In this paper, we report on two experimental studies that examine the impact of social distance on delegation and uncover the role of anonymity driving delegation in a principal-agent setting. Study 1 shows that reducing the social distance makes principals less likely to delegate. Study 2 offers evidence that the likelihood of delegation is not affected by whether the principal is informed that the recipients will not find out whether the principal is their friend or a stranger. Our findings have implications for the underlying sources of pro-sociality in organisational settings where managers make their decisions through hiring external agents.

This paper examines the impact of a recent increase in the value of healthy start vouchers (HSV) on the purchase of healthy items, using a large and representative sample of 13 million shopping basket transactions from a major UK food retailer. We use a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach to show that a £1.15 increase in voucher values increased spending on fruits and vegetables (F&V) for single voucher users by 32p and for two voucher users by 77p. For all eligible items, the increase in the value of the vouchers increased spending by 31p for single voucher users and by 89p for two voucher users. Our analysis of the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) indicates that consumers treat vouchers similarly to cash transfers of the same value. We also find that the effects of the HSV program are greater in more deprived areas and areas with lower pre-change expenditure on eligible items, indicating potential benefits for reducing health inequalities. Our results have implications for the effectiveness of targeted benefit programs, such as the UK HSV program, in promoting healthy food choices.

This paper quantifies the extent of labour market discrimination against non-British EU nationals in the UK using a large-scale correspondence study. Conducted during the withdrawal period that followed the Brexit referendum, a period marked by heightened anti-immigrant sentiment, our study offers insights into how applicant quality, nationality, and residency status affected firms' hiring decisions. We also study how discrimination varies by job and employer characteristics, as well as by anti-immigrant sentiments in the region of the employer. Our findings reveal limited evidence of discrimination against EU applicants in the UK, with observable discrimination varying geographically in favour of or against EU applicants. Notably, higher job credentials were rewarded disproportionally for applicants of Eastern European origin. These results highlight the nuanced nature of labour market discrimination during a period of politically charged immigration debates.

Context: Food swap interventions provide an approach to influence consumer food choices. However, evidence on their implementation and effectiveness has not yet been synthesised.

Objective: To systematically synthesise the literature on food swap interventions in grocery settings by addressing the following questions: 1) In which settings have these interventions been implemented? 2) Who was the target population? 3) How were the interventions implemented and what was their purpose? 4) What outcome measures have been examined? 5) Have food swap interventions been effective in changing behaviour?

Data sources, extraction, and analysis: A search of MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science up to 23/01/2025 was conducted to identify food swap intervention trials in grocery settings, with no limits on language or publication year. Covidence was used to screen titles, abstracts, and full-text articles in duplicate. Risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane tools. Data were synthesised narratively.

Results: Eleven studies, published between 2006 and 2024, were included in the review. Interventions were implemented in various settings: 1 in a real grocery store, 3 in real online supermarkets, and 7 in simulated online supermarkets. Most included studies targeted adults with primary or partial responsibility for their household’s grocery shopping. All the swaps offered healthier alternatives to selected products, mostly at the point of selection. Outcomes examined included the healthiness of shopping baskets, energy content, saturated fat (SFA) content, salt density, sodium and sugar content. All but 1 study noted statistically significant effects of the studied interventions. Two studies found significant improvements in overall nutritional quality. Salt/sodium reductions were significant in 2 studies, while reductions in sugar content were significant in 1 study but not in another study. Studies also demonstrated significant reductions in purchased energy content/density, and SFA.

Conclusion: Food swap interventions improved the healthiness of food purchases. However, none of the studies examined the potential for food swap interventions to promote more sustainable food choices, and all but one targeted online grocery shoppers. Future research could explore the effectiveness of food swaps in promoting sustainable food choices and consider how these promising interventions could be implemented in physical stores.

We analyse motivational factors that influence surrogate decision-makers when making choices about serious medical treatments. In an online survey, 666 participants, including NHS frontline workers and non-frontline workers (general public), reported how often they observed surrogate medical decisions, who typically made these decisions, and what they believed were the most important factors influencing each type of surrogate. We find that the majority of all serious medical treatment decisions are delegated to surrogates. Decision priorities are also found to vary significantly between patients and the three distinct categories of surrogates: family members, medical practitioners, and appointed attorneys.

Background and objectives: Effective interventions are needed to promote both sustainable and healthier food choices. However, interventions aimed at promoting sustainable food purchasing could also support better nutritional outcomes or have unintended negative side effects. Using an online grocery shop, which offers a way to study and evaluate these interventions on a large scale, we assessed the effect of eco-labels and price discounts on the nutritional content of shopping baskets in a real online supermarket in the UK.

