We experimentally study the effects of allotment - the division of an item into homogeneous units - in independent private value auctions. We compare a single-item, first-price auction with two equivalent treatments with allotment: a two-unit discriminatory auction and two simultaneous single-unit first-price auctions. We find that allotment mitigates overbidding, with this effect being stronger in the discriminatory auction. In the allotment treatments, we observe large and persistent bid spreading. Across treatments, the discriminatory auction is the least efficient and generates the lowest revenue.

This research investigates the use of pro-social emotions to improve cooperation. In particular, it tries to reconcile the results from Noussair and Tucker (2007) and Lopez et al. (2010). To reach this goal the experiment considers different degrees of revelation: no revelation, partial and full disclosure of information. Additionally, I use different microeconometric specifications to accommodate different hypothesis about the motivation of the subjects. My results diverge from those of Lopez et al. because I find that revealing the decision of a single subject at random does not significantly increase cooperation, which is the main result of these authors. Also, my findings indicate that cooperation is triggered only when I reveal information of either 3 or all the subjects in the group, the last case being similar to the public observability of Noussair and Tucker. These authors find a non-permanent increase in contributions, so I do but using a positive framed-experiment with disclosure of additional information, the group’s earning loss. Therefore, random revelation together with the disclosure of information about subjects’ decisions appears to be a good alternative to promote cooperation in a sample pool of undergraduate students. Also, I observe a reduction in contributions over time, but in the random revelation treatment this decay by less than 40%. The most interesting result that I obtain is the evidence of altruism and positive reciprocity in the specification of Ashley et al. (2003, 2010), instead of the matching in contributions reported by these authors.

Yes / Based on the previous studies, the shallow water equations (SWEs) model was proven to be insufficient to consider the flow turbulence due to its simplified Reynolds-averaged form. In this study, the k-ε model was used to improve the ability of the SWEs model to capture the flow turbulence. In terms of the numerical source terms modelling, the combined k-ε SWEs model was improved by a recently proposed surface gradient upwind method (SGUM) to facilitate the extra turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) source terms in the simulation. The laboratory experiments on both the smooth and rough bed flows were also conducted under the uniform and non-uniform flow conditions for the validation of the proposed numerical model. The numerical simulations were compared to the measured data in the flow velocity, TKE and power spectrum. In the power spectrum comparisons, a well-studied Kolmogorov’s rule was also employed to complement both the numerical and experimental results and to demonstrate that the energy cascade trend was well-held by the investigated flows. / The Major State Basic Research Development Program (973 program) of China (Grant Number 2013CB036402). Open Fund from the State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, China (Grant Number SKLH-OF-1103).

Geological Carbon Storage (GCS) is considered as one of the key techniques to reduce the rate of atmospheric emissions of CO2 and thereby to contribute to controlling the global warming. A successful application of a GCS project requires the capability of the formation to trap CO2 for a long term. In this context, processes related to CO2 trapping and also possible leakage of CO2 to the near surface environment need to be understood. The overall aim of this thesis is to understand the flow and transport of CO2 through porous media in the context of geological storage of CO2. The entire range of scales, including the pore scale, the laboratory scale, the field experiment scale and the industrial scale of CO2 injection operation are addressed, and some of the key processes investigated by means of experiments and modeling.  First, a numerical model and laboratory experimental setup were developed to investigate the CO2 gas flow, mimicking the system in the near-surface conditions in case a leak from the storage formation should occur. The system specifically addressed the coupled flow and mass transport of gaseous CO2 both in the porous domain as well as the free flow domain above it. The comparison of experiments and modelling results showed a very good agreement indicating that the model developed can be applied to evaluate monitoring and surface detection of potential CO2 leakage. Second, the field scale CO2 injection test carried out in a shallow aquifer in Maguelone, France was analyzed and modeled. The results showed that Monte Carlo simulations accounting for the heterogeneity effects of the permeability field did capture the key observations of the monitoring data, while a homogeneous model could not represent them. Third, a numerical model based on phase-field method was developed and model simulations carried out addressing the effect of wettability on CO2-brine displacement at the pore-scale. The results show that strongly water-wet reservoirs provide a better potential for the dissolution trapping, due to the increase of interface between CO2 and brine with very low contact angles. The results further showed that strong water-wet conditions also imply a strong capillary effect, which is important for residual trapping of CO2. Finally, numerical model development and model simulations were carried out to address the large scale geological storage of CO2 in the presence of impurity gases in the CO2 rich phase. The results showed that impurity gases N2 and CH4 affected the spatial distribution of the gas (the supercritical CO2 rich phase), and a larger volume of reservoir is needed in comparison to the pure CO2 injection scenario. In addition, the solubility trapping significantly increased in the presence of N2 and CH4.

