Rural inhabitants of developing countries face extraordinarily risky environments, and decision-making under risk has crucial implications for the welfare of the rural poor. Therefore, obtaining a better understanding of the behaviour under risk of low-income populations is a vital step in the comprehension of human behaviour, and is important for effective policy design and evaluation, as well as for shedding light on production, investment and technology adoption decisions. In Chapter One, I analyze data collected from a laboratory experiment involving poor subjects in rural Ethiopia, in order to determine which decision models (and corresponding risk preferences) best describe the decision-making under risk of inhabitants. I find that expected utility theory (EUT) does not provide a good overall description of the decisions made by participants in the experiment; instead, there is evidence of probability weighting and loss aversion, implying that rank-dependent and reference-dependent choice models are more likely to represent the true latent decision-making process of subjects. In Chapter Two, I analyze combined experimental and survey data from rural Ethiopia in order to evaluate the determinants of risk preferences as well as assess the degree of asset integration in experimental decisions. Analyzing both EUT and non-EUT decision models and using an instrumental variable strategy, I find that household wealth negatively affects both risk aversion and loss aversion, but independent background risk has no effect on risk preferences. Further, I find evidence of narrow framing, as opposed to asset integration, suggesting that participants make decisions in the experiment in isolation from outside wealth. In Chapter Three, I analyze experimental data from Brazil to evaluate whether subjects understand decision problems that use the complex Multiple Price List (MPL) elicitation procedure, and to determine which decision models best describe observed choices. I find that the MPL decision problems of the experiment enable a finer characterization of risk preferences as compared to Ordered Lottery Selection problems (used in the Ethiopian experiment). However, I find that a significant fraction of choice patterns in the MPL problems are intransitive, and the evidence indicates that subjects did not properly understand the decision problems and thus observed choices do not reveal true risk preferences. Therefore, the relatively complex MPL procedure may not be suitable for experiments conducted with poorly-educated subjects in developing country settings. Chapter Four presents a theory outlining the relationship between rational demand for index insurance – for which the net transfer between insurer and policyholders depends only on a publicly verifiable index – and wealth. Further, the validity of this theory is tested using the experimental data from Ethiopia. In line with the theoretical model presented, due to basis risk and actuarially unfair premiums, demand for index insurance is hump-shaped – first increasing then decreasing – in wealth. The results indicate that the low take-up of this product observed among the poorest (and most risk averse) individuals in recent field studies may result from rational choice rather than credit constraints or poor decision-making.

