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1.
Individuals’ preferences over opportunity sets may display “preference for flexibility” which prescribes to gradually eliminate
alternatives from a given set until a final choice is made. One rationale for this preference for flexibility is individuals’
incentive to postpone the final choice in order to better learn their underlying preferences over basic alternatives. In this
paper we show that even in the absence of learning, preference for flexibility arises if individuals are risk-averse or, at
least, are not very risk-seeking. Thus, individual’s attitude towards risk provides yet another rationale for preference for
flexibility. One of our results is that in the absence of learning, risk-neutral as well as risk-averse individuals display
the same, maximal preference for flexibility.
We thank Han Bleichrodt, Robert Dur, Chaim Fershtman, Maarten Janssen, Peran van Reeven, Peter Wakker, and Timothy van Zandt
for helpful comments to and inspiring discussions. We are very grateful to the anonymous referee for very constructive comments
and suggestions. 相似文献
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The paper studies whether temporary jobs in the form of fixed-term replacement contracts reduce the risk of future unemployment
among job-seekers. Using matching on detailed information on labour market history and personal characteristics we find positive
average effects of having a replacement contract. Our second focus is on whether the duration of the contract matters. We
use data on replacement contracts with information on the ex ante duration of the contract which is determined by the individual
on leave and find no significant effect on the subsequent unemployment risk of the replacement worker. However, the longer
the replacement contract the higher is the probability of having an open ended contract at the same site 2–2.5 years after
the start of the contract. Overall, the results suggest that replacement contracts may reduce the risk of future unemployment,
but that longer contracts only improve the position within the workplace and not necessarily on the labour market in general. 相似文献
4.
This paper examines data from the Norwegian television game show Joker, where contestants make well-specified choices under risk. The game involves very large stakes, randomly drawn contestants,
and ample opportunities for learning. Central models of risk choice, including expected utility theory, give a simple prediction
of choice under weak conditions, as one decision is always first-order stochastically dominating. We document frequent, systematic
and costly violations of dominance. Many contestants appear to have a systematic expectation bias that can be related to Tversky
and Kahneman’s (Cogn. Psychol. 5(2):207–232, 1973) “availability heuristic”. In addition, contestants seem to make systematic calculation errors that are well captured by
the so-called Fechner model. 相似文献
5.
This paper suggests a class of stochastic collective learning processes exhibiting very irregular behavior. In particular,
there are multimodal long run distributions. Some of these modes may vanish as the population size increases. This may be
thought of as “bubbles” persistent for a finite range of population sizes but disappearing in the limit. The limit distribution
proves to be a discontinuous function of parameters determining the learning process. This gives rise to another type of “bubbles”:
limit outcomes corresponding to small perturbations of parameters are different. Since an agent's decision rule involves imitation
of the majority choice in a random sample of other members of the population, the resulting collective dynamics exhibit “herding”
or “epidemic” features.
RID="*"
ID="*" We are grateful to two anonymous referees for the comments and suggestions.
Correspondence to: L. Gaio 相似文献
6.
C. Bram Cadsby Elizabeth Maynes Viswanath Umashanker Trivedi 《Experimental Economics》2006,9(4):343-359
In most experimental studies of tax evasion, participants are instructed that they may report any amount of income from zero
up to the amount they actually earned or received. This amounts to an invitation to gamble. In contrast, real-world tax authorities
unambiguously demand compliance. We develop two new settings for conducting tax experiments. Both involve an explicit demand
for compliance. Thus, we can determine whether knowing that the experimental authority would regard evasion as wrongful disobedience
will influence compliance decisions. We demonstrate that simply telling people that they are required to pay a “participation
fee” analogous to a tax produces remarkably high compliance rates and less sensitivity to changes in economic variables than
in the earlier experimental literature using invitation-to-gamble language. This suggests that many people pay taxes despite
the financial attraction of non-compliance because they are strongly inclined towards obeying authority. Furthermore, we show
that giving participants a week to make their reporting decisions at home without an authority figure physically present overcomes
the inclination to obey for some people, significantly lowering compliance rates. However, the majority still complies, even
after the audit rate falls from 25% to 1%, which would make non-compliance extremely attractive if it were viewed only as
a simple matter of risk and expected return.
Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at
.
JEL Classification C91, H26 相似文献
7.
Kenshi Itaoka Aya Saito Alan Krupnick Wiktor Adamowicz Taketoshi Taniguchi 《Environmental and Resource Economics》2006,33(3):371-398
The objective of this study is to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for the reduction of mortality risks caused by fossil
fuel (natural gas, coal and oil) versus nuclear electric power generation systems and to examine the influence of risk characteristics
involved with electric power generation on WTP. A choice experiment was conducted to achieve these objectives. The attributes
for nuclear risks in the experiment included the probability of disasters and the expected losses if a disaster occurs. We
find evidence of (i) a baseline effect (where WTP is sensitive to hypothetical versus actual baseline expected mortality);
(ii) a ‘labeling effect,’ where, surprisingly, the term ‘nuclear’ has no effect on WTP, but the term ‘fossil-fueled power
generation’ results in lower WTP; and (iii) disaster aversion, meaning that people focus on the conditional loss from a nuclear
disaster, not the probability. We also find that the WTP for reducing deaths from a nuclear disaster is about 60 times the
WTP for routine reducing fossil-fuel generation-related deaths. 相似文献
8.
We experimentally investigate whether individuals can reliably detect cooperators (the nice(r) people) in an anonymous decision
environment involving “connected games.” Participants can condition their choices in an asymmetric prisoners’ dilemma and
a trust game on past individual (their partner’s donation share to a self-selected charity) and social (whether their partner
belongs to a group with high or low average donations) information. Thus, the two measures of niceness are the individual
donation share in the donation task, and the cooperativeness of one’s choice in the two games. We find that high donors achieve
a higher-than-average expected payoff by cooperating predominantly with other high donors. Group affiliation proved to be
irrelevant.
Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at .
JEL Classification C91, C72, D3 相似文献
9.
Using an induced-value experimental design that varies whether values for a “good” are certain or uncertain and whether payment is real or hypothetical, this study investigates issues of demand revelation, hypothetical bias, and value uncertainty for four elicitation mechanisms used in contingent valuation surveys: dichotomous choice, dichotomous choice with follow-up certainty question, payment card, and multiple-bounded discrete choice. For all elicitation mechanisms, we find no evidence of hypothetical bias: voting decisions do not vary systematically when payment is hypothetical versus when it is real. Under all design conditions we find the fewest deviations between stated and induced values and the strongest evidence of demand revelation with dichotomous choice. Stated uncertainty in dichotomous choice follow-up and multiple-bounded discrete choice questions does correlate with uncertain induced values, but the signal is noisy. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of contingent valuation surveys. 相似文献
10.
11.
Multilateral subsidy games 总被引:3,自引:1,他引:2
This paper examines the rationale for multilateral agreements to limit investment subsidies. The welfare ranking of symmetric
multilateral subsidy games is shown to depend on whether or not investment levels are “friendly”, raising rival profits in
total, and/or strategic complements, raising rival profits at the margin. In both Cournot and Bertrand competition, when spillovers
are low and competition is intense (because goods are close substitutes), national-welfare-maximizing governments over-subsidize
investment, and banning subsidies would improve welfare. When spillovers are high, national governments under-subsidize from
a global welfare perspective, but the subsidy game is welfare superior to non-intervention.
For helpful comments we are grateful to two referees, to Arijit Mukherjee, and to participants in seminars at Prague and UCD,
at the EEA Conference in Lausanne and at the GEP Conference on “New Directions in International Trade Theory” at the University
of Nottingham, June 2007. Dermot Leahy acknowledges the support of the Science Foundation Ireland Research Frontiers Programme
(Grant MAT 017). 相似文献
12.