J'ai étudié deux nouvelles configurations de double-colonne pour distillation hétéroazéotropique. Ces configurations sont appropriées à la récupération simultanée des composants des mélanges binaires hétéroazéotropiques et homoazéotropiques (en utilisant un tiers corps (entraîneur)). Elle sont opérées en système fermé, c'est-à-dire, il n'y a pas de soutirage de produit continu. D'abord, en appliquant un modèle simplifié, j'ai étudié la faisabilité de la séparation d'un mélange hétéroazéotropique (1-butanol – eau), puis celle d'un mélange homoazéotropique (2-propanol – eau) aidé par entraîneur benzène ou cyclohexane, en utilisant le SDC. Puis, j'ai étudié cette configuration par modélisation rigoureuse, en appliquant le simulateur dynamique du logiciel professionnel ChemCAD (CC-DColumn). J'ai comparé la nouvelle configuration avec le RD, sur la base des résultats obtenus par toutes les deux méthodes d'étude. Le SDC s'est avéré faisable et compétitif avec le RD : pendant la même durée ou plus courte, les rendements des composants ont été plus élevés. Puis, on a étendu le SDC à un système plus flexible (système de double-colonne généralisé, SDCG) qui est approprié à la séparation des mélanges binaires homoazéotropiques aidé par entraîneur (en le cas présent : cyclohexane ou n-hexane). J'ai étendu la méthode de faisabilité aussi à l'étude de cette configuration. Le SDCG s'est avéré aussi faisable. En appliquant modélisation rigoureuse, j'ai étudié les effets des nouveaux paramètres opératoires sur la durée, et j'ai comparé le DCG avec le SDC. Le SDCG s'est avéré encore plus avantageux que le SDC : la durée a été plus courte, et les besoins spécifiques d'énergie des produits ont été plus bas. J'ai étudié le SDC et le SDCG aussi par des manipulations exécutées sur installations de taille laboratoire et pilote. D'abord, j'ai fait des manipulations laboratoires pour la séparation du mélange binaire hétéroazéotropique, en utilisant une installation en verre qui a été opérée aussi comme RD et SDC. Le SDC s'est avéré faisable et compétitif avec le RD aussi sur la base des résultats de ces manipulations : pendant la même durée, les rendements des tous les deux composants ont été plus élevés. Puis, en utilisant l'installation pilote comme SDC, j'ai étudié la séparation ci-dessus. Après cette manipulation, j'ai étudié la séparation du mélange binaire homoazéotropique en appliquant n-hexane comme entraîneur, en opérant le système comme RD et SDCG. La manipulation faite avec le SDCG a montré que la production simultanée de deux composants est faisable avec cette configuration. / Distillation is the method the most frequently applied for the separation of liquid mixtures, e.g. for the recovery of the components of the waste solvent mixtures. Because of the high energy demand of these processes the optimal design and operation of the distillation equipments are important from economic and also environmental points of view. The separation of the azeotropic mixtures needs special distillation methods like heteroazeotropic distillation. In the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries it is often applied in batch mode. The aims of the thesis are to study the feasibility of a new Double-Column System (DCS) for batch heteroazeotropic distillation and to compare it with the traditional Batch Rectifier (BR) equipped with a decanterto study the above configurations by rigorous simulationto extend the DCS (Generalised Double-Column System, GDCS) and to study this new configuration by the above methodsto do laboratory experiments for both configurations in order to prove the feasibility of the separation and validate the calculations, respectively. Two new double-column configurations for batch heteroazeotropic distillation were studied. These configurations are designed to produce simultaneously the components of binary heteroazeotropic and homoazeotropic mixtures (by using an entrainer). They are operated in closed system (without continuous product withdrawal). First the feasibility of the separation of a heteroazeotropic mixture (1-butanol – water) and that of a homoazeotropic one by using an entrainer (isopropanol – water + benzene or cyclohexane) in the DCS were investigated by a simplified model. Then the operation of this configuration was modelled by rigorous simulation by using the dynamic simulator of the professional flowsheet simulator ChemCAD (CC-DColumn). On the basis of the results obtained by both methods the new configuration was compared with the BR. The DCS proved to be feasible and competitive with the BR: during the same or shorter time the recoveries of the components were higher. Then the DCS was extended to a more flexible version (Generalised Double-Column System, GDCS), which is suitable for the separation of binary homoazeotropic mixtures (by using an entrainer, in this work: cyclohexane or n- exane). The feasibility method was extended for the study of this configuration, as well. The GDCS proved to be feasible. Then the effects of its additional operational parameters on the duration were studied by rigorous simulation. The GDCS was compared with the DCS by rigorous simulation, as well. The GDCS proved to be more advantageous than the DCS: the duration was shorter and the specific energy demands of the products were lower. The DCS and GDCS were also investigated by laboratory and pilot plant experiments. First laboratory experiments were done for the separation of the binary heteroazeotropic mixture in a simple small size glass equipment operated as BR and DCS. The DCS proved to be feasible and competitive with the BR also on the basis of the results of these experiments: during the same time the recovery of both components were higher. Then a pilot plant was used for the same separation as a DCS. After this experiment the separation of the binary homoazeotropic mixture by using n-hexane as entrainer was studied in the equipment operated as BR and GDCS. The experiment showed that the simultaneous production of two components is feasible also in the GDCS.

