Publications:
Altruism or Diminishing Marginal Utility? (with Romain Gauriot & Robert Slonim) [pdf]
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2020) ,180, 24–48.
Redesigning the Market for Volunteers: A Donor Registry (with Robert Slonim, Ellen Garbarino, Carmen Wang and Daniel Waller)
[pdf][supplemental material]
Management Science (2020).
We Should Totally Open a Restaurant: How Optimism and Overconfidence Affect Beliefs (with Nicholas W. Papageorge) [pdf] [online appendix]
Journal of Economic Psychology (2018), 67, 177-190.
Waiting To Give: Stated and Revealed Preferences (with Ashley Craig, Ellen Garbarino and Robert Slonim) [pdf] [supplementary material]
Management Science 63.11 (2017): 3672-3690.
Working Papers:
Altruism begets altruism (with Robert Slonim) [pdf]
Revision Requested at The Economic Journal.
Guided by Bem's (1972) self-perception theory, we design an experiment to ask whether morally-motivated behaviour, e.g., charitable giving, is history-dependent. Using a popular policy nudge, the default option, we exogenously vary altruism "now" and show that the nudge-induced choice to give "now" causes a 41 percentage point (or 200%) increase in the probability of giving "later"; that is, altruism begets altruism. We further show that, consistent with self-perception theory, the choice to behave altruistically "now", rather than the nudge itself, is the crucial element in the causal relationship. These findings are consistent with positive path-dependence, which we interpret as moral consistency.
Exploration & Self-Selection: Revisiting Roy (with Barton Hamilton) [pdf]
Reject & Resubmit at Games and Economic Behavior.
We study how selection shapes exploratory versus exploitative behavior. Using a laboratory experiment, we decompose Roy's (1951) theory of selection and study the effect of traits on innovative behavior when information type is assigned versus when it is selected. Consistent with theory, when information type is assigned, we find that (1) there are distinct behavioral patterns leading to earnings' disparities and (2) the returns to personality traits are ambiguous, and significantly depend on the type of information assigned. By contrast, when individuals self-select their information type, we show that they leverage their trait-based advantage, their information choice is optimal and, as predicted by Heckman & Honore (1990), the earnings' disparities disappear.
Self-Serving Dishonesty: The Role of Self-Confidence in Driving Dishonesty (with Robert Slonim & Franziska Tausch) [pdf]
Under Review.
Ambiguity and uncertainty as an explanation for ethical blind spots is well-documented. We contribute to this line of research by showing that these blind spots arise even when there is naturally occurring uncertainty---that is, when individuals are simply uncertain of the truth they ``fill-in" this uncertainty in a self-serving way. To examine self-serving dishonesty, we asked a sample of U.S. car owners to respond to an auto insurance underwriting questionnaire that affects their price of insurance (i.e., premium), and investigated how financial incentives affect the honesty of their responses. We find, consistent with the current literature, that people have a strong preference for truthfulness, but only when they are confident of the objective truth. However, when people are not completely certain of the objectively correct answer, significant dishonesty occurs in a self-serving manner. We also find that reports of confidence do not depend on incentives and thus self-serving dishonesty is not strategic.
Vice and Virtue Behaviours: Substitution and Non-Substitution Effects (with Alex Cornish) [pdf]
Under Review.
We examine how the U.S. tax policy that encourages charitable giving also affects seemingly unrelated virtue and vice behaviours: exercise and smoking. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we calculate tax liabilities for 16,682 individuals over 5 waves from which we can construct the price of giving to charity. We estimate the structural model of joint consumption developed by Dinardo & Lemieux (1992, 2001) to disentangle behavioral changes that arise from changes in relative prices of the two behaviors (i.e., substitution effects) from the behavioral changes that arise from changes in the implicit prices of the two behaviors (i.e., non-substitution effects). Contrary to reduced form results which confound these two effects, we find that charitable giving and exercise are substitutes in consumption, but the opposite-sign non-substitution effect dominates. On the other hand, charitable giving and smoking are also substitutes in consumption, but there are no significant non-substitution effects. Our results tentatively suggest how the government might efficiently encourage charitable giving, while also promoting public health investment. Further, our results demonstrate the breadth of the effects of tax policy on charitable giving.
In Progress:
Learning to Give: Professional versus Consumer Reviews
We estimate and compare the effect of information from professional versus consumer reviews on consumer behavior. We do so in a pro-social context and examine how information about a charity's effectiveness impacts willingness to donate. We move beyond the existing literature to examine how two distinct sources of information, professional reviews versus consumer reviews, differentially affect individual's willingness to give. We find that individuals place significantly more value on professional reviews than on equivalent consumer reviews. However, when individuals receive a second piece of information they update their willingness to donate similarly regardless of the source: individuals' willingness to donate is unaffected by ``good news" about the charity, but significantly negatively affected by ``bad" news.
Codes of Conduct at Work
Eliciting Risk and Altruism Preferences: Experimental Evidence (with Romain Gauriot & Robert Slonim)
Spending on Image: Substitution and non-Substitution Effects
Parents' Investments in Children and Children's Investment in Themselves (with Robert A. Pollak)
Altruism or Diminishing Marginal Utility? (with Romain Gauriot & Robert Slonim) [pdf]
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2020) ,180, 24–48.
