I work at the Department of Economics of Masaryk University. My research interests lie mainly in the field of behavioral and experimental economics, with topics including (recently) regulatory compliance, preference elicitation, and conflict emergence.

This page is dedicated to recent publications and research in progress. My google scholar profile is here.

My teaching, CV, and a complete list of publications can be found here.

Recent publications

• Karlínová, B., Krčál, O. (2022): The value of travel time for long-distance railway passenger transport in the Czech Republic. Case Studies on Transport Policy, accepted

• Staněk, R., Krčál, O., & Čellárová, K. (2022). Pull yourself up by your bootstraps: Identifying procedural preferences against helping others in the presence of moral hazard. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 98, 101851.

• Krčál, O., Peer, S., & Staněk R (2021). Can time-inconsistent preferences explain hypothetical biases? Economics of Transportation, 25, č. 100207

• Fišar, M., Krčál, O., Staněk, R., & Špalek, J. (2020). Committed to Reciprocate on a Bribe or Blow the Whistle: The Effects of Periodical Staff-Rotation in Public Administration. Public Performance & Management Review, 1-21.

• Krčál, O., Peer, S., Staněk, R., & Karlínová, B. (2019). Real consequences matter: Why hypothetical biases in the valuation of time persist even in controlled lab experiments. Economics of Transportation, 20, 100138.

Work in progress

Social Comparisons and Effort Provision: The Response to Learning One is Less Preferred (with Diya Abraham)

Abstract: We study how agents react to learning that they are less liked or preferred by a principal relative to their peers. In our experiment, we have a principal divide the responsibility for her earnings between two agents based on (irrelevant) personal information about them. We find that agents are less altruistic toward the principal when they perceive an intentional decision to make them less responsible, relative to when the same lower responsibility for the principal's earnings is determined randomly by a computer. Agents perceive a larger subjective component to the principals' decision than principals claim exist, and also report having a stronger emotional reaction to learning about their relative importance when the principal's decision was intentional. Our results suggest that behavior is highly sensitive to the implicit social comparison that can be inferred from the principal's decision, and especially so when this comparison is unfavorable to the agent.

How strong are anti-social motives in money burning game? (with Rostislav Staněk & Katarína Čellárová)

Abstract: The money burning game is widely used to study anti-social or destructive behavior. We extend the design of the money burning game to separate the three motives that could lead subjects to burn their partner's money -- the pleasure of harming or beating the other, reciprocity and inequality aversion. We detect that reciprocity is the dominant reason: Most of our subjects would only burn their partner’s money if they believed that their partner would burn theirs. This finding has important implications for the interpretation of the game.

Killing two birds with one stone: Reducing concealment and non-compliance by audit policy (with Rostislav Staněk)

Abstract: Agents subject to a regulation may choose not to comply and if possible, even invest real resources to conceal their regulatory avoidance. We develop a theoretical model to explore the effect of audit selection rules on these choices. In a laboratory experiment we test the main predictions of our theoretical model, namely that an endogenous audit selection mechanism increases compliance and at the same time reduces concealment investments. This outcome is compared with an increase in audit frequency, which raises both compliance and concealment investments. Our experimental results confirm these predictions. In comparison with more extensive auditing, smart design of the selection mechanism may not only entail lower administrative costs but also discourage investment in socially wasteful concealment activities.

A competitive audit selection mechanism with incomplete information (with Rostislav Staněk, Miloš Fišar, Jiří Špalek, James Tremewan)

The experimental tax and regulatory compliance literature has shown the effectiveness of competitive audit selection mechanisms (ASMs) based on declarations and a signal of the taxpayers' actual income. Even if the tax authorities try to use all available information to create a homogeneous group and estimate the differences in actual income, they never have access to all relevant income determinants, so the ASM will be always applied on groups with some residual income heterogeneity. To study the implications of this situation, we introduce an endogenous ASM based solely on declared income. We show theoretically and in a laboratory experiment that this new endogenous ASM significantly increases compliance in comparison with an ASM where all taxpayers face audit with equal probability. However, a further consequence of conditioning solely on declared income is that poorer taxpayers are audited more frequently, reducing the effectiveness of this ASM in generating revenue and reducing inequality. We further compare the new mechanism with a benchmark ASM that uses a noisy signal of actual income and show that it is a significant improvement over the other two ASMs in terms of compliance, revenue, and inequality. Our results point out potential adverse impacts of endogenous ASM on inequality in the presence of substantial residual income heterogeneity.

Bad luck in the treatment lottery: Does being untreated impact life satisfaction and pro-sociality? (with Rostislav Staněk, Eliška Černá, Petr Kubala, Štěpán Ripka)

There is some evidence from cash-transfer randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that being untreated may have adverse effects on the affected participants’ psychological well-being. This raises concerns about allocations based on randomization, like those used in social science RCTs, in which some treatments are superior to others and the treatment status is known to the participants. We use a rehousing RCT with low-income families in the Czech Republic to study the effect of not being selected for a treatment that would lead to a substantial improvement in housing quality. While the RCT resulted in a large increase in life satisfaction and psychological well-being for those treated, the values reported by the untreated remained stable. In addition, assignment to the control group did not have any negative effects on the participants’ pro-social preferences or on their perceptions of others’ pro-sociality. These results suggest that, at least in the context of rehousing experiments, being untreated in an RCT does not result in any substantial adverse effects on life satisfaction or pro-sociality.

Does living in substandard housing signal lower trustworthiness and attention? (with Rostislav Staněk)

This paper combines a Housing First RCT with two laboratory experiments to study the impact of housing conditions on how trustworthy and attentive the Housing First participants are perceived by students in the laboratory. The experimental design enables us to disentangle the effect of housing conditions from the effect of housing history. While low-quality housing has a negative effect on the expected trustworthiness, but no impact on the expected ability to concentrate, people living in good-quality housing are perceived to have a lower ability to concentrate, but are equally trustworthy, when their history of low-quality housing is revealed to students.

Do Improved Housing Conditions Impact Preferences and Attention? Evidence from a Housing First RCT (with Rostislav Staněk)

There is growing evidence that poverty affects people's preferences and cognitive abilities in a way that may lead them to make bad decisions. We take advantage of a unique setup, a housing first RCT, which substantially improved housing conditions for low-income families in the Czech Republic, to provide evidence on the link between housing quality and variables of interest that might affect the quality of economic decisions. We conduct a lab-in-the-field experiment to elicit risk preferences and time preferences and to measure sustained attention. We find that improved housing conditions do not impact any of these three outcome variables. These results are in line with recent evidence on low-income US households.