Date: September 5th, 2024 (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)

Speaker: Karl Schlag

Paper Title: Making Decisions Based on Data: a Theory without “Guessing”

Abstract: A decision-maker has to choose among actions that yield payoffs drawn from an unknown distribution. To help making this choice this decision-maker observes some data, consisting of some realized payoffs of the different actions. We say that they are guessing when using the data if they are not always better off with the data than without it. A given mixed action models the choice that is made when there is no data set. We show how one can use the data without guessing. We select a unique rule when there are only two different actions in the data set.

Bio: Karl Schlag is a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics, University of Vienna, with a focus on microeconomics. He has previously held positions at University of Bonn, European University Institute, and Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His research focuses on choice without priors applied to learning, pricing, imitation, and exact nonparametric statistics. His work has appeared in the International Journal of Game Theory, Theoretical Economics, and Journal of Economic Theory to name a few. Professor Schlag holds a Ph.D. in Managerial Economics and Decisions Sciences from Northwestern University.

Date: December 5th, 2024 (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)

Speaker: Spencer Yongwook Kwon

Paper Title: Persuasion Through Cues

Abstract: We describe and experimentally test a model where an agent facing a complex decision forms beliefs by simulation: sampling scenarios and assessing the utility of the decision only among those that come to mind. Crucially, this sampling is subject to cuing: scenarios similar to the agent’s current context are more easily simulated, and a persuader can manipulate the agent’s beliefs by altering this context. Even objectively uninformative messages simply highlighting known aspects of the problem can be persuasive if they facilitate simulation of otherwise neglected scenarios. Experimentally, participants’ beliefs (both about a random process and about others’ actions in a dictator game) are highly susceptible to such persuasion through simulation. We then apply the model to several economic settings to ask what products, financial assets, and political positions agents can be persuaded to choose. 

Bio: Spencer Yongwook Kwon is an assistant professor of economics at Brown University. His main research interest is to understand how people respond to information, and to explore financial and macroeconomic implications. His work uses a variety of methods, including lab experiments, theoretical modeling, and empirical asset pricing.

Date: November 21th, 2024 (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)

Speaker: Nina Caroline Buchmann

Paper Title: Paternalistic Discrimination

Abstract: We combine two field experiments in Bangladesh with a structural labor model to define and test for paternalistic discrimination, the differential treatment of two groups to protect one group—even against its will—from harmful or unpleasant situations. We observe real hiring and application decisions for a night-shift job that provides safe worker transport home at the end of the shift. In the first experiment, we vary employers’ perceptions of job costs to female workers by experimentally varying information about the transport but holding taste-based and statistical discrimination constant. Not informing employers about the transport decreases demand for female labor by 22%. However, employers respond significantly less to a cash payment to female workers that would allow them to purchase safe transport themselves. This suggests that employers paternalistically prevent women from making their own choices. In the second experiment, not informing applicants about the transport reduces female labor supply by 15%. In structural simulations that combine the results of both experiments, eliminating paternalistic discrimination reduces the gender employment gap by 24% and increases female wages by 21%.

Bio: Nina Buchmann is a postdoctoral fellow in the Yale Economics department and will join UC Berkeley’s Economics department as an Assistant Professor in 2026. Her primary fields are development economics and behavioral economics. She is particularly interested in studying gender inequality in the household and the labor market. 

Date: November 14th, 2024 (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)

Speaker: Ala Avoyan

Paper Title: How do Groups Speak and How are They Understood? (with Paula Onuchic)

Abstract: We experimentally study an environment where a group of senders communicates with a receiver by disclosing or not disclosing a realized outcome. Group members have distinct preferences over disclosure/non-disclosure, and must aggregate their interests into a single group disclosure decision. We establish a relationship between the aggregation procedure used by the group and the receiver’s interpretation of the group’s “no disclosure messages.” Generally, group members who have more power over the group’s disclosure decision are regarded with more skepticism when the group fails to disclose. In a group disclosure setting, we find that the observer can be both not sufficiently skeptical or too skeptical relative to theoretical predictions. Finally, we highlight that, in practice, the interpretation of communication from a group differs from that of individual communication, even when these are theoretically equivalent.

Bio: Ala Avoyan is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Indiana University. She received her PhD in economics at NYU.

Her primary research interests are in experimental and behavioral economics as well as micro theory.

Date: September 19th, 2024 (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)

Speaker: Kareen Rozen

Paper Title: “Caution in the Face of Complexity” (with coauthors Geoffroy de Clippel, Paola Moscariello, and Pietro Ortoleva.)

Bio: Kareen Rozen is interested in both theory and experiments.  Her work often touches upon the foundations of behavioral economics but has spanned other topics as well. She is currently a Co-Editor at the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics. She was previously an editor at the Review of Economics and Statistics. 

If you are interested in economic experiments at Brown, learn more about the Brown University Social Science Experimental Laboratory (BUSSEL). 

Date: April 25th, 2024 (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)

Speaker: Benjamin Bushong

Paper Title: “Heterogeneous Tastes and Social (Mis)Learning”, with Tristan Gagnon-Bartsch (Florida State University)

Abstract: How do people learn from others’ actions when those people may have differing tastes? We present data from two experiments in which properly extracting information from other people’s actions requires an observer to account for how her predecessors’ tastes may have influenced those actions. We find support for social learning that obeys some basic comparative statics predicted by the rational model. However, we also find significant and systematic departures. Participants seemingly over-infer from others’ behavior when that behavior is weakly predictive of the underlying state and under-infer from others when their behavior is strongly predictive. This pattern of inferences is consistent with participants holding inaccurate beliefs about others where they over-weight the likelihood that others have tastes similar to their own. Information about others’ tastes does not eliminate these biases in inferences.