Methods: Participants were recruited from the UK Prolific panel and randomly assigned to one of six groups in a 2x3 factorial design. The interventions included: (i) eco-labels, which displayed the environmental impact of products on a scale from A (lowest impact, most sustainable) to G (highest impact, least sustainable), and (ii) price discounts (£1, £0.50, or no discount) offered on more sustainable alternative products that were in the same or a better category for fat (including saturated fat), sugar, and salt content on the traffic-light label for <3 items in their basket. Nutritional outcomes measured included energy (KJ/100g), fat, sugar, salt, and saturated fat (all in g/100g). Regression analysis was used to assess the effect of the interventions on these nutritional outcomes.

Results: A total of 1,426 participants who shopped at least once were included in the analysis. The eco-labels had a very small, non-statistically significant effect on the nutritional content of baskets, with increases in sugar (b = 0.183, p = 0.39), fat (b = 0.053, p = 0.79), saturated fat (b = 0.107, p = 0.32), and energy (b = 10.461, p = 0.30), and small, non-significant decreases in salt (b = -0.017, p = 0.72). Similarly, the £0.50 discount showed small, non-significant effects on sugar (b = -0.263, p = 0.30), salt (b = -0.035, p = 0.49), saturated fat (b = -0.114, p = 0.34), energy (b = -10.594, p = 0.24), and fat (b = -0.054, p = 0.79). The £1 discount also did not appear to affect the nutritional content of purchases [sugar (b = 0.091, p = 0.73), salt (b = 0.025, p = 0.70), and fat (b = 0.023, p = 0.92)], except that energy purchased may have been slightly lower (b = -7.280) but this difference was also not statistically significant (p=0.07).

Conclusions: Eco-labels and price discounts did not lead to statistically significant changes in nutritional outcomes. These findings suggest that further research is needed to explore the potential effectiveness of such interventions in promoting healthier food choices.

We ask whether extrinsic motivations are crowding out intrinsic motivations to donate. We use an online experiment with two treatments. Our first treatment varies whether participants choose whether to either donate (costly action), pledge (cheap talk), or donate and pledge to a cause. We conjecture that the opportunity to share a pledge without donating is sufficient to satisfy image concerns, resulting in lower donations. Our second treatment aims at disentangling the mechanisms driving this behaviour. Our second treatment varies whether actions are unobserved (self image concerns), observed after others have made their decisions (social image concerns), or observed before others have made their decisions (signalling). We conjecture that the substitution effect away from donations will be more pronounced when social image and signalling motives are active. Our results will provide evidence for campaign managers and charity organisations on whether extrinsic motivations, such as sharing your pledge to a cause on social media, can crowd out intrinsic motivations to donate and whether the lost donations in this setting can be recovered by allowing pledges only after donations.

Food labelling policies such as front-of-pack labelling provide nutritional information and encourage healthier purchasing behaviours. Given the increased use of online food shopping, it is important to investigate the impact of enabling improved access to nutritional labels on an online platform. In this study, we explore the impact of varying access to nutritional labels on online purchasing behaviour. Using laboratory experiments we investigate the effect of offering mandatory access versus optional access to nutritional labels, both before and after the selection decision (i.e. deciding what items to add to the basket). An online store platform was designed to display a selection of food products. University students were invited to participate in the laboratory experiment and were told they had a fixed endowment that they could use to select and purchase products. At the end of the experiment, the participants were able to take the selected items home.  The students were randomly assigned to two scenarios. In the first scenario, they were given the choice to view the nutritional labels for any item displayed. In the second scenario, the nutritional labels were displayed for all items (unable to select which items). For both these scenarios, the students were offered the nutritional information either before they selected items for their basket, or after they had selected items.  All four conditions were compared to a baseline condition replicating the status quo in online shopping platforms, requiring participants to actively select an item and scroll to access its nutritional label.

Participants were also offered the opportunity to substitute chosen items with healthier alternatives before finalising their purchasing decisions. This treatment was referred to as the ‘swap treatment’. We also collected data on participants' satisfaction and emotional responses to their choices.

We anticipate that, in comparison to the baseline, participants will have an increased tendency to purchase healthier items in all treatment conditions. We will explore the impact of having the nutritional information made available for only some items versus all items and the impact of offering this information before or after product selection.  We hypothesize observing a greater proportion of participants substituting unhealthy items with healthier alternatives as the exposure to nutritional information increases. We will also explore the impact of having autonomy over how to receive nutritional information.  The results will help inform nutrition policy within an online food shopping environment.