Essays on social preferences, incentives, and institutions [Elektronische Ressource] / vorgelegt von Matthias Wibral

Matthias Wibral

Informations

• Publié par: rheinische_friedrich-wilhelms-universitat_bonn
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 34
• Langue: English

Extrait

Essays on Social Preferences, Incentives, and
Institutions
Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors
der Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften
durch die
Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftliche Fakult˜at
der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universit˜at
Bonn
vorgelegt von
Matthias Wibral
aus Olpe
Bonn 2009Dekan: Prof. Dr. Christian Hillgruber
Erstreferent: Prof. Dr. Armin Falk
Zweitreferent: Prof. Dr. Matthias Kraekel
Tag der mundlic˜ hen Prufung:˜ 08.09.2009
Diese Dissertation ist auf dem Hochschulschriftenserver der ULB Bonn
(http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/diss online) elektronisch publiziert.para mi guerillera -
siempre sigue luchandoAcknowledgments
Armin Falk has been a perfect supervisor. I hope that his enthusiasm for research,
his creativity, and his amazing ability to transmit both have found their way into
the following pages.
Paul Heidhues, Matthias Kr˜akel and other faculty members of the Bonn Gradu-
ate School of Economics provided very helpful comments and support at all stages
of this dissertation. Urs Schweizer and Georg Noeldecke have deeply impressed me
with their relentless efiort to keep the Bonn Graduate School of Economics running
and to improve it.
Workiseasyandfunwhenyouworkwithfriends. IamverygratefultoSebastian
Kube,FelixMarklein,andespeciallyJohannesAbelerandStefienAltmannfortheir
advice, patient help, and countless bad jokes and good laughs. I was also very lucky
to have the classmates that I had. The BGSE class of 2003 has been a perfect social
storm. Many other fellow graduate students also deserve credit for making the
BGSE a fun and inspiring place to do research. All members of the chair of Armin
Falk provided great help and support in the "flnal" stages of this dissertation.
Severalsourceshavepreventedthattheoldsaying"Adissertationcanlastlonger
than you can stay liquid" became true for me. Financial support from the DFG
through GRK 629, the BGSE, the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics at
the University of Zurich, and the DAAD is gratefully acknowledged. During parts
of this dissertation I enjoyed the hospitality of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the
Institute for Empirical Research in Economics at the University of Zurich, and the
Institue for the Study of Labor and I would like to thank all the people who made
these places pleasant.
Iamindebtedtomyfriendswhoborewithmethroughtheupsanddownsofthe
past years, in particular Peter Flore, Daniel Hilgers and Harald Kaluza. I am also
deeply grateful to my family for their support and love. My mom deserves credit
for inspiring my interest in social preferences by being the best living example of
them. My dad has been an inexhaustible source of knowledge, in particular on the
intricacies of philosophy and the English language. Annette and Angel have always
provided a difierent perspective and a home away from home. I am grateful to Ute
for descending on me with her exploding backpack and taking my mind ofi things,
and to Michael for taking my mind on things.
Finally,onepersonhasaccompaniedthisdissertationfromitsverybeginningand
made all the difierence. Without Suni’s love, tireless encouragement, unconditional
support and gentle stubbornness this dissertation would still await its completion.Contents
Introduction 1
1 Do the Reciprocal Trust Less? 10
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2 Experimental Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4 Discussion and Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 When Equality is Unfair 17
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 Experimental Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.1 Design and Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.2 Behavioral Predictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.1 Efiort Choices and E–ciency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3.2 Wage Setting and Monetary Incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3.3 The Importance of Equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3.4 Dynamics of High-Efiort and Low-Efiort Providers. . . . . . . 38
2.3.5 The Role of Intentions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.4 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
i3 IdentityChangesandtheE–ciencyofOnlineReputationSystems 46
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2 Experimental Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2.1 Trust Game and Reputation System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2.2 Behavioral predictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.3.1 A reputation system at work-the no-change treatment . . . . . 56
3.3.2 Understanding the impact of identity changes . . . . . . . . . 59
3.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4 Behavior in Multi-Stage Elimination Tournaments 70
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.2 A Simple Model of Multi-Stage Elimination Tournaments . . . . . . . 74
4.3 Experimental Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.3.1 Treatments and Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.3.2 Experimental Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.4.1 Behavior in the One-Stage Tournament . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.4.2 Testing Behavioral Equivalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.4.3 Wage Structures in Two-Stage Tournaments . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.4.4 Testing Incentive Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.5 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Appendices 98
A.1 Instructions for Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
B.1 for Chapter 2 (EWT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
iiC.1 Instructions for Chapter 3 (Change Treatment) . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
D.1 for Chapter 4 (TS Treatment) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
D.2 Schedule of Efiort Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
D.3 Elicitation of Risk Attitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
iiiList of Figures
1.1 Average amount sent by selflsh, intermediate, and reciprocal players . 13
2.1 Average efiort per period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2 Frequency of efiort choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3 Average wage for a given efiort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.4 Magnitude of efiort reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.5 Simulation of agents who adapt to equity-norm violations . . . . . . . 38
2.6 Efiort decisions of high-efiort and low-efiort providers . . . . . . . . . 40
2.7 Average efiort per treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Cumulative distribution of returns on investment . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.2 Return on investment and frequency of identity changes . . . . . . . . 62
3.3 Frequency of good, neutral, and bad ratings for selected returns on
investment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.4 Investment over time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.5 Frequency of investment levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.6 Investment towards new and experienced sellers . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.1 Frequency of efiort choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
ivList of Tables
1.1 Trust regressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.1 Schedule of efiort costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.2 Payofis of players . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3 Proflt regressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4 Frequency of efiort reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1 In uence of reputation information on investment in the no-change
treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.1 Parameters of the experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.2 First stage behavior across treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
vIntroduction
Behavioral economics incorporates non-pecuniary motives and bounded rationality
into economic models in order to better understand human behavior. Over the past
three decades this efiort has spawned a substantial literature and contributed to a
betterunderstandingofawidevarietyofeconomicphenomena. Thisdiversityisalso
re ected in this dissertation. The topics of the difierent chapters|the intrapersonal
relationship of trust and reciprocity, the impact of difierent wage schemes on efiort,
thee–ciencyofonlinereputationsystems,andthebehavioralefiectsofthestructure
of promotion tournaments|do not seem to have much in common at flrst sight.
Nevertheless, all of them share several essential fea