Bio: Ben Bushong is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Economics whose recent research examines how cognitive biases and erroneous social beliefs influence both decision-making and our interactions with others. His broader research lies in the intersection of psychology and economics — also known as behavioral economics — and has appeared in the American Economic Review, The Review of Economic Studies, and Neuron. Prior to coming to Michigan State University, he was a postdoctoral scholar at Harvard University and before that he worked with the Department of Defense. Professor Bushong holds a Ph.D. in Social Science (Economics) from the inimitable Caltech.

Date: April 4th, 2024 (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)

Speaker: Björn Bartling

Paper Title: “Paternalistic Interventions: Determinants of Demand and Supply”, with Krishna Srinivasan (University of Zurich)

Abstract: People sometimes engage in behaviors that negatively impact their well-being, creating opportunities for paternalistic interventions by governments, experts, or parents. Our study explores when and why individuals choose to intervene to enhance someone else’s welfare. Additionally, we investigate when and why individuals seek out paternalistic interventions. We conducted an experiment with a general population sample in the U.S. to examine the role of freedom of choice, rights to consent, confidence, and trust in shaping attitudes towards paternalistic interventions. A better understanding of these attitudes can contribute to the design of more effective policies.

Bio:

Björn Bartling is Professor of Economics at the University of Zurich and Vice Chairman of the Department of Economics. In his research, he uses empirical methods to study the impact of social and moral motivations in economic contexts. 

Professor Bartling is also a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Experimental Research on Fairness, Inequality and Rationality (FAIR) – The Choice Lab, NHH Norwegian School of Economics, and serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of the European Economic Association and for Management Science.

Date: May 2nd, 2024 (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)

Speaker:  Salvatore Nunnari

Paper Title: “Cognitive Skills and the Demand for Bad Policy” with Eugenio Proto (University of Glasgow) and Aldo Rustichini (University of Minnesota)

Abstract: Theories of voting behavior are based on the assumption that citizens accurately assess the comparative advantages of the available policy options. However, many policies produce outcomes through indirect or equilibrium effects, such as lifting price controls, expanding or constructing roads, implementing Pigouvian taxes, and monetizing fiscal deficits. The average citizen might not fully appreciate these equilibrium effects, leading to misjudgments about the efficacy of certain policies. Recent research by Dal Bo, Dal Bo, and Eyster (2018) demonstrates that individuals often vote against policies that, despite imposing direct costs, would resolve social dilemmas and enhance overall welfare. This raises an important research question: How do cognitive abilities influence the formation of preferences over policies? Specifically, what is the underlying mechanism? Our study proposes a simple theoretical framework and an experimental approach to explore a potential pathway and shows that greater cognitive skills and more optimistic beliefs about the cognitive skills of other citizens lead to greater demand for good policies.

Bio:

Salvatore Nunnari is Associate Professor of Economics at Bocconi University and Research Fellow at CEPR and CESifo. He earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and has previously served as Assistant Professor at UCSD and Columbia University. At Bocconi, he is also the Co-Director of the Bocconi Experimental Laboratory for the Social Sciences and the Director of the B.Sc. in Economic and Social Sciences. His research focuses on political economy, behavioral economics, experimental economics, and microeconomic theory, and it has been published in top general interest journals such as the American Economic Review, Management Science, the American Political Science Review, and the American Journal of Political Science. Nunnari recently received a European Research Council grant for a five-year project on the “Behavioral Foundations of Populism and Polarization” and is a member of the editorial board for PSRM, the Journal of the European Political Science Association.

Date: March 14th, 2024 (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)

Speaker: Leeat Yariv

Paper Title: “The Dynamics of Networks and Homophily” with Matthew O. Jackson (Stanford University), Stephen M. Nei (University of Exeter), and Erik Snowberg (University of Utah)

Abstract: We examine friendships and study partnerships among university students over several years. At the aggregate level, connections increase over time, but homophily on gen- der and ethnicity is relatively constant across time, university residences, and different network layers. At the individual level, homophilous tendencies are persistent across time and network layers. Furthermore, we see assortativity in homophilous tendencies. There is weaker, albeit significant, homophily over malleable characteristics—risk pref- erences, altruism, study habits, and so on. We find little evidence of assimilation over those characteristics. We also document the nuanced impact of network connections on changes in Grade Point Average.

Bio:

Leeat Yariv is the Uwe E. Reinhardt Professor of Economics at Princeton University, a research fellow of CEPR, and a research associate of NBER. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University and has held positions at UCLA and Caltech prior to her move to Princeton in 2017, where she is the founder and director of the Princeton Experimental Laboratory for the Social Sciences (PExL). Yariv’s research focuses on political economy, market design, social and economic networks, and experimental economics.

Currently, Yariv is the lead editor of the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics.^[1] She has served on various journal editorial boards, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Economic Literature, and Quantitative Economics.

Yariv is a fellow of the Econometric Society and the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, and she was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.