Os jogos de empresas, ambientes laboratoriais caracterizados por interações de múltiplas variáveis, têm sido pouco utilizados para pesquisas em face das críticas a sua validade interna, ou seja, à capacidade de o ambiente bem representar relações de causa e efeito (KEYS; WOLFE, 1990; STAINTON et al, 2010). Ao contrário, são usados com frequência para ensino-aprendizagem (FARIA et al, 2009) e considerados ambientes verossímeis quanto ao contexto organizacional e à capacidade de generalização dos resultados obtidos - validade externa (MICHALISIN et al, 2004; STAINTON et al, 2010). O oposto ocorre nos ambientes laboratoriais adotados no programa de pesquisa da economia experimental, que, ao utilizarem delineamentos simplificados (geralmente com fator único) têm maior reconhecimento para pesquisa, pois permitem o controle da validade interna (ROTH, 2010). Contudo, tais pesquisas são frequentemente criticadas pela baixa validade externa, decorrente da utilização do delineamento simplificado (LEVITT; LIST, 2007b, p. 353; CAMERER, 2011). Buscou-se nesta tese aproximar jogos de empresas e economia experimental e estudar as condições em que os jogos de empresas tornam-se ambientes laboratoriais adequados para pesquisas econômicas. Para cumprir este objetivo a tese foi composta por quatro estudos. O ensaio teórico revisitou os fundamentos dos programas de pesquisa de jogos de empresas e de economia experimental e permitiu delinear três estudos teórico-empíricos, conduzidos com os jogos de empresas. No primeiro, sob o enfoque neoclássico, foi verificado se os preços praticados em monopólio diferiram dos preços de oligopólio. Assim como sinaliza a teoria, os resultados convergiram com os estudos realizados a partir de Smith (1981), evidenciando validade interna. No segundo estudo, conduzido sob o enfoque da organização industrial, foram adotados dois modelos de aferição de poder de mercado e comparados sinal e magnitude dos desvios, ora estimados pela Nova Organização Industrial Empírica (NOIE), ora baseados em dados contábeis conforme o modelo de Estrutura-Conduta-Desempenho (ECD). O resultado foi condizente com os achados de Clay e Troesken (2003), evidenciando validade interna. No terceiro estudo, conduzido sob o enfoque da economia comportamental, foi examinado se o desempenho organizacional teve relação com o nível de confiança das estimativas subjetivas de gestores, como predito por Moore e Healy (2008), o que foi confirmado. Os resultados evidenciaram a adequação dos jogos de empresas nas pesquisas econômicas sobre oligopólio e poder de mercado, na verificação de validade externa, na condução de pesquisas experimentais e não experimentais. Os jogos de empresas, sob condições de validade interna, poderão ser adotados como ambientes laboratoriais por pesquisadores em Administração e Economia para replicar estudos seminais e ampliar a validade externa de hipóteses advindas de delineamentos simplificados. / With laboratory environment characterized by interactions of multiple variables, business games have had limited use in research to be criticized for the internal validity, i.e. the environment\'s capacity to represent relations of cause and effect (KEYS; WOLFE, 1990; STAINTON et al, 2010). Because of this, its use has been predominantly for educational purposes (FARIA et al, 2009). Despite this limitation, the business games have been cited as credible environments in relation to the organizational context, which increases the generalizability of the results (external validity) (MICHALISIN et al, 2004; STAINTON et al, 2010). The opposite occurs with the laboratory environments used in experimental economics, which, when using simplified research designs, usually with unique factor, have had more use in research, mainly through control of internal validity (ROTH, 2010). However, these studies are often criticized by the low external validity, caused by the use of the simplified design (LEVITT; LIST, 2007b, p 353;. CAMERER, 2011). This research, by approaching business games and experimental economics, verify the conditions under which the business games are laboratory environments for economic research and contribute to the limitations of validity in both research programs. Throughout the thesis were developed four studies to fulfill this goal. The review of research programs of business games and experimental economics, theoretical study, allowed us to propose the design of the empirical economic studies with the business games. In the first empirical study, with a focus on neoclassical approach, it was checked if the prices in monopoly differed from oligopoly. As previous studies, the research obtained similar results to previous studies realized since Smith (1981). In the second empirical study, conducted under the research program of industrial organization, sign and magnitude of the deviation of market power measurement model of the New Empirical Industrial Organization (NEIO) were compared to the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) based on accounting data. The result was consistent with Clay and Troesken (2003). In the third study, conducted under the program of behavioral economics, it was examined if organizational performance was related to the confidence level of subjective estimates of individuals, as predicted by Moore and Healy (2008), which was confirmed. The results showed evidence of the adequacy of the laboratory environment of business games for economic research in areas related to oligopoly and market power, to external validity verification, and realization of experimental and not experimental research. As a conclusion, researchers in Business Administration and Economics can use the business game environment for conducting research to evaluate the external validity of assumptions arising from simplified research designs, and for educational purposes in both areas.

