privacy choice concerning their private data and firms’ ensuing pricing strategy. The General Data Protection Regulation passed by the European Union in May 2018 allows consumers to decide whether to reveal private information in the form of cookies to an online seller. By incorporating this endogenous decision into a duopoly model with behavior-based pricing, we find two contrasting equilibria. Under revelation to both firms, consumers disclose their information. Under revelation to only one firm, consumers hide their information. Based on the model, we design a laboratory experiment. We find that there is a large share of consumers who reveal their private data. Particularly, less privacy-concerned subjects and subjects in the setting where only one firm receives information are more likely to reveal information.
Keywords:
behavior-based pricing; privacy; laboratory experiment;
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Discussion Paper No. 211
Are Strategies Anchored?
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Anchoring is one of the most studied and robust behavioral biases, but there is little knowledge about its persistence in strategic settings. This article studies the role of anchoring bias in private-value auctions. We test experimentally two different anchor types. The announcement of a random group identification number but also of an upper bid limit in the first-price sealed-bid auction result in higher bids. We show that such behavior can be explained as a rational response to biased beliefs. In Dutch auctions, the effect of a starting price, is negative. We demonstrate that the long-established ranking that the Dutch auction generates lower revenue than the first-price sealed-bid auction crucially depends on the size of the anchor.
Keywords:
anchoring bias; games; incomplete information; auctions;
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Discussion Paper No. 208
School Choice and Loss Aversion
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Extensive evidence suggests that participants in the direct student-proposing deferred-acceptance mechanism (DSPDA) play dominated strategies. In particular, students with low priority tend to misrepresent their preferences for popular schools. To explain the observed data, we introduce expectationbased loss aversion into a school-choice setting and characterize choiceacclimating personal equilibria in DSPDA. Truthful equilibria can fail to exist, and DSPDA might implement unstable and more ineffi cient allocations in both small and large markets. Speci fically, it discriminates against students who are more loss averse or less overconfident than their peers, and amplifi es already existing (or perceived) discrimination. To level the playing field, we propose serial dictatorship mechanisms as a strategyproof and stable alternative that is robust to these biases.
Keywords:
market design; matching; school choice; reference-dependent preferences; loss aversion; deferred acceptance;
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Discussion Paper No. 202
Leadership in a Public Goods Experiment with Permanent and Temporary Members
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We experimentally analyze leading by example in a public goods game with two permanent and two temporary group members. Our results show that leadership when permanent and temporary members interact leads to lower contributions than interaction without leadership.
Keywords:
cooperation; leadership; social dilemma; public goods provision; experiment;
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Discussion Paper No. 190
Complexity and Distributive Fairness Interact in Affecting Compliance Behavior
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Filing income tax returns or insurance claims often requires that individuals comply with complex rules to meet their obligations. We present evidence from a laboratory tax experiment suggesting that the effects of complexity on compliance are intrinsically linked to distributive fairness. We find that compliance remains largely una ffected by complexity when income taxes are distributed to a morally justi fied charity. Conversely, complexity signi ficantly amplifi es non-compliance when income taxes appear wasted as they are distributed to a morally dubious charity. Our data further suggest that this non-compliance pattern is facilitated through the ambiguity that evolves from mostly unstrategic fi ling mistakes.
Keywords:
complexity; compliance; distributive fairness; experiment;
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Discussion Paper No. 180
November 8, 2021
Cash in Hand and Savings Decisions
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Cash is an important means of transaction, generally assumed to be fungible. However, behavioral economics and consumer research show that 'cash in hand', physically holding on to cash and then handing it away, affects purchasing decisions. I study how cash in hand influences decisions in a different but very important domain: savings. Savings accounts are a promising tool for reducing poverty, but the use of savings accounts is often puzzlingly low. Holding on to cash that needs to be physically deposited into a savings account may increase the psychological costs of saving. This study experimentally identifies the causal effect of cash in hand on savings deposits of microfinance clients in the Philippines. In contrast to many laboratory and several field studies with similar interventions, I do not find reduced savings deposits due to cash in hand. I discuss reasons for and consequence of this surprising finding, in particular for developing economics where lots of transactions are still cash-based.
Keywords:
cash; savings; experiment;
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Discussion Paper No. 134
Competition and Fatigue at Work
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We study theoretically and experimentally the role of fatigue and recovery within a competitive work environment. At work, agents usually make their effort choice in response to competition and monetary incentives. At the same time, they have to take into account fatigue, which accumulates over time if there is insufficient recovery. We model a sequence of work periods as tournaments that are linked through fatigue spillovers, inducing a non-time-separable decision problem. We also allow for variations in incentives in one work period, in order to analyze spillover effects to the work periods "before" and "after". Making recovery harder should, generally, reduce effort. This theoretical prediction is supported by the experimental data. A short-term increase in incentives in one period should lead to higher effort in that period, and, due to fatigue, to strategic resting before and after. Our experimental results confirm the former, whereas we do not find sufficient evidence for the latter. Even in the presence of fatigue, total effort should positively respond to higher-powered incentives. This is not supported by our data. Removing fatigue, we find the expected increase in total effort. For work environments, this may imply that the link between monetary incentives and effort provision becomes weaker in the presence of fatigue or insufficient recovery between work periods.
Keywords:
fatigue; recovery; incentives; experiment; tournament;
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