Sören Harrs
Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor in Experimental Economics at the University of Vienna.
My main field of research is behavioral and experimental economics.
In my research, I study the effects of fairness and identity on economic decision-making. I typically combine experimental methods, panel data, and large-scale surveys in representative samples.
I completed my PhD at the University of Cologne in 2024. During my PhD, I was a YEP student at ECONtribute, the cluster of excellence from the Universities of Bonn and Cologne. I visited FAIR in Bergen in 2023 and the UC San Diego in 2022.
Email: soeren.harrs [at] univie.ac.at
Twitter: @soerenharrs
Google Scholar: here
[CV ]
Working Papers
Fairness and Support for Redistribution: The Role of Preferences and Beliefs
joint with Maj-Britt Sterba, [NEW Version coming soon]
How do fairness views shape support for redistribution? Using a combination of large-scale survey data from US Americans and theory-driven experiments with consequential transfer choices, we establish three novel insights about fairness and redistribution. First, individuals with egalitarian, libertarian, and meritocratic fairness preferences differ strongly in their support for redistribution. Second, beliefs about the causes of inequality and fairness preferences interact: beliefs have a strong effect on policy support of meritocrats, but a much weaker effect for non-meritocrats. Third, fairness matters universally across subgroups: the rich and the poor, and liberals and conservatives, differ systematically in their fairness views but share a similar concern for fairness. These findings improve our understanding of the micro-foundations of fairness concerns in political economy models, providing new insights into why individuals, political parties, and countries differ in their support for redistribution and their acceptance of economic inequality.
How do fairness views shape support for redistribution? Using a combination of large-scale survey data from US Americans and theory-driven experiments with consequential transfer choices, we establish three novel insights about fairness and redistribution. First, individuals with egalitarian, libertarian, and meritocratic fairness preferences differ strongly in their support for redistribution. Second, beliefs about the causes of inequality and fairness preferences interact: beliefs have a strong effect on policy support of meritocrats, but a much weaker effect for non-meritocrats. Third, fairness matters universally across subgroups: the rich and the poor, and liberals and conservatives, differ systematically in their fairness views but share a similar concern for fairness. These findings improve our understanding of the micro-foundations of fairness concerns in political economy models, providing new insights into why individuals, political parties, and countries differ in their support for redistribution and their acceptance of economic inequality.
How Narratives Influence Economic Decision-Making: Experimental Evidence
joint with Lara Marie Müller and Bettina Rockenbach, Submitted.
Narratives are omnipresent in the media as a tool of persuasive communication. Recent research discusses how narratives may influence economic decisions through changes in beliefs. We present causal evidence that narratives can impact economic decisions through an additional channel: short-term changes in risk and time preferences. In a controlled experiment, subjects read articles with optimistic or pessimistic narratives about an economic shock. We show that a more pessimistic narrative not only induces pessimistic beliefs, but also strongly increases subjects' risk aversion and impatience. A follow-up experiment indicates that emotional reactions are necessary for such preference-based persuasion.
Publications
Revealing Good Deeds: Disclosure of Social Responsibility in Competitive Markets
We experimentally study competitive markets with socially responsible production. Our main focus is on the producers' decision whether or not to reveal the degree of social responsibility of their product. Compared to two benchmark cases where either full transparency is enforced or no disclosure is possible, we show that voluntary and costless disclosure comes close to the full transparency benchmark. However, when the informational content of disclosure is imperfect, social responsibility in the market is significantly lower than under full transparency. Our results highlight an important role for transparent and standardized information about social externalities.
Identity and Voluntary Efforts for Climate Protection
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2024)
Can voluntary contributions to public goods be motivated by identity concerns? In a theory-driven field experiment we test how positive and negative shocks to subjects’ environmental identity beliefs affect voluntary efforts for climate protection. In a real-effort task, subjects can generate donations that off-set carbon emissions. Prior to the task, we manipulate subjects’ beliefs about their environmental identity either positively or negatively compared to a control group. A negative shock to identity (“identity threat”) increases effort by about 17% compared to our control group. This effect is largest for subjects that had a strong prior environmental identity belief. We find no evidence that a positive shock to identity does affect behavior. Our results are in line with some of the main predictions from the belief-based model of identity by Bénabou and Tirole (2011). They also have implications for policy makers and NGOs that want to encourage voluntary contributions to climate protection by leveraging people’s identity concerns.