R&Rs

1. Social distance and delegation: altruism or expected reciprocity? (with Hamideh Mohtashami Borzadaran)

Abstract: In this paper, we report on two experimental studies that examine the impact of social distance on delegation and uncover the behavioural mechanisms driving delegation in a principal-agent setting. Study 1 shows that reducing the social distance makes principals less likely to delegate. In a separate study, we offer evidence that directed altruism is a better candidate for explaining delegation decisions. Our findings have implications for the underlying sources of pro-social behaviour in organisational settings where managers make their decisions through hiring external agents.

2. Social framing effects in leadership: preferences or beliefs? (with Edward Cartwright) [Link to CESifo working paper version]

Abstract: We experimentally study the impact of framing effects in a repeated sequential social dilemma game. Our between-subjects design consists of two group level (“Wall Street” vs. “Community”) and two individual level (“First (Second) Movers” vs. “Leaders (Followers)”) frames. We find that average contributions are significantly higher when the game is called the Wall Street game than when it is called the Community game. However, the social framing effect disappears when we control for players’ first-order and second-order beliefs. Overall, our evidence indicates that social frames enter people’s beliefs rather than their preferences.

3. Highly skilled tasks and the gender difference in competitiveness: Evidence from Botswana (with Graeme Pearce and John Tlhakanelo).

Abstract: Promoting women’s participation in high-quality jobs is a fundamental priority for the economic growth of less developed countries. Using a novel subject pool from Botswana, we experimentally examine the impact of varying levels of skills on preferences over competition, an economic indicator that has been shown to explain gender disparities in the labour market. Our experiment closely follows the paradigm of Niederle and Vesterlund (2007, QJE) and is concerned with treatments where performing a math task requires either high or low skills. We find that skills play a key role in shaping the gender competition gap: when subjects perform the hard math task, gender inequality reduces dramatically. In addition, women are found to be more likely to over-enter in the high-skill task. Our results have important policy implications highlighting that special emphasis should be placed to improving the acquisition of skills in non-female occupations, one key condition for boosting economic diversification and development.

4. The Poor, the Rich and the Middle Class: Experimental evidence from heterogeneous public goods games (with Daniel W. Derbyshire and Brit Grosskopf) 

Abstract: We present the results of one-shot and repeated public good experiments that seek to understand the interaction between the endowment and marginal return in heterogeneous groups. Our focus is situations where endowments and marginal returns are either inversely or proportionally related. While two normatively appealing contribution rules are aligned in the proportional treatment, a conflict exists in the inverse treatment. In the one-shot experiment, we do not find significant differences across treatments. Contributions increase when the endowment, the marginal return or both increase. This is observed in all treatments except when endowment and marginal return are inversely related. Then the ‘middle class’ participants (medium endowment and marginal return) contribute more than both the high and low endowment types, mirroring real world observations of a ‘squeezed middle’. This suggests a conflict between the highly endowed subjects (but with low marginal return) and those with a high marginal return (but with low endowment). This pattern is similar when elicitng beliefs about others’ contributions - the two conflicting types expect others to contribute more than they do for themselves.