Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Non-isolation and Social Preference

经济学博士论文研究：非孤立与社会偏好

• 批准号: 2149327
• 负责人: Yusuf Masatlioglu
• 金额: $ 0.41万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-05-01 至 2023-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2149327&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Economics; Non

Daily life regularly consists of scenarios where one needs to determine “how fair” to be to others based on current and previous interactions. Deciding whether to hold the door open for the next person, let someone merge ahead in traffic, or take the last crab at a crab feast are all everyday scenarios that could depend on how fair one has been previously. Multiple rounds of fairness also occur both experimentally in the lab and naturally in the field in higher stakes and economically relevant environments. Managers must decide on bonuses among subordinates (and potentially themselves), and these decisions may or may not depend on their past bonus decisions. In professional baseball, unwritten rules dictate when players should “take a pitch” to help the other team, despite potentially losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in incentives. This project will examine the features of such dynamic fairness concerns using a laboratory experiment. In addition to testing dynamic fairness concerns, we also examine the methodological issue of payment in relevant experimental settings. When subjects are repeatedly asked questions to provide more data, a common cost-saving measure in laboratory experiments is to randomly choose one decision problem for payment. The reliability of this method, while commonly used, is dependent on a subject’s dynamic fairness concerns. The standard analysis assumes that there are no dynamics: each choice problem is viewed in isolation. When the experimenter does not know a subject’s concerns, assuming isolation could give rise to incorrect conclusions about that subject’s preferences. Therefore, this project will also investigate payment methodology’s robustness in terms of experimental design on fairness.This research contributes threefold to the bodies of literature in social preferences under risk and experimental methodology by using the simplest way to better understand: (i) how individuals make choices in a specific dynamic fairness settings, (ii) which theoretical model(s) of social preference under risk best represent actual data, and (iii) how much of a role isolation plays in social preference experiments. This project will experimentally test the presence of non-isolation in a two-round experiment using the aforementioned “random problem selection” (RPS) payment mechanism. Each round will be a binary outcome dictator game, where a subject will choose one of two options to split a share of money between themselves and another anonymous subject. In particular, this experiment asks whether having previously chosen a fair (resp. unfair) alternative outcome creates a tendency to choose an unfair (resp. fair) outcome for the next round. This type of dynamic response is labeled a “choice reversal”, and it identifies non-isolation. However, the dynamic nature of the experiment inevitably induces selection bias. To overcome this challenge, the experiment uses a procedure with possible early resolution of the RPS scheme, which can shut down the effect of RPS in later choice while inducing subject’s choice under RPS for earlier choice. Therefore, the subject's choice in later rounds will not be affected probabilistically from their earlier round choice, which can then be compared to the control group. Note that non-isolation and reversals are two separate concepts: subjects who do not isolate the problem do not necessarily give rise to reversals. Therefore, the focus will be to jointly test the existence of non-isolation and reversal behavior. Simultaneously, the parameters of the experiment are chosen to distinguish between three classes of models of social preferences under risk. Dynamic fairness concerns are important factors in economically-relevant individual decision-making problems and their respective welfare analyses. This research's fundamental contributions to understanding these concerns will advise both applied and theoretical economists on appropriate model selection. For the experimental economist, this research will provide insight into the applicability of the common RPS payment mechanism in such dynamic settings.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

日常生活中经常会出现这样的场景：一个人需要根据当前和之前的互动情况来确定对他人的公平程度。决定是为下一个人开门，让某人挤在车流的前面，还是在螃蟹宴上吃最后一只螃蟹，这些都是日常生活中的场景，可能取决于之前的公平程度。多轮公平也会在实验室实验和现场自然发生，在更高的风险和经济相关的环境中。管理者必须在下属(可能还有他们自己)之间决定奖金，这些决定可能取决于他们过去的奖金决定，也可能不取决于他们过去的奖金决定。在职业棒球比赛中，不成文的规则规定了球员应该在什么时候“投球”来帮助对方球队，尽管可能会损失数十万美元的奖励。这个项目将使用实验室实验来检验这种动态公平问题的特征。除了测试动态公平问题，我们还在相关的实验设置中检查了支付的方法论问题。当受试者被反复提问以提供更多数据时，实验室实验中一种常见的节省成本的措施是随机选择一个决策问题进行支付。这种方法的可靠性，虽然普遍使用，但取决于受试者的动态公平考虑。标准分析假设没有动态：每个选择问题都是孤立地看待的。当实验者不知道受试者的担忧时，假设孤立可能会导致对受试者偏好的错误结论。因此，本研究还将从公平的实验设计角度考察支付方法的稳健性。本研究通过最简单的方式对风险下社会偏好的文献正文和实验方法做出贡献，以更好地理解：(I)个体如何在特定的动态公平设置中做出选择；(Ii)风险下社会偏好的哪个理论模型(S)最能代表实际数据；以及(Iii)隔离在社会偏好实验中起到多大作用。这个项目将在两轮实验中使用前面提到的“随机问题选择”(RPS)支付机制来试验性地测试非隔离的存在。每一轮都将是一场二元结果独裁者游戏，受试者将从两个选项中选择一个，在自己和另一个匿名受试者之间分享金钱。特别是，本实验询问以前是否选择了公平(分别为。不公平)可选的结果会产生一种选择不公平结果的倾向。公平)下一轮的结果。这种类型的动态反应被贴上了“选择反转”的标签，它标识了非孤立。然而，实验的动态性不可避免地会导致选择偏差。为了克服这一挑战，实验使用了一种可能的早期解决RPS方案的程序，该程序可以在诱导受试者在RPS下进行较早选择的同时，关闭RPS对较后选择的影响。因此，受试者在后几轮的选择不会从概率上受到前一轮选择的影响，然后可以与对照组进行比较。请注意，非隔离和反转是两个不同的概念：没有隔离问题的受试者不一定会引起反转。因此，重点将是联合检验非孤立和反转行为的存在。同时，选取实验参数来区分三类风险下的社会偏好模型。动态公平关注是与经济相关的个人决策问题及其福利分析的重要因素。这项研究对理解这些担忧的基本贡献将为应用经济学家和理论经济学家提供适当的模型选择方面的建议。对于实验经济学家来说，这项研究将提供对公共RPS支付机制在这种动态环境中的适用性的洞察。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。