Publications
Self-Persuasion: Evidence from Field Experiments at International Debating Competitions
with Peter Schwardmann and Joël van der Weele Forthcoming at the American Economic Review (replication files)
Image Concerns in Pledges to Give Blood: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Christian J. Meyer Journal of Economic Psychology (2021) (replication files)
Social Influence in Prosocial Behavior: Evidence From a Large-Scale Experiment with Lorenz Goette
Journal of the European Economic Association (2021) (replication files)
Unequal Consequences of Covid 19 across Age and Income: Representative Evidence from Six Countries with Michele Belot, Syngjoo Choi, Eline van den Broek-Altenburg, Julian Jamison and Nick Papageorge
Review of Economics of the Household (2021) (replication files)
Socio-Demographic Factors Associated with Self-Protecting Behavior during the Covid-19 Pandemic with Nick Papageorge, Matthew Zahn, Michele Belot, Eline van den Broek-Altenburg, Syngjoo Choi, and Julian Jamison
Journal of Population Economics (2021)
Does Positive Feedback of Social Impact Motivate Prosocial Behavior? A Field Experiment with Blood Donors with Lorenz Goette
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2020) (replication files)
Working Papers
The Limits of Social Recognition: Experimental Evidence from Blood Donors with Lorenz Goette (Abstract, SSRN working paper)
Does social recognition motivate prosocial individuals? We run large-scale experiments at Italy’s main blood donors association, testing social recognition in social media and peer groups. We experimentally disentangle visibility concerns and peer comparisons, and study how exposure to different social norms affects giving. In three studies, we find that a simple ask to donate is at least as effective as offering social recognition. A survey experiment with blood donors indicates that social recognition backfires when offered to people that are already perceived as good citizens. Our results suggest that increasing visibility of good actions can backfire when perceived as image-seeking.
Sorting Into Incentives for Prosocial Behavior with Christian. J. Meyer (Abstract, SSRN working paper)
This paper studies incentivized voluntary contributions to a charitable activity.
Motivated by the market for blood donations in Germany, we study a setting where different incentives coexist and agents can choose to donate without receiving monetary compensation. This lets agents reveal and signal their individual preferences through their actions. In a model that interacts image concerns of agents with intrinsic and extrinsic incentives to donate, we show that this setting can bring about efficiency gains in the collection similar to those deriving from self-selection in second-degree price discrimination. We develop a laboratory experiment to test our theoretical predictions under controlled conditions. Results show that a collection system where compensation can be turned down can improve the efficiency of collection. Introducing the choice to be compensated does not crowd out unpaid donations. A significant share of donors chooses to donate without being compensated. Heterogeneity in treatment effects suggests gender-specific preferences over signaling.
Social Preferences Under the Shadow of the Future with Felix Kölle and Simone Quercia (Abstract)
Social interactions predominantly take place under the shadow of the future. Previous literature on infinitely repeated games has highlighted the primary role of self-interested strategic considerations in explaining outcomes. Using indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma games, this paper demonstrates experimentally the importance of social preferences for achieving efficient cooperative outcomes. Sorting agents by their prosociality, we find that cooperation is three to four times higher among prosocial players compared to selfish players. We also show that social preferences are less important when individuals interact in mixed populations. This can explain why the influence of social preferences has not been detected in previous studies.
Non-refereed Publications
Six-Country Survey on Covid-19 with Michele Belot, Eline van den Broek-Altenburg, Syngjoo Choi, Julian Jamison, and Nick Papageorge
Covid Economics (2020) (IZA discussion paper, DATA)