The perils of peer review in economics and other sciences

The quality of researchers' work in economics and other sciences is generally evaluated through a system of peer review. In an experimental test it is shown that the peer review system can be very inefficient by creating a bias towards incremental development of existing methods and against exploration of new methods. Previous studies on this issue have put the blame on biases in individual judgement. Here the inefficiency is shown to occur even when researchers are rational and have perfect information as a result of strategic uncertainty about the extent to which other referees reject new methods. The experiment also shows that the bias generated by peer review can be alleviated by shifting some quality evaluation to non-researchers, even if these are poor at discerning quality.     

Information acquisition and full surplus extraction

It is well known that when agents' types are correlated, the mechanism designer can extract the entire surplus. This creates an incentive for agents to acquire information about other agents' types. Robust lotteries (are payment schemes that) support full extraction and partially robust lotteries support efficient implementation in the presence of information acquisition opportunities. Necessary and sufficient conditions for existence of robust and partially robust lotteries are derived. If an agent's information signal spans other agents' types then robust lotteries do not exist. However, if all agents report their signal realizations then robust lotteries exist in an extended type space.     

The role of independence in the Green-Lin Diamond-Dybvig model

Green and Lin study a version of the Diamond-Dybvig model with a finite number of agents, independence (independent determination of each agent's type), and sequential service. For special preferences, they show that the ex ante first-best allocation is the unique equilibrium outcome of the model with private information about types. Via a simple argument, it is shown that uniqueness of the truth-telling equilibrium holds for general preferences—and, in particular, for a constrained-efficient allocation whether first-best or not. The crucial assumption is independence.     

A note on peer effects between teams

We run an experiment to test for peer effects between teams. The subjects perform a team-work task in pairs of payoff-independent teams. They receive feedback about the outcome of their own and the paired team. Consistent with peer effects, we find that this feedback induces substantial correlation of effort choices between teams. The correlation translates into the variation of outcomes within and across pairs of teams.

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Measuring peer effects in the Brazilian school system

Using the identification strategy proposed by Graham and Hahn (2005), we estimate the magnitude of classmate effects on math scores using Brazilian data from 2005. In addition, we provide a detailed discussion about the identification of endogenous peer effects in the linear in means models. Our results show that both peer characteristics (exogenous peer effects) – like race, socioeconomic status and gender – and peer actions (endogenous peer effects) are important determinants of students’ outcomes in the fifth grade of elementary school. Our estimates of endogenous peer effects are about 0.008 of 1 SD of math test scores, which can be interpreted as evidence of a so-called ‘conformist’ individual behaviour, under which students face large costs to exert effort levels that are distant from what is believed to be the norm in the classroom. Those estimates of endogenous peer effects imply a social multiplier of about 1.67.     

Veto-based delegation

In a principal-agent model with hidden information and no monetary transfers, I establish the veto-power principle: the principal can implement an optimal outcome through veto-based delegation with a properly chosen default decision. This result demonstrates the exact nature of commitment powers required by the principal: to design the default outcome and to ensure that she has almost no formal control over the agent's decisions.     

The value of information in a principal-agent model with moral hazard: The ex post contracting case

In a principal-agent model with moral hazard, a signal about the principal?s technology — the stochastic mapping from the agent?s action to the outcome — is observed before the contract is offered. The signal is either uninformative (null information), informative and observed only by the principal (private information), or also observed by the agent (public information). We show that, from an ex ante standpoint (before the signal is observed): (i) the agent prefers private to both null and public information; (ii) the principal sometimes prefers null to both private and public information; and (iii) when the principal prefers public to null information, she prefers public to private information, whereas the agent prefers private to public information. In this last situation, we also show that (iv) for any separating equilibrium with private information, there exists a contract with public information that both strictly prefer.     

