WESSI 2016-2017

Alexander Wright Cappelen, Vice-chair, Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics, Professor, Norwegian School of Economics

Second-best fairness: experimental evidence on the trade-off between false positives and false negatives in distributive choice

Coauthors: Cornelius Cappelen and Bertil Tungodden

  In many important distributive situations it is difficult to distinguish between individuals who are deserving and individuals who are undeserving. In such situations there is a trade-off between two types of mistakes; false positive, i.e. giving to someone who is not deserving, and false negative, i.e. not giving to someone who is deserving. We present the results from the first experimental study of how people make trade-offs between these mistakes. We examine the behavior of a representative sample of 2000 participants from the US and Norway, who were asked to distribute a sum of money between two groups of workers. In the first group all workers had done an assignment, but in the second group a number of the workers had falsely reported to have done the assignment. We find that the willingness to equalize income between the two groups is decreasing in the number cheaters in the second group. Two thirds of the spectators are, however, false negative averse in the sense that they are willing to accept three false positives in order to avoid one false negative. We also find that the aversion to false negatives is related to political preferences and nationality, with left-wing voters and Norwegians being significantly more likely to be false negative averse than right-wing voters and Americans.

Fotini Christia
Associate Professor of Political Science, Political Science, MIT

Networks of Sectarianism: Experimental Evidence on Access to Services in Baghdad
Coauthors: Dean Knox and Jaffar Al-Rikabi

The relationship between ethnic fractionalization and lower availability of public goods and services is now treated as an empirical regularity. Using a pool of over 300 participants from paired Sunni and Shia neighborhoods in the highly sectarian context of contemporary Iraq, we conduct a novel small-world network experiment in which participants are randomly assigned to obtain information about local government offices in Sunni- or Shia-dominated target areas. We show that citizens draw on their social networks to gain access to public goods and services, and that segregated social networks and different patterns of network search result in differential levels of access between groups. Contrary to expectations, we find that the politically dominant majority Shia group is substantially less able to access public services than the minority Sunni group. They pursue an inefficient network search strategy that relies on lower-quality contacts, and are less able to leverage their social ties into costly assistance. The minority group appears to have developed better strategies for obtaining resources to which it would otherwise be denied access. However, we cannot fully disentangle this from alternative explanations, including the possibility that Sunni participants indirectly benefited from the historical legacy of Sunni rule.

Donghyun Danny Choi,  Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science and Research Associate at the Center on the Politics of Development, University of California, Berkeley

Adam S. Harris, Postdoctoral Fellow with the Governance and Local Development (GLD) program at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Inter-ethnic distance and coalition-building in Africa

While multiethnic coalitions are a regular feature of electoral politics in Sub-Saharan Africa, little is understood as to what forms the configuration of these coalitions will take: which groups are more likely to come together to form these partnerships than others, and which of these partnerships are more likely to endure? We propose a micro-foundational explanation to these questions based on the basic idea that the objective and subjective distance between ethnic groups, or “inter-ethnic distance,” structures the likelihood that ethnic groups will enter into a coalition arrangement. Political elites who negotiate cross-group electoral coordination must factor in the extent to which the arrangement forged at the elite level will be followed by voters, as voters have different attitudes and predispositions towards different out-groups. We introduce a novel research project with two major components: the first component combines lab-in-the-field and survey experimental methods to measure inter-ethnic group distance in Kenya, a country characterized by shifting political coalitions between a diverse set of ethnic groups. We then present a randomized experiment in the run-up to the 2017 general elections in Kenya designed to demonstrate that voters are more predisposed to support non-coethnic candidates from ethnically-proximate groups and that the strength of the elite endorsement that is required to induce voters to engage in cross-ethnic voting increases with the inter-ethnic distance between groups.

Sönke Ehret, PhD candidate in the Politics Department at New York University

Who Wants a Privilege? Voting on Equal Opportunity in Contests

How do citizens decide between policies with real consequences for their own opportunity compared to the opportunity of others? This laboratory and online synchronous experiment develops and tests a theory on the interaction between strategic incentives in contests with political decision making on contests; in the experiment contestants vote on the distribution of the capacity to compete, an equal, and an unequal one prior to a competition. The theory suggests a vote choice strongly contingent on the availability of information about politically created privileges. With political uncertainty selfish behavior in competition can be electorally self-defeating: privileged voters choose equality but the underprivileged maintain inequality of chances.