The role of natural language communication in economic exchange has been the focus of substantial experimental analysis. Recently,
scholars have taken the important step of investigating whether certain types of communication (e.g., promises) might affect
decisions differently than other types of communication. This requires classifying natural language messages. Unfortunately,
no broadly-accepted method is available for this purpose. We here describe a coordination game for classification of natural
language messages. The game is similar in spirit to the “ESP” game that has proven successful for the classification of tens
of millions of internet images. We compare our approach to self-classification as well as to classifications based on a standard
content analysis. We argue that our classification game has advantages over those alternative approaches, and that these advantages
might stem from the salient rewards earned by our game’s participants. 相似文献
13.
The sealed-bid first-price auction of a single object in the case of independent privately-known values is the simplest auction
setting and understanding it is important for understanding more complex mechanisms. But bidders bid above the risk-neutral
Nash equilibrium theory prediction. The reasons for this “over bidding” remain an unsolved puzzle. Several explanations have
been offered, including risk aversion, social comparisons, and learning. We present a new explanation based on regret and
a model that explains not only the observed over bidding in sealed-bid first-price auctions, but also behavior in several
other settings that is inconsistent with risk aversion.
The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation. 相似文献
14.
The economic effects of federalism are unclear: some papers find that federalism has strong positive effects on a number of
economically relevant variables, others find negative effects. The results often crucially hinge on the proxies for federalism
used. In this paper, we critically survey the existing indicators for both federalism and fiscal decentralization. We argue
that federalism is a constitutional institution, whereas decentralization is the outcome of a policy choice, and that the
two ought to be systematically distinguished because decentralization can also occur in nonfederally structured states. We
further argue that institutional details are very important with regard to federalism and that dummy variables usually capture
only very specific aspects of these institutional details. We use factor analysis to test whether the latent variables behind
the observed indicators support these assumptions. More than two important factors are derived, implying that a more fine-grained
differentiation beyond simply “‘federalism” and “decentralization” might be in order. The correlations of the most important
proxies for various aspects of federalism and decentralization with a number of quasi-exogenous variables, as well as with
institutional variables, are usually rather modest. 相似文献
15.
This paper adopts a multi-commodity habit formation model to study whether unhealthy behaviors are related, i.e. whether there
are contemporaneous and inter-temporal complementarities between alcohol and tobacco consumptions in Italy. To this aim time
series data of per-capita expenditures and prices during the period 1960 to 2002 are used. Own price elasticities are negative
and tobacco appears to be more responsive than alcohol demand, although both responses are less than unity. Cross price elasticities
are also negative and asymmetric thus suggesting complementarity. A “double dividend” could then be exploited, because public
policy needs to tackle the consumption of only one good to control the demand of both. These results show that the optimal
strategy for maximizing public revenues would be to raise alcohol taxation more than tobacco taxation. Finally, past consumption
of one addictive good does not significantly reinforce current consumption of the other.
We thank participants to the Annual Conference of the European Society for Population Economics, Verona June 2006; the 61st
European Meeting of the Econometric Society, Vienna August 2006, and participants of the conference “Individual and Collective
Choices in Health Protection”, Genoa November 2005 for helpful comments. We would also like to thank, without implicating,
Pier Luigi Rizzi and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. Financial support from the University of Siena, PAR grant
(Atheneum Research Grant), is gratefully acknowledged. 相似文献
16.
In this paper we examine the nature of currency crises. We ascertain whether the currency crises of the European Monetary
System (EMS) were based either on fundamentals, or on self-fulfilling market expectations driven by extrinsic uncertainty.
In particular, we extend previous work of Jeanne and Masson (J Int Econ 50:327–350, 2000) regarding the evaluation of currency
crisis. We contribute to the existing literature proposing the use of Markov regime-switching with time-varying transition
probability model. Our empirical results suggest that the currency crises of the EMS were not due only to market expectations
driven by external uncertainty, or ‘sunspots’, but also to fundamental variables that help to explain the behavior of market
expectations.
We would like to thank Joseph Byrne, James Mitchell, Martin Weale and two anonymous referees for very useful comments and
suggestions. 相似文献
17.