Face à des enjeux économiques, politiques et environnementaux, les compagnies électriques développent des outils incitatifs visant à réduire la demande des consommateurs, en particulier lors des périodes de pointe de demande. Chez le client résidentiel, ces outils sont pour l’essentiel de nature tarifaire (tarification dynamique ou horo-saisonnière), ou informative (feedbacks sur la consommation). Lorsqu’un ou plusieurs de ces outils sont employés par les acteurs de la filière électrique, on attend une réaction du consommateur, sous forme d’un effacement, d’un report ou d’une réduction globale de la consommation. C’est ce phénomène de réaction que nous appelons la demand response. Afin d’évaluer l’efficacité de ces dispositifs, les compagnies développent des protocoles d’études, notamment des expérimentations de terrain (pilotes) durant lesquels les offres de la demand response sont implémentées sur un échantillon de population. Ces études donnent lieu à des analyses que nous avons compilées afin de tenter d’en extraire des enseignements généralisables. Nous mettons en avant les limites méthodologiques de ces démarches longues et coûteuses et dont la généralisation des résultats est parfois remise en question. Dans l’optique de proposer un éventuel substitut aux pilotes, nous avons examiné le potentiel des méthodes de l’économie expérimentale pour étudier la demand response. La discipline a pour objet d’évaluer l’efficacité d’institutions comme les marchés, mais aussi d’étudier les comportements et leurs déterminants. Est-il possible d’employer les méthodes de l’économie expérimentale afin d’analyser le comportement du consommateur résidentiel face à des incitations à réduire sa demande en électricité, en particulier lors des périodes de pointe ? L’économie expérimentale peut-elle se substituer aux pilotes de terrain ? L’économie expérimentale a déjà contribué à maintes reprises à la compréhension des marchés de gros de l’électricité. Mais jamais l’aspect « consommateur final » de la demand response n’a été abordé, ni dans son acceptabilité, ni dans son efficacité : c’est là que se situe notre contribution qui alimente cette thèse. Nous avons élaboré un protocole visant à mesurer l’acceptabilité de différentes offres de demand response, et mené une série de sessions expérimentales. Nous avons montré que l’acceptabilité des contrats de tarification de pointe est plus grande pour ces consommateurs que celle des contrats de type « bonus à l’effacement », du fait de l’asymétrie des comportements face aux risques de pertes et de gains probabilistes. De plus, une économie substantielle sur la facture électrique est nécessaire pour déclencher une motivation suffisante pour induire des changements de comportements. Quoi qu’il en soit, les offres tarifaires incitatives sont perçues comme un facteur de stress difficile à intégrer aux contraintes du quotidien de certains foyers. Les résultats montrent que l’économie expérimentale peut apporter des éléments utiles et robustes sur les briques fondamentales des comportements des ménages face à ces offres innovantes. Le type et la granularité des enseignements diffèrent de ceux obtenus par les pilotes. Ces derniers testent des solutions plus abouties industriellement ; ils sont relativement contraints et apportent des réponses en termes de modification de consommations in situ. Il s’est avéré difficile, voire impossible d’encapsuler les routines de consommation électrique des clients au sein du laboratoire. Le lien distendu entre l’instant de l’achat d’électricité et la réception de la facture n’est pas aisément modélisable lors de nos sessions expérimentales. Au-delà des résultats de l’expérimentation, nous montrons que l’économie expérimentale, si elle ne peut constituer un substitut partiel aux pilotes de terrain, peut intervenir en tant que méthodologie exploratoire à l’amont ou en complément de ces derniers, facilitant l’approche préalable des comportements des clients résidentiels. / Facing economic, political and environmental stakes, electricity providers are nowadays developing incentive tools, in order to reduce consumer’s demand, particularly during peak demand periods. For residential customers, these tools can be tariffs (dynamic pricing of time-of-use tariffs), or informative devices or services (feedbacks on historical or real-time consumption, given on various media). They might go along with automatization systems that can help cutting of some electric devices when needed. In order to evaluate the capacity of these settings among their customers, electricity utilities are developing quite a few studies, which are mainly field experiment often called pilots. During these pilots, demand response tools are implemented on a population sample. These long and expensive studies lid to quantitative and qualitative analysis. We have compiled about 40 of them and extract from this survey some generalizable teachings. We have shown what these results were and highlighted pilot programs’ methodological limits. In order to propose a substitute to these heavy experimentations, we assessed the capacity or experimental economics. This relatively new discipline’s objective is to evaluation the efficiency of institutions, like markets, but also to study what animate economic agents’ behaviour, e.g. preferences, beliefs, cognitive biases, willingness to pay… We were also able to elaborate an experimental protocol dedicated to the evaluation of some demand response contracts’ acceptability. The results collected during 14 experimental sessions gave us some innovative clues and insight on these contracts acceptability. But, beyond these results, we have demonstrated that even if experimental economics can’t obviously be a substitute for field experiments, it can represent an interesting exploratory methodology. To sum up the experimental economics can take part of residential customers’ behaviour understanding, performing upstream or in complement of pilot programs.