Romain Ferrali, PhD candidate in Politics at Princeton University

Partners in crime? A theory of corruption as a criminal network: evidence from a lab experiment

This paper introduces a minimal experimental design to model the formation of corruption networks within an organization. Subjects play a diffusion game on a network. They face a tradeoff between efficiency and secrecy: diffusing corruption decreases the probability of sanction but reduces one's share of the bribe. We observe that as the probability of sanction increases, corruption decreases by weeding out petty corruption but involves more accomplices. Isolated agents are more corrupt, as they form enclaves that create fewer witnesses. Adding ties to the network reduces corruption only if it breaks down these enclaves. Results suggest that organizational structure may substitute for tougher enforcement in reducing corruption.

Trevor Johnston

Associate at the Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative

Entrepreneurship and Women's Empowerment: Experimental Evidence from Iraq

This study explores the effects of entrepreneurship on women's empowerment. We conduct a randomized evaluation to determine the impact of a small grants program in Iraq, which provides skills training for local women. Upon completing the training program, alumni are invited to apply for a small business grant. After identifying a pool of qualified applicants, we randomly assign who is awarded a grant. We then evaluate the effects of these grants on empowerment. We administer an endline survey to determine whether grant recipients report more confidence or perceive a higher status for women in their communities. Finally, we investigate whether program beneficiaries are more likely to participate in civic engagement or local politics.

Ghida Karbala

Doctorate Researcher at Goettingen University, Germany

Household Bargaining over Pro-social Decisions, Evidence from Egypt

Coauthors: Gerhard Riener, Marcela Ibanez   

Bargaining among household members determines the allocation of resources within its unit. Pro-social decisions taken within the household are stereotypically thought to be in the power of decision of women. We test the above hypothesis by conducting a lab in the field experiment with a representative sample of the population of the city of Cairo. In a first step subjects took donation decisions, without being observed by the spouse. In a second step we paired participants in a between subject design either with the spouse or a randomly chosen subject. We then examine one’s willingness to have his/her decision implemented compared to the decision of the partner. We find that although subjects generally prefer to have their decision implemented, married women paired with their spouse tend to have low willingness to implement their decision. We do not find this difference when participants decide against a randomly chosen subject. We therefore provide empirical evidence that women have a lower willingness to bargain within the household, even in stereotypically thought female domains.

Dominika Kruszewska

PhD Candidate in the Government Department at Harvard University

Liberty and Justice for All? American Public Opinion on Pro-democracy Movements Abroad

Coauthors: Ze Fu, Naima Green

What explains public opinion on US support for democracy movements abroad? In this paper, we use an experimental survey design to explore how features of pro-democratic movements in foreign countries shape American preferences for US action in support of the protesters. Using footage from recent mobilizations around the world, we test whether support for a pro-democracy movement is driven by reactions to repression by the regime or by ethnic affinity to the group challenging the regime. Our results show that violent repression of the protesters increases support for US sanctions against the host regime, but this change in preferences does not translate into personal political behavior. We find mixed evidence for the influence of protesters’ ethnic identity on policy preference and political behavior. Protester ethnicity appears to impact personal political behavior for respondents with a high social dominance orientation; moreover, warmth towards certain regions correlates with changes in policy preference and behavior. Finally, we find that, on average, Americans from racial minority groups report a willingness to donate $11 more than white Americans, regardless of protester ethnicity or repression by the host government. This paper contributes to both foreign policy and contentious politics literatures by exploring how features of mass mobilization shape preferences for government action towards other states.

Selin Efsan Nas Ozen, PhD Student in Economics, University of Bologna, Bologna

Inequality, Responsibility, and Extreme Actions

Coauthors: Maria Bigoni and Stefania Bortolotti

This research aims to analyze some of the socio-economic determinants of extreme actions, that we dub indiscriminate punishment. Indiscriminate punishment includes actions that have disruptive effects on others, at a large cost for oneself, and it is characterized by three elements: (i) the willingness to self-sacrifice, (ii) to provide a future and uncertain benefit to the members of one’s own group, (iii) and to harm all members of the opponents’ group, even if they are potentially innocent. The aim is to investigate the following questions:

1. Does economic inequality trigger indiscriminate punishment?

2. Is indiscriminate punishment more common when inequality is determined endogenously, by others’ intentional behavior, rather than exogenously by Nature?

