Jana Vyrastekova

A Tale of Two Carrots: The Effectiveness of Multiple Reward Stages in a Common Pool Resource Game

Economic efficiency in social dilemma experiments can be increased by allowing for one-shot peer-to-peer sanctions or rewards. In case of sanctions the efficiency gain disappears if the experiment design allows for retaliation, or ‘reciprocity in punishment’. We examine whether efficiency increases or decreases when allowing for reciprocity in rewarding. We find that allowing for reciprocity in rewards increases the number of reward tokens exchanged but at the cost of reduced efficiency in the social dilemma situation.

Strategic vs Non-Strategic Motivations of Sanctioning

We isolate strategic and non-strategic motivations of sanctioning in a repeated public goods game. In two experimental treatments, subjects play the public goods game with the possibility to sanction others. In the STANDARD sanctions treatment, each subject learns about the sanctions received in the same round as they were assigned, but in the SECRET sanctions treatment, sanctions are announced only after the experiment is finished, removing in this way all strategic reasons to punish. We find that sanctioning is similar in both treatments, giving support for nonstrategic explanations of sanctions (altruistic punishment). Interestingly, contributions to the public good in both treatments with sanctioning are higher than when the public goods game is played without any sanctioning, irrespective of announcing the sanctions to their receivers during the play of the game, or only after the game is finished. The mere knowledge that sanctions might be assigned increases cooperation: subjects correctly expect that nonstrategic sanctioning takes place against freeriders.

Economc Ties and Social Dilemmas : An Experimental Study

Agents who are tied in a social dilemma situation, often times also engage in other economic activities that require (bilateral) cooperation. We develop an economic experiment to test whether the threat of being excluded from the benefits of cooperation in such an alternative economic activity can be an effective mechanism to deter free-riding in the social dilemma situation. Modelling the former as a gift-giving game and the latter as a common pool game, we find that indeed resource extraction is closer to the socially optimal level if subjects interact with the same individuals in both activities, than if they do not. In addition, we find that sanctioning by means of exclusion is more effective the more profitable the alternative activity.

Behavioral approach to food waste: an experiment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of behavioral interventions and nudging in dealing with the food waste problem. In particular, the authors implement an information campaign aiming to increase consumers’ awareness of the food waste problem. Design/methodology/approach In the period of three weeks, the authors observe intentions to prevent food waste and actual food waste of the consumers in a university restaurant serving ready meals. During the intervention period, consumers are exposed to an information campaign, designed to avoid consumers’ insufficient planning problem. Findings Consumers are willing to pay the same price for less food more often during the campaign than before the campaign, but the approximated impact on the food waste is not significant. Social emotions of guilt and shame are linked to consumers’ intentions to prevent food waste, suggesting channels to be included in a successful information campaign nudging consumers toward food waste reduction. Research limitations/implications The authors were not able to measure precisely food waste, but observed consumers in a real-life context. Consumers were not aware of the study, and made daily purchase decisions before and after the information campaign. Social implications Consumer behavior is at the core of the food waste problem in developed countries. It is important to understand how consumers can be nudged at low cost, using an information campaign, to change their attitude to food waste, and to decrease food waste. Originality/value The authors collected an original dataset on the impact of an information campaign, observing behavior of consumers in a real-life context.

Self-selection and the power of incentive schemes: an experimental study

We examine how self-selection of workers depends on the power of incentive schemes and how it affects team performance if the power of the incentive schemes is increased. In a laboratory experiment, we let subjects choose between (low-powered) team incentives and (high-powered) individual incentives. We observe that subjects exhibiting high trust or reciprocity in the trust game are more likely to choose team incentives. When exposed to individual incentives, subjects who chose team incentives perform worse if both the unobservable interdependency between their efforts and their incentive to cooperate under team incentives are high.

Horizontal and vertical spillovers in wage bargaining: A theoretical framework and experimental evidence:

Conflict in wage bargaining is affected by information about other bargaining units and information about the past of the bargaining unit. We develop a theoretical framework for such spillovers and detail four distinct mechanisms. Rational learning and social comparisons are reviewed as mechanisms for the influence of information about other bargaining units, and reputation and expectation effects are reviewed as mechanisms for the influence of information about the past of the bargaining unit. Building upon a previous experimental study, we implement an unstructured, time-limited, two-person bargaining game with asymmetric information and investigate the impact of reputation and expectation effects. The experimental treatments vary with respect to spillover-inducing information available to the participants. The results suggest that reputation effects decrease conflict, whereas expectation effects tend to increase conflict. Moreover, reputation effects diminish the influence of social comparisons but can augment the effects of rational learning.

Mothers more altruistic than fathers, but only when bearing responsibility alone: Evidence from parental choice experiments in Tanzania

Evolutionary theory predicts humans to be more altruistic towards genetically more closely related kin. Because fathers face uncertainty about the relation to their children, the asymmetric parental altruism hypothesis predicts mothers to provide a higher share of parental care than fathers. We tested this hypothesis using parental choice experiments in rural Tanzania, in which fathers and mothers could choose between an outcome that benefited themselves and an outcome that benefited their children. When a parent was solely responsible for the outcome, mothers chose more altruistic than fathers. However when the choice situation was changed into a coordination game in which responsibility was shared with the partner, the sex difference disappeared. Fathers then chose somewhat more altruistic, but mothers substantially less. Our findings thus partly support the asymmetric parental altruism hypothesis, but they also show that parental altruism is influenced by the context in which choices are taken.

The after effects of strikes on team collaboration - experimental evidence

Although the emergence of industrial conflicts is well-analyzed, the long-term consequences of industrial conflicts for productivity are still unknown. This article reports the findings of an experimental study that was designed to test the long-term consequences of industrial conflicts for teams. In particular, we analyze how the team incentive structures and the team members’ behavior during the conflict affect productivity after the conflict. Our findings show when and under which conditions the updating of beliefs and punishment disturb team cooperation after an industrial conflict. In particular, we show the major impact of group composition with respect to the individual’s strike participation. While homogeneous teams can even improve their performance after a strike, heterogeneous groups suffer severely from the collective conflict.

Does it Take Three to Make Two Happy? An Experimental Study on Bargaining with Mediation

Mediation is a conflict resolution method in which a third neutral party provides assistance to the conflict parties.The process of mediation as well as any solution to the conflict arising from it is implemented only by the consent of all conflict parties.It is the role of a mediator to stimulate communication that leads to mutual understanding of the feasible conflict outcomes, i.e. to complete information on solution consequences among the parties of the conflict. This information is used by the parties of the conflict to evaluate their own as well as the others consequences of a proposed solution to the conflict.However, it is not clear whether the information itself, or the way it was obtained (by voluntary participation in a process in which it was collected) leads to a con ict resolution.This paper concentrates on the bargaining behavior in a conflict, abstracting from the mediators methods and techniques.We design an experiment where two-person conflicts are resolved in an unstructured bargaining and study whether the way of obtaining information on the relative payoffs influences the conflict resolution process.We also study the demand for such information by individuals with various types of social preferences.This allows us to address the role of self-selection in the mediation process.