田野实验——现实世界中的经济学实验

随着经济学实验室实验的广泛应用和发展，田野实验这一更贴近现实世界的经济学实验也开始成为一种流行的实证研究方法。本文对田野实验的兴起、概念和分类作了具体介绍和叙述．并报告了我们已经开展的两个田野实验研究实例的研究思路、实验设计和实验结果。     

高校学术不端行为治理嵌套逻辑建模及作用路径与影响效应研究

为探究高校学术不端行为治理因素对科研人员个体的影响效用及作用机理，基于计算实验方法，构建由高校系统、智能主体、智能主体基元3个层次相互嵌入构成的高校学术不端行为治理嵌套逻辑理论模型，并选取实验观察的影响因素，对高校学术不端行为治理嵌套逻辑理论模型进行计算实验建模及实验，揭示出3个层次的影响因素通过不同路径产生治理效果：在智能主体心理层面，个体主动抵制、“不想”产生学术不端行为进而降低发生率，其治理效果最为显著；在高校系统层面，提高高校机构学术不端行为查处能力进而提升查处效率，使个体“不敢”产生学术不端行为，其治理效果次之；在智能主体层面，强化制度警示效果的持续性，使学术不端行为“不能”在个体间传染与蔓延。     

WHAT'S TO KNOW ABOUT HYPOTHETICAL BIAS IN STATED PREFERENCE VALUATION STUDIES?

Abstract Hypothetical bias arises in stated preference valuation studies when respondents report a willingness to pay (WTP) that exceeds what they actually pay using their own money in laboratory or field experiments. Although this bias is not found in all stated preference surveys, hypothetical WTP typically exceeds the actual value by a factor of two to three. Unfortunately, there is no widely accepted general theory of respondent behaviour that explains hypothetical bias. Therefore, two meta‐analyses are reviewed to test current hypotheses regarding the causes of this overstatement of WTP and the associated recommendations to mitigate the bias. Suggestions for future research are made including the development of a general theory.     

Information feedback and contest structure in rent-seeking games

We investigate the effects of information feedback in rent-seeking games with two different contest structures. In the share contest a contestant receives a share of the rent equal to her share of rent-seeking expenditures, while in the lottery contest a contestant wins the entire rent with probability equal to her share of rent-seeking expenditures. In share contests average expenditures converge to equilibrium levels when subjects only get feedback about own earnings, and additional feedback about rivals' choices and earnings raises average expenditures. In lottery contests information feedback has an opposite, and even stronger, effect: when subjects only get feedback on own earnings we observe high levels of rent dissipation, usually exceeding the value of the rent, and additional feedback about rivals' choices and earnings has a significant moderating influence on expenditures. In a follow-up treatment we make information feedback endogenous by allowing contestants in a lottery contest to make public or private expenditures. Subjects make the vast majority of expenditures privately and overall excess expenditures are similar to the lottery contest with own feedback.     

Hyperbolic discounting and the standard model: Eliciting discount functions

Experiments on static intertemporal choice find evidence of particularly extreme impatience toward immediate rewards. While this is often taken as support for hyperbolic discounting, it could also arise because the most likely participants in experiments may be those with the most immediate need for money. We conduct a calibration exercise and find that the extreme impatience observed in experiments can be accommodated by a standard exponential discounting model with no discounting and expectation of a ‘small’ increase in the base consumption level. The calibration uses existing estimates of curvature of utility.     

Empirics of the Identification of Social Interactions; An Evaluation of the Approaches and Their Results*

Abstract. Over the last decade, the study of social interactions in economic decision making has become an important area of research. The main objective of this paper is to survey the extent to which recent empirical contributions have succeeded in overcoming the identification problems as first formulated by Manski (1993). This discussion is followed by a comparison of empirical studies in three key areas of research: neighborhood effects, substance use among teenagers, and peer effects among university roommates. Finally, I discuss questions like: Can economists restrict attention to a specific subcategories of social interactions? How do we define social groups, and what is the importance of social interactions for public policy?     

Finding and retaining the dominant strategy: The second-price, English and ‘sealed offer’ English auctions

Using experiments in a procurement setting, this study examined the performance abilities of three auctions: the second-price, English, and a new ‘sealed offer’ English. Additionally, to see if dominant strategy learning would be transferred, after fifteen periods with one of the three auctions, all subjects completed a second 15 periods with the second-price auction. The English auction performed best overall. However, only limited learning was found to occur, with some subjects that had adopted the dominant strategy in the English switching in the second-price. Lessons from the new mechanism transferred better, but initial learning of the dominant strategy was slower.     

Sabotage in Corporate Contests – An Experimental Analysis

In corporate contests, employees compete for a prize. Ideally, contests induce employees to exert productive effort which increases their probability of winning. In many environments, however, employees can also improve their own ranking position by harming their colleagues. Such negative incentive effects of corporate contests are largely unexplored, which can partly be attributed to the fact that sabotaging behavior is almost unobservable in the field. In this study we analyze behavior in experimental contests with heterogeneous players who are able to mutually sabotage each other. We find that sabotaging behavior systematically varies with the composition of different types of contestants. Moreover, if the saboteur’s identity is revealed sabotage decreases while retaliation motives prevail. Our results promise to be valuable when designing corporate contests.     

Shaping beliefs in experimental markets for expert services: Guilt aversion and the impact of promises and money-burning options

In a credence goods game with an expert and a consumer, we study experimentally the impact of two devices that are predicted to induce consumer-friendly behavior if the expert has a propensity to feel guilty when he believes that he violates the consumerʼs payoff expectations: (i) an opportunity for the expert to make a non-binding promise; and (ii) an opportunity for the consumer to burn money. In belief-based guilt aversion theory the first opportunity shapes an expertʼs behavior if an appropriate promise is made and if it is expected to be believed by the consumer; by contrast, the second opportunity might change behavior even though this option is never used along the predicted path. Experimental results confirm the behavioral relevance of (i) but fail to confirm (ii).     

Feedback spillover and analogy-based expectations: A multi-game experiment

We consider a multi-game interactive learning environment in which subjects sometimes only have access to the aggregate distribution of play of the opponents over the various games and sometimes are told the joint distribution of actions and games in a more or less accessible way. Our main findings are: 1) In the presence of feedback spillover, long run behaviors stabilize to an analogy-based expectation equilibrium (Jehiel, 2005). 2) Faced with the same objective feedback, the long run behaviors are sometimes better described by Nash equilibrium and sometimes they are better described by the analogy-based expectation equilibrium depending on the accessibility of the feedback.