Basil Schmid

A pooled RP/SP mode, route and destination choice model to capture the heterogeneity of mode and user type effects

1 This paper presents the first representative estimates of the marginal willingness to pay 2 for a reduction in travel time (VTTS) for Austria, being of great importance for transport 3 policy appraisals. The main focus is to investigate mode and user-type effects using a 4 pooled RP/SP modeling approach for mode, route and destination choice data, revealing 5 average VTTS estimates for car (9.90 Euro/h), public transport (3.90 Euro/h), bike (7.30 6 Euro/h) and walk (11.40 Euro/h). 7 The only user characteristic being able to decompose this large difference in average 8 VTTS between car and public transport into a smaller part, that can be purely attributed 9 to the mode-specific valuation of in-vehicle travel time, is urban residential location area: 10 When controlling for it, the VTTS difference becomes 5.5 Euro/h, which, compared to 11 the total average VTTS difference of about 6 Euro/h, is still relatively high. 12 As our results indicate that in the case of Austria, characteristics of the mode are 13 more important than characteristics of the users, and that the conditions of travel time 14 spent in public transport are perceived as more pleasant than in a car, the investigation 15 of the value of time assigned to travel (VTAT) is a fundamental next research step. 16

The Dark Side of Personality: Anti-Sociality Increases Strategic Game Play

We assess the role of anti-social personality traits in explaining heterogeneity in commonly observed social preferences. We identified a personality profile that clearly reflects anti-social personality characteristics, with high positive loadings on Machiavellianism and high negative loadings on empathy, trustworthiness and agreeableness. Anti-sociality predicts decision strategies in a manner that is consistent with its name: significantly lower levels of trust and decreased trustworthiness. To identify the strategic nature of anti-social behavior in changing environments, we assessed the moderating role of personality on investor trust and trustee reciprocity in the presence relative to the absence of the investor’s option to punish. Our results show that only the anti-social personality profile is associated with specific payoff maximizing strategy shifts induced by these environmental changes: when punishment was not available to investors, we observe significantly lower levels of investor trust and trustee reciprocity, while there is a significant increase in both behaviors when punishment was available. These effects were specific for anti-sociality, as no other personality factor was associated with such a strong adjustment of decision strategies in the presence of punishment. These results demonstrate that anti-social personality characteristics are associated with strategic behavioral shifts aimed at maximizing the extraction of resources from their counterparts. The reliability of the strategic effects of anti-social personality during trust, reciprocity and punishment strongly supports the notion that self-projection underlies anti-social decision-making.