Standards and the regulation of environmental risk 总被引:1,自引:1,他引:0
We study regulatory design for a pollution-generating firm who is better informed than the regulator regarding pollution mitigation
possibilities, and who chooses an unobservable action when employing a particular mitigation plan. We distinguish among performance,
process, and design standards, and study the relative merit of each type of regulatory instrument. Relative to previous work
on standards design, we emphasize technology and process verification. An optimal performance standard is relatively strict
when regulator and firm preferences are congruent, but the regulator may prefer no performance standard at all if verification
costs are sufficiently high. A process standard unambiguously increases expected surplus (relative to no regulation) in some
environments, and otherwise improves welfare only when it is unlikely to generate a “bad” technology choice by the firm. A
design standard can improve welfare if the regulator is sufficiently well informed about the technological possibilities for
pollution control, but only when the firm’s private benefits from technology choice are sufficiently small. 相似文献
18.
Miguel Lebre de Freitas 《International Advances in Economic Research》2006,12(3):408-418
This paper uses the stochastic approach to convergence to investigate whether real per capita GDP in Portugal has been converging to the EU15 average. The estimation accounts for conditional convergence, transitional dynamics and up to two structural breaks. It is found that per capita GDP in Portugal has indeed converged to the EU15 average, but the pace of convergence has not been uniform along time. In particular, a slow down in the convergence process is identified in 1974. This result depends, however, as to whether the choice of this break-date is viewed as uncorrelated with the data. No evidence of acceleration in the speed of convergence is found after EC accession, in 1986.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fifty-Ninth International Atlantic Economic Conference, London, England, March 9–13, 2005. Helpful suggestions from the conference participants and Luis Catela Nunes are acknowledged. The author expresses his gratitude for the financial support of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), under research grant POCI/EGE/55423/2004 (partially funded by FEDER). 相似文献
19.
This paper examines the evidence about the extent of globalisationby focusing on some aspects of international trade flows. Areinterpretation of the existing evidence based on the analysisof tables and a range of indicators is provided in the firstpart of the paper. The focus is on whether the increase in tradeflows has been predominantly a global or regional phenomenon.The analysis points to the tentative conclusion that the dominanttendency is the increase in trade within regional blocs (NorthAmerica, the EU and the AsiaJapan blocs) rather thanacross them. To address the same question, a more formal analysisis undertaken in the second part of the paper, by focusing onthe relative speed of the convergence in openness within andacross regions of the world. Our results indicate that the degreeof openness converges faster across the countries of a givenregion rather than at the global level, reinforcing the conclusionsfrom the first part of the paper. The results are consistentwith the view that trade integration is more of a regionalphenomenon than a global one. 相似文献
20.
Louis Lévy-Garboua Hela Maafi David Masclet Antoine Terracol 《Experimental Economics》2012,15(1):128-144
We present a new experimental evidence of how framing affects decisions in the context of a lottery choice experiment for
measuring risk aversion. We investigate framing effects by replicating the Holt and Laury’s (Am. Econ. Rev. 92:1644–1655,
2002) procedure for measuring risk aversion under various frames. We first examine treatments where participants are confronted
with the 10 decisions to be made either simultaneously or sequentially. The second treatment variable is the order of appearance of the ten lottery pairs. Probabilities of winning are ranked either
in increasing, decreasing, or in random order. Lastly, payoffs were increased by a factor of ten in additional treatments. The rate of inconsistencies was significantly
higher in sequential than in simultaneous treatment, in increasing and random than in decreasing treatment. Both experience
and salient incentives induce a dramatic decrease in inconsistent behaviors. On the other hand, risk aversion was significantly
higher in sequential than in simultaneous treatment, in decreasing and random than in increasing treatment, in high than in
low payoff condition. These findings suggest that subjects use available information which has no value for normative theories,
like throwing a glance at the whole connected set of pairwise choices before making each decision in a connected set of lottery
pairs. 相似文献