Sebastian Kube

Experiments and Simulations on Day-to-Day Route Choice-Behaviour

The paper reports laboratory experiments with a two route choice scenario. In each session 18 subjects had to choose between a main road M and a side road S. The capacity of M was larger. Feedback was given in treatment I only on the subjects’ own travel time and in treatment II on travel time for M and S. The main results are as follows: • Mean numbers on M and S are near to pure equilibrium. • Fluctuations persist until the end of the sessions. • The total number of changes is significantly greater in treatment I. • Subjects’ road changes and payoffs are negatively correlated. • A direct response mode results in more changes for bad payoffs whereas a contrary response mode shows opposite reactions. • Simulations of an extended payoff sum learning model fits the main results of the statistical evaluation of the data.

DO WAGE CUTS DAMAGE WORK MORALE? EVIDENCE FROM A NATURAL FIELD EXPERIMENT

Employment contracts are often incomplete, leaving many responsibilities subject to workers’ discretion. High work morale is therefore essential for sustaining voluntary cooperation and high productivity in firms. We conducted a field experiment to test whether workers reciprocate wage cuts and raises with low or high work productivity. Wage cuts had a detrimental and persistent impact on productivity, reducing average output by more than 20 percent. An equivalent wage increase, however, did not result in any productivity gains. The results from an additional control experiment with high monetary performance incentives demonstrate that workers could still produce substantially more output, leaving enough room for positive reactions. Altogether, these results provide evidence consistent with a model of reciprocity, as opposed to inequality aversion.

Putting Reciprocity to Work - Positive Versus Negative Responses in the Field

We study the role of reciprocity in a labor market field experiment. In a recent paper, Gneezy and List (2006) investigate the impact of gift exchange in this context and find that it has only a transient effect on long run outcomes. Extending their work to examine both positive and negative reciprocity, we find consonant evidence in the positive reciprocity condition: the gift does not work well in the long run (if at all). Yet, in the negative reciprocity treatment we observe much stronger effects: a wage reduction has a significant and lasting negative impact on efforts. Together, these results highlight the asymmetry of positive and negative reciprocity that exists in the field, and provide an indication of the relative importance of each in the long run.

Treating Equals Unequally: Incentives in Teams, Workers' Motivation and Production Technology

The importance of fair and equal treatment of workers is at the heart of the debate in organizational management. In this regard, we study how reward schemes and production technologies affect effort provision in teams. Our experimental results demonstrate that unequal rewards can potentially increase productivity by facilitating coordination and that the effect strongly interacts with the exact shape of the production function. Taken together, our data highlight the relevance of the production function for organization construction and suggest that equal treatment of equals is neither a necessary nor a sufficient prerequisite for eliciting high performance in teams.

Leading With(Out) Sacrifice? A Public-Goods Experiment with a Privileged Player

We analyze two team settings in which one member in a team has stronger incentives to contribute than the others. If contributions constitute a sacrifice for the strong player, the other team members are more inclined to cooperate than if contributions are strictly dominant for the strong player.

Experimental Investigation of Day-to-Day Route-Choice Behaviour and Network Simulations of Autobahn Traffic in North Rhine-Westphalia

In this article an attempt is made to close the gap between network wide traffic simulations and resulting forecasts on the one hand and the driver’s behavior as a reaction on his daily experience on the other hand. The first part reports on laboratory experiments involving 200 times repeated interactive choices between two routes. In one condition feedback on travel time was supplied for the chosen round only and in a second one for both rounds. Mean values are near to game theoretic equilibrium but substantial fluctuations persist up to the end. Fluctuations are smaller and payoffs are greater it feedback is given for both roads. There is a negative correlation between a subject’s number of road changes and payoffs. Two types of behavior are observed. A direct responder is attracted to the road which was less crowded in the previous period whereas a contrarian shows the opposite pattern. The second part deals with a description of the progress achieved in the development of cellular automata models of vehicular traffic. The most recent models are able to reproduce free flow, spontaneous jam formation, synchronized traffic, as well as metastability. Here the implementation of this model to simulate the traffic on the autobahn network in North Rhine-Westphalia is described and some of the challenges of such a huge and topologically complex network are discussed.

Leading With(Out) Sacrifice? A Public-Goods Experiment with a Super-Additive Player

We analyse two team settings in which one member in a team has stronger incentives to contribute than the others. If contributions constitute a sacrifice for the strong player, the other team members are more inclined to cooperate than if contributions are strictly dominant for the strong player.

Goals (Th)at Work – Goals, Monetary Incentives, and Workers’ Performance

In a randomized field experiment, we investigate the connection between work goals, monetary incentives, and work performance. Employees are observed in a natural work environment where they have to do a simple, but effort-intense task. Output is perfectly observable and workers are paid for performance. While a regular piece-rate contract serves as a benchmark, in some treatments workers are paid a bonus conditional on reaching a pre-specified goal. We observe that the use of personal work goals leads to a significant output increase. The positive effect of goals not only prevails if they are self-chosen by the workers, but also if goals are set exogenously by the principal – although in the latter case, the exact size of the goal plays a crucial role. Strikingly, the positive effect of self-chosen goals persists even if the goal is not backed up by monetary incentives. We propose a novel incentive contract where – through the choice of a personal work goal – workers themselves determine the risk and the size of their bonus payment at the same time.

Can we manage first impressions in cooperation problems? An experiment

We study how cooperative behavior reacts to selective (favorable or unfavorable) pre-play information about the cooperativeness of other, unrelated groups within an experimental framework that is sufficiently rich for conflicting behavioral norms to emerge. We find that cooperation crucially depends on pre-play information, coinciding with a change in initial beliefs. Over time, behavior within both types of groups becomes increasingly homogeneous, indicating the formation of two rather different social norms, depending on whether pre-play information was favorable or unfavorable. In addition, we find unfavorable information to substantially reduce the effectiveness of peer punishment. For these differences to emerge it is immaterial whether each member or only one member of a four-person group receives the pre-play information.

Choosing Your Object of Benevolence – A Field Experiment on Donation Options

In a large natural field experiment, we explore the effect of providing donors with the opportunity of choosing the target country for their donations. We find that our treatment manipulation affects neither the average donation size nor the response rate. Only a small fraction of donors (3.5 percent) actually choose their object of benevolence. These donors give more than those who do not specify a recipient. However, based on previous donations, we can only provide indicative evidence that this might be a causal effect rather than a mere selection effect.