The effect of peer observation on consumption choices: evidence from a lab-in-field experiment

We investigate the impact of peer observation on consumption decisions using a lab-in-field experiment. Respondents make consumption decisions either alone or under peer observation. We find evidence for peer effects. We are able to study these further by looking into the mechanism and performing detailed heterogeneity analysis. Concerning the mechanisms, we find evidence for an information channel. Further, we show that the consumption choice is influenced by how many people made the same decision previously, but not by who those people are, hence finding evidence of a psychological channel. Respondents with higher cognitive ability are less susceptible to peer effects, while people living in small villages are more susceptible.     

Self-control in peer groups

Social influences on self-control underlie both self-help groups and many peer interactions among youths. To understand these phenomena, we analyze how observing each other's behavior affects individuals’ ability to deal with their own impulses. These endogenous informational spillovers lead to either a unique “good news” equilibrium that ameliorates behavior, a unique “bad news equilibrium” that worsens it, or to the coexistence of both. A welfare analysis shows that people will find social interactions valuable only when they have enough confidence in their own and others’ ability to resist temptation. The ideal partner, however, is someone with a slightly worse self-control problem than one's own: this makes his successes more encouraging, and his failures less discouraging.     

Local television,citizen knowledge and U.S. senators' roll-call voting

I study the effect of access to local television on citizens' political knowledge. I do so by utilizing the mismatch between U.S. television markets and state borders, causing some citizens to receive local television which primarily covers neighboring state politics. I find that access to relevant local television causes citizens to be more informed about their senators' roll-call votes, and more likely to hold opinions about these senators. I also find that citizens with access to relevant local television are more likely to assess their senators based on how well the senators' roll-call votes align with the citizens' policy preferences. These results suggest that passively acquired information through television can help individuals evaluate their elected representatives.     

Anti-herding and strategic consultation

In this paper I analyze how careerist decision makers aggregate and use information provided by others. I find that decision makers who are motivated by reputation concerns tend to ‘anti-herding’, i.e., they excessively contradict public information such as the prior or others’ recommendations. I also find that some decision makers may deliberately act unilaterally and not consult advisers although advice is costless. Moreover, advisers to the decision maker may not report their information truthfully. Even if the advisers care only about the outcome, they bias their recommendation since they anticipate inefficient anti-herding behavior by the decision maker.     

Informational smallness and the scope for limiting information rents

For an incomplete-information model of public-good provision with interim participation constraints, we show that efficient outcomes can be approximated, with approximately full surplus extraction, when there are many agents and each agent is informationally small. The result holds even if agents' payoffs cannot be unambiguously inferred from their beliefs. The contrary result of Neeman [Z. Neeman, The relevance of private information in mechanism design, J. Econ. Theory 117 (2004) 55-77] rests on an implicit uniformity requirement that is incompatible with the notion that agents are informationally small because there are many other agents who have information about them.     

An efficient solution to the informed principal problem

In this paper I study mechanism design by an informed principal. I show that generically this problem has an ex-post efficient solution. In the equilibrium mechanism, the informed principal appropriates all expected social surplus, with each type of her getting all expected social surplus conditional on that type. This outcome is supported as a perfect sequential equilibrium of the informed principal game when the joint probability distribution from which the agents’ types are drawn satisfies two conditions: the well-known condition of Cremer and McLean and Identifiability condition introduced by Kosenok and Severinov [Individually rational, budget-balanced mechanisms and allocation of surplus, J. Econ. Theory (2002), forthcoming]. Conversely, these conditions are necessary for an ex-post efficient outcome to be attainable in an equilibrium of the informed principal game. Under these conditions only our equilibrium outcome constitutes a neutral optimum, i.e. cannot be eliminated by any reasonable concept of blocking [R. Myerson, Mechanism design by an informed principal, Econometrica 51 (1983) 1767-1797]. Identifiability and Cremer-McLean conditions are generic when there are at least three agents, and none of them has more types than the number of type profiles of the other agents.     