3. How does indiscriminate punishment affect income distribution in subsequent periods?

We implement a two by two between-subjects design. The first dimension we employ is the degree of inequality of the payoff distribution. The second dimension concerns the sources of inequality, in the sense of whether it is not a direct responsibility of a subject, or whether inequality is introduced as a choice. Players are randomly assigned to two groups, and inequality is generated in the first stage (inequality game). In the second phase, each subject has the chance to indiscriminately hit some of the other group’s members, at the cost of losing all his earnings and being excluded from the subsequent phases (sacrifice game). In the third and fourth phases the inequality game and sacrifice game are played again.

Leonid Peisakhin, Assistant Professor of Politics; NYU Abu Dhabi

Han Il Chang, Postdoctoral associate at New York University Abu Dhabi

Crossing the Religious Divide: An Experiment on Deliberation and Inter-Sectarian Cooperation in Lebanon

Lack of inter-sectarian cooperation is a common problem across the Middle East. In this laboratory in the field experiment among a representative sample of the residents of Beirut, Lebanon (Sunni, Shi’a, and Christian) we ask whether members of different religious groups can be encouraged to cooperate across sectarian lines following a deliberative discussion about the benefits of inter-sectarian cooperation. The main treatment is the presence or absence of a focus-group style deliberative discussion about the benefits of cooperation. The outcome is measured in simulated elections where participants have a chance to vote for a candidate from a different religious group who proposes the egalitarian distribution of public goods. Additional treatment is intended to establish whether those who participated in a deliberative discussion are less susceptible to clientelistic appeals.

Max Schaub, PhD candidate in Social and Political Sciences, European University Institute, Florence, Italy

Introducing and assessing a new behavioural measure: the threat game

How can we measure threat perceptions behaviourally? The presentation introduces the threat game, a game developed to assess to what extent individuals fear ethnic outsiders more than their co-ethnics. The first part will briefly introduce results collected with the threat game during fieldwork in Georgia. I will then discuss some of the difficulties involved in developing and employing a new behavioural measure such as the threat game. Specifically, I address the challenges of a) keeping the game simple, and b) making sure that the game actually measures the concept (threat) that it should measure.

Arthur Schram, Professor of experimental economics at the Amsterdam School of Economics of the University of Amsterdam, Senior research fellow at the Robert Schumann Center for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

Authority and Centrality: Leadership and Cooperation in Networked Teams

We experimentally investigate the effects of two different forms of leadership — authority and centrality — on cooperation in teams. A leader with authority can allocate funds between him/herself and the rest of the team, while leaders with centrality keep a team together by having a pivotal position in a network. In some treatments, players can vote to exclude others and prevent them from further participation in the team. We find that teams with authority reach low cooperation levels, and that leaders with authority are typically excluded early on in the game. In stark contrast, teams with centrality keep up high levels of cooperation, despite tolerating free riding by leaders with centrality.

Bertil Tungodden, Professor at the Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), Co-director of the research group The Choice Lab at Norwegian School of Economics, Associated Senior Researcher at Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI).

Cutthroat capitalism versus cuddly socialism: Are Americans more meritocratic and efficiency-seeking than Scandinavians?

Coauthors: Ingvild Almas and Alexander Cappelen

There is a striking difference in income inequality and redistributive policies between the United States and Scandinavia. To study whether there is a corresponding cross-country difference in social preferences, we conducted the first large-scale international social preference experiment, with nationally representative samples from the United States and Norway. We introduce a new experimental approach, which combines the infrastructure of an international online market place and the infrastructure of a leading international data collection agency. A novel feature of our experiment is that Americans and Norwegians make real distributive choices in identical situations where they have complete information about the source of inequality and the cost of redistribution. We show that Americans and Norwegians differ significantly in fairness views, but not in the importance assigned to efficiency. The study also provides robust causal evidence of fairness considerations being much more fundamental for inequality acceptance than efficiency considerations in both countries.