La théorie économique standard postule que les préférences individuelles sont stables. Cependant, de nombreux résultats en psychologie et en économie expérimentale montrent que le comportement humain contrevient régulièrement à ce principe fondamental. Certains facteurs connus pour influencer la valeur, comme le contexte affectif, ne sont pas pris en compte en économie. Leurs effets sont encore considérés comme des phénomènes contingents– des anomalies en marge de la rationalité, qui en tant que telles n’informent pas la théorie. Aujourd’hui que l’imagerie cérébrale permet de formuler et tester de nouvelles hypothèses, nous interrogeons le caractère contingent de l’influence du contexte sur les préférences, avec en tête l’idée que ces « biais » découleraient de propriétés inhérentes à la structure physique qui génère le comportement, à savoir le cerveau. Parce qu’ils reflètent les conditions a priori de tout jugement de valeur, ils ne sont pas contingents mais nécessaires, ce qui explique leur prévalence. Notre première étude fait la preuve de cette hypothèse dans le cas des biais de contexte : nous montrons que l’inertie de l’activité cérébrale combinée à l’automaticité de l’évaluation permet d'expliquer les effets du contexte sur la valeur chez le singe et l’être humain. Notre deuxième étude montre que la confiance est codée dans la même région cérébrale que la valeur, suggérant que la peut être comprise comme un jugement de valeur de second ordre. Enfin, notre troisième étude montre un biais d’attribution comportemental menant à des interférences entre valeur et confiance, ce qui était prédit par la combinaison des résultats de la première et de la deuxième étude. / Standard economic theory postulates that individual preferences are stable. However, numerous psychology and experimental economics findings show this fundamental principle is often violated in actual human behavior. Some factors known to influence value, such as affective context, are not taken into account. Their effects are still considered contingent phenomena – anomalies observed on the margins of rationality – and as such do not inform economic theories. As modern neuroimaging techniques enable us to formulate and test new hypotheses, we propose to examine the contingent nature of this instability, in the light of the idea that these "biases" are in fact directly related to the inherent properties of the physical structure that generates behavior, namely the brain. Because they reflect the a priori conditions of any value judgment, they are not contingent but necessary, which explains their prevalence in observed behavior. Our first study proves this hypothesis in the case of context‐induced valuation biases: we show that the inertia of cerebral activity combined with the automaticity of evaluation can explain the effects of context on valuation in macaque monkeys and humans. Our second study shows that confidence is encoded in the same brain region as value in humans, suggesting that confidence judgments can be understood as second‐order value judgments. Our third study behaviorally demonstrates an attribution bias leading to interferences between value and confidence judgments, as predicted by combining the results of the first and the second study in humans.

La thèse porte sur les comportements de consommation durable des ménages. Lorsque les comportements de consommation permettent de retirer une utilité individuelle, au détriment de l’intérêt général, ils peuvent être analysés comme un dilemme social. Les expériences de jeu de bien public permettent de tester des comportements en situation de dilemme social. Consommer de manière durable peut être considéré comme une contribution volontaire à un bien public. La problématique est de mieux comprendre les mécanismes de contribution volontaire à des biens collectifs qui génèrent des externalités. Trois expériences nous permettent d’analyser les différences de contributions entre un bien privé et des biens publics, mal(s) publics et biens clubs. Plus particulièrement, nous nous intéressons aux externalités négatives d’un mal public, à l’exclusivité du bien club et aux effets de la présence de biens collectifs multiples. / This thesis focuses on the sustainable consumer behaviour of households. When consumer behaviours allow for individual utility, at the expense of public interest, these can be analysed as a social dilemma. Experiments in public good games allow for testing behaviours of individuals subjected to social dilemma situations. Sustainable consumption can be considered as a voluntary contribution to a public good. The objective is to better understand the mechanisms behind voluntary contributions to public goods that generate externalities. Three experiments will allow us to analyse the differences in contributions between a private good and public goods, public bad(s) and club goods. We focus on the negative externalities of a public bad, the exclusivity of the club good and the effects of multiple public goods.