Redesigning the Market for Volunteers: A Donor Registry (with Robert Slonim, Ellen Garbarino, Carmen Wang and Daniel Waller)
[pdf][supplemental material]
Management Science (2020).
We Should Totally Open a Restaurant: How Optimism and Overconfidence Affect Beliefs (with Nicholas W. Papageorge) [pdf] [online appendix]
Journal of Economic Psychology (2018), 67, 177-190.
Waiting To Give: Stated and Revealed Preferences (with Ashley Craig, Ellen Garbarino and Robert Slonim) [pdf] [supplementary material]
Management Science 63.11 (2017): 3672-3690.
Working Papers:
Altruism begets altruism (with Robert Slonim) [pdf]
Revision Requested at The Economic Journal.
Guided by Bem's (1972) self-perception theory, we design an experiment to ask whether morally-motivated behaviour, e.g., charitable giving, is history-dependent. Using a popular policy nudge, the default option, we exogenously vary altruism "now" and show that the nudge-induced choice to give "now" causes a 41 percentage point (or 200%) increase in the probability of giving "later"; that is, altruism begets altruism. We further show that, consistent with self-perception theory, the choice to behave altruistically "now", rather than the nudge itself, is the crucial element in the causal relationship. These findings are consistent with positive path-dependence, which we interpret as moral consistency.
Exploration & Self-Selection: Revisiting Roy (with Barton Hamilton) [pdf]
Reject & Resubmit at Games and Economic Behavior.
We study how selection shapes exploratory versus exploitative behavior. Using a laboratory experiment, we decompose Roy's (1951) theory of selection and study the effect of traits on innovative behavior when information type is assigned versus when it is selected. Consistent with theory, when information type is assigned, we find that (1) there are distinct behavioral patterns leading to earnings' disparities and (2) the returns to personality traits are ambiguous, and significantly depend on the type of information assigned. By contrast, when individuals self-select their information type, we show that they leverage their trait-based advantage, their information choice is optimal and, as predicted by Heckman & Honore (1990), the earnings' disparities disappear.
Self-Serving Dishonesty: The Role of Self-Confidence in Driving Dishonesty (with Robert Slonim & Franziska Tausch) [pdf]
Under Review.
Ambiguity and uncertainty as an explanation for ethical blind spots is well-documented. We contribute to this line of research by showing that these blind spots arise even when there is naturally occurring uncertainty---that is, when individuals are simply uncertain of the truth they ``fill-in" this uncertainty in a self-serving way. To examine self-serving dishonesty, we asked a sample of U.S. car owners to respond to an auto insurance underwriting questionnaire that affects their price of insurance (i.e., premium), and investigated how financial incentives affect the honesty of their responses. We find, consistent with the current literature, that people have a strong preference for truthfulness, but only when they are confident of the objective truth. However, when people are not completely certain of the objectively correct answer, significant dishonesty occurs in a self-serving manner. We also find that reports of confidence do not depend on incentives and thus self-serving dishonesty is not strategic.
Vice and Virtue Behaviours: Substitution and Non-Substitution Effects (with Alex Cornish) [pdf]
Under Review.
We examine how the U.S. tax policy that encourages charitable giving also affects seemingly unrelated virtue and vice behaviours: exercise and smoking. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we calculate tax liabilities for 16,682 individuals over 5 waves from which we can construct the price of giving to charity. We estimate the structural model of joint consumption developed by Dinardo & Lemieux (1992, 2001) to disentangle behavioral changes that arise from changes in relative prices of the two behaviors (i.e., substitution effects) from the behavioral changes that arise from changes in the implicit prices of the two behaviors (i.e., non-substitution effects). Contrary to reduced form results which confound these two effects, we find that charitable giving and exercise are substitutes in consumption, but the opposite-sign non-substitution effect dominates. On the other hand, charitable giving and smoking are also substitutes in consumption, but there are no significant non-substitution effects. Our results tentatively suggest how the government might efficiently encourage charitable giving, while also promoting public health investment. Further, our results demonstrate the breadth of the effects of tax policy on charitable giving.
In Progress:
Learning to Give: Professional versus Consumer Reviews
We estimate and compare the effect of information from professional versus consumer reviews on consumer behavior. We do so in a pro-social context and examine how information about a charity's effectiveness impacts willingness to donate. We move beyond the existing literature to examine how two distinct sources of information, professional reviews versus consumer reviews, differentially affect individual's willingness to give. We find that individuals place significantly more value on professional reviews than on equivalent consumer reviews. However, when individuals receive a second piece of information they update their willingness to donate similarly regardless of the source: individuals' willingness to donate is unaffected by ``good news" about the charity, but significantly negatively affected by ``bad" news.
Codes of Conduct at Work
Eliciting Risk and Altruism Preferences: Experimental Evidence (with Romain Gauriot & Robert Slonim)
Spending on Image: Substitution and non-Substitution Effects
Parents' Investments in Children and Children's Investment in Themselves (with Robert A. Pollak)