Regulatory compliance,information disclosure and peer effects: evidence from the Mexican gasoline market

Policy makers and regulators are increasingly interested in the use of information disclosure as a regulatory instrument to improve firms’ behavior. However, little has been done using micro-level data to investigate whether information provision may trigger peer influence among firms that affects their compliance behavior. Using station-level inspection verification data from the Mexican gasoline market, this paper examines whether gas stations react to peers’ performance to adjust their own compliance decisions. The information disclosure policy assigned each inspected gas station with green, yellow, or red colors to indicate the status of compliance, minor violation, and severe violation, respectively. We find strong evidence of peer influence triggered by information spillover. The probability of being in compliance increases as the number of “green” peers increases. We use both municipalities and postal codes as geographic boundaries to define potential peers, and find similar results. Our findings also suggest that the magnitude of peer effects varies across municipalities: the effects appear to be greater in wealthier, more educated communities.     

Bargaining and markets: complexity and the competitive outcome

Rubinstein and Wolinsky (Rev. Econ. Stud. 57 (1990) 63-78) consider a simple decentralised market game in which agents meet randomly or voluntarily and bargain over the terms of trade. They show that any individually rational price can be sustained as a sequential equilibrium even though the model has a unique competitive outcome. Here, I consider Rubinstein and Wolinsky's model and show that if complexity costs of implementing strategies enter players’ preferences, together with the standard payoff in the game, then every equilibrium is stationary/Markov and induces the unique competitive price. Thus, I demonstrate that aversion to complexity may provide a justification for the competitive outcome.     

Competitive bargaining equilibrium

In a simple exchange economy we propose a bargaining procedure that leads to a Walrasian outcome as the agents become increasingly patient. The competitive outcome therefore obtains even if agents have market power and are not price-takers. Moreover, where in other bargaining protocols the final outcome depends on bargaining power or relative impatience, the outcome here is determinate and depends only on preferences and endowments. Our bargaining procedure involves bargaining over prices and maximum quantity constraints, and it guarantees convergence to a Walrasian outcome for any standard exchange economy. In contrast, without quantity constraints we show that equilibrium is generically inefficient.     

Persuasion and learning by countersignaling

We model countersignaling (i.e., very high types refraining from signaling) arising from the tradeoff between persuasion and learning in a signaling game. We assume that the agent has imperfect private information regarding his/her productivity, which the signaling action provides additional verifiable information about. A higher-type agent benefits more from providing such objective, albeit imprecise, “proof” for the market, but may also gain less from learning about his/her productivity. When the latter effect dominates the former for the very high types, the equilibrium exhibits countersignaling: very high and low types pool on refraining from signaling, and only the medium types signal. Under certain conditions, the countersignaling equilibrium is the unique pure-strategy perfect sequential equilibrium.     

Local public good provision: Voting,peer effects,and mobility

Few empirical strategies have been developed that investigate public provision under majority rule while taking explicit account of the constraints implied by mobility of households. The goal of this paper is to improve our understanding of voting in local communities when neighborhood quality depends on peer or neighborhood effects. We develop a new empirical approach which allows us to impose all restrictions that arise from locational equilibrium models with myopic voting simultaneously on the data generating process. We can then analyze how close myopic models come in replicating the main regularities about expenditures, taxes, sorting by income and housing observed in the data. We find that a myopic voting model that incorporates peer effects fits all dimensions of the data reasonably well.     

Impact of peer comparisons and firm heterogeneity on nonpoint source water pollution: An experimental study

Greg Poe was a pioneer in using experimental economics to test theories and potential policies for controlling ambient pollution. His foundational work showed that, in some settings, policies could induce groups to reduce their nonpoint source (NPS) pollution to socially-efficient levels. Poe’s earlier studies assumed firms were homogeneous, which laid the groundwork for subsequent research to investigate the effect of firm heterogeneity on policy outcomes. We build on the research foundation laid by Poe and his colleagues by using an economic experiment to test the effects of four types of firm heterogeneity and three social norm information treatments on the performance of an ambient tax/subsidy policy. Our experimental results show that heterogeneity reduces the effectiveness of the ambient tax/subsidy policy, but that information nudges can improve outcomes even when there is considerable heterogeneity in the policy environment. Participants were also better able to find and retain their dominant strategies when they were provided with information about similar firms, suggesting that individually-targeted information is more effective than information about aggregate group-level decisions.