We approach the topic of provision of public goods in an experimental economic study using the Public Goods Game setting. We allow subjects to punish each other but vary the structure and amount of information they can base their decisions upon. We try to add to the current literature on reciprocity and study whether people are willing to punish under such incomplete information. Since punishment under uncertain conditions can be quite destructive in terms of welfare, this closely relates to whether people are able to provide public good themselves or whether they need some external assistance. In terms of public policy, this can add to the debate on when should government provide certain services and when it should be left to individuals. In terms of behaviour inside of an enterprise, our study could be well applied to problems that arise when teams work on a common project but some people free-ride on effort of others.

No description available.

This Thesis contains three essays on the economic behavior of individuals. The first essay, co-authored with Andreas Blume and Douglas DeJong is an experimental investigation into the contribution of cognition in a strategic setting where the goal is to coordinate by choosing different courses of action. Specifically, we study whether cognitive limits affect the ability of agents to achieve dispersion outcomes and; further, how these limits affect the means by which dispersion outcomes are attained. We find that in the self-play treatment when agents are allowed to play against themselves, dispersion outcomes are relatively easy to obtain; however, when paired with others, cognitive differences increase the difficulty in achieving a dispersion outcome. When we relax the cognitive constraints, the ability of participants to achieve dispersion outcomes increases to approximately the same level as those in the self-play treatment; further, the means by which dispersion outcomes are achieved does not differ from those in the self-play treatment. In the second essay I investigate how noise impacts incentives provided by contracts that are structured with option-style payoffs. Existing theory suggest that one cannot commit to not renegotiate based on the receipt of a non-contractible signal; however, others suggest that in the presence of a noise in the non-contractible signal may not result in partners wanting to renegotiate since the initial contract may still provide incentives for subsequent periods. Using an experimental economics approach I find that players who receive a perfect non-contractible signal do not put forth high effort in a subsequent period; however, the presence of noise in the signal may result in players continuing to put forth high effort in a subsequent period. A behavioral explanation is provided for these observations. In the final essay for which this Thesis is named, I employ a field study methodology to investigate the incremental role that social capital plays in both individual lending decisions and outcomes. I find that lenders are more likely to choose borrowers who have social capital; however, social capital does not impact the interest rate that borrowers pay or the rate of default.

Various studies of asset markets have shown that traders are capable of learning and transmitting information through prices in many situations. In this paper we replace human traders with intelligent software agents in a series of simulated markets. Using these simple learning agents, we are able to replicate several features of the experiments with human subjects, regarding (1) dissemination of information from informed to uninformed traders, and (2) aggregation of information spread over different traders.

The purpose of this study is to take some steps towards a better understanding of how groups in firms use information in their decision making when competing in markets. A business game is used as an experiment, since it has the advantages that the playing of the game can be repeated many times, the decision making situation can be controlled and monitored, and the information in the game can be altered. The game used here deals with five firms, each with 2- 9 participants, competing on the same experimental oligopoly market by making repeated decisions on price, advertising, investments and production. Both students and professionals have played the game extensively during a decade. The market model in the business game has dynamic properties, with production capacity, stocks and long-term effects of advertising. Due to the relative complexity of the market model, optimal solutions for more than one period could only be computed numerically. The methods used for determining these optimal solutions are described, since they can also be useful when determining solutions in other market models. The optimal solutions to this model are compared to the decisions that the firms made when the business game was played. It was found that the dynamic non-cooperative (Nash) solution gives the best description for the decisions made in the games. In the experiments, different amounts of information were made available to the firms. The decisions differed depending on what information the firms had available. Additional information proved to have a positive value only when some, but not all, of the firms received this information. Furthermore, it was found that firms with the same amount of available information made different decisions. These differences in decisions could be explained by the decision making processes in the groups, but not by the compositions of the groups. The firms in the business game appeared rigid in their decision making. Even after the game had ended, they were committed to their earlier decisions even when these decisions had been less successful. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.