El enfoque experimental es el corazón de algunos de los desarrollos más interesantes de la economía. Básicamente, los experimentos se utilizan para generar datos controlados. El término "datos controlados" se refiere al hecho de que la mayoría de los factores en los que influyen las conductas se mantienen constantes, y solo un factor de interés (el "tratamiento'') cambia a la vez. Este es el punto crítico para hacer una inferencia causal. A veces, este proceso de generación ocurre de forma natural (es decir, un "experimento natural''). Sin embargo, la mayoría de las veces, el investigador es el encargado de desarrollar y controlar el proceso de generación. Todas las áreas de la ciencia (incluida la economía) deben considerar todas las metodologías que se pueden aplicar. La teoría, los experimentos de laboratorio, los experimentos de campo, los experimentos online, la neuroeconomía, la investigación observacional y social, las encuestas y más, contribuyen a nuestra comprensión del mundo. En el primer capítulo de a tesis, se presentan resultados experimentales sobre subastas. Se consideran dos tratamientos experimentales: si el comprador prefiere más la calidad a la dimensión del precio, o si este último importa más que la calidad. Los participantes se asignan al azar a uno de estos dos tratamientos y se emparejan en grupos de cinco. Juegan una subasta de períodos múltiples, donde la calidad es exógena asignada en cada ronda y los sujetos presentan una rebaja al precio base anunciado. Las pujas se transforman en puntuaciones que combinan la calidad exógena y la rebaja. El vendedor con la puntuación más alta gana la subasta. Los resultados sugieren que, cuando el peso de la rebaja es mayor, los participantes pujan más cerca del equilibrio. Sin embargo, la probabilidad de obtener un resultado eficiente es mayor cuando se pone más peso en la calidad. En el segundo capítulo analizo los resultados de un experimento en línea en el que los sujetos juegan cuatro versiones del juego Stag-Hunt. Hay tres tratamientos: línea de base, retraso de tiempo y retraso motivado. En el segundo, los sujetos deben esperar 40 segundos antes de elegir una decisión. En el tercero, deben esperar 40 segundos y escribir un texto para motivar sus decisiones. Al final del juego, los participantes informan sobre creencias, preferencias de riesgo y una medida de confianza. El resultado principal es que los sujetos optan por colaborar menos cuando deliberan más. La explicación es que este tratamiento ayuda a los sujetos a comprender que esta es la opción más segura. En el tercer capítulo, los autores estiman el impacto de un programa educativo basado en juegos destinado a promover el uso sostenible del agua. Esto se hizo en la ciudad de Lucca, con miles de alumnos de 2º a 4º de primaria. Los hallazgos indican que los estudiantes del grupo de tratamiento (participantes del programa) mostraron una mayor conciencia sobre el consumo de agua respecto a aquellos estudiantes que no participaron en el programa. Además, encuentran que el efecto positivo aún se observa después de seis meses, lo que sugiere que los programas educativos basados en juegos pueden ser un instrumento eficaz para promover comportamientos prosociales en el consumo de agua.

The goal of the PhD thesis is to investigate the role of behavioural economics considerations for the performance of conservation auctions. The findings of the three scientific articles suggest that behavioural economics considerations like social (distributional) preferences and reference-dependent preferences may affect the attractiveness and economic performance of conservation auctions, respectively. The results of the first and second articles are based on laboratory experiments conducted with university students, in Germany. The third article implements a field experiment to measure farmers’ preferences over Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) allocation mechanisms and the role of fairness therein, in the context of agrobiodiversity loss in Benin.

Since James G. March introduced the concepts of exploration and exploitation in 1991, they have become ubiquitous in research on organizations and management. According to March (1991), exploration and exploitation are two sets of activities that allow systems (i.e., agents, either organizations or individuals) to adapt to their environment. On the one hand, exploitation activities are based on pre-existing knowledge, and consist of its implementation and/or refinement (e.g., production). On the other hand, exploration is based on knowledge that is not currently possessed by the system and, hence, refers to those activities that allow to acquire such new knowledge (e.g., search and experimentation). Scholars have produced a large number of contributions that have expanded our knowledge of exploration and exploitation even going beyond the initial boundaries of the field of organizational learning. Today, this large body of contributions that has developed over 30 years appears complex and divided into a plethora of research subfields (e.g., Almahendra and Ambos, 2015). Thus, research on exploration and exploitation has reached a level of conceptual and methodological sophistication that demands a high level of effort from researchers wishing to approach it. Among the multiple strands of emerging research, some scholars (such as Wilden et al., 2018) have recently begun to propose a return to the adoption of a behavioral approach to the study of exploration and exploitation. The earliest behavioral approach adopted in organizational studies is that of the "Carnegie School", which included Herbert Simon, Richard Cyert, and James March himself. Such an approach focuses the investigation of organizations on human behavior. In other words, adopting a behavioral approach involves studying organizations from the attitudes of their members, cognition, rationality, motivation, relationships, conflicts, and many other instances of psychological, economic, and social factors that influence human behavior (see, for example, March and Simon, 1958; Cyert and March, 1963). Today, this return to the behavioral approach is also associated with the "micro-foundations of strategy" movement (e.g., Felin et al., 2015) and so-called behavioral strategy (Powell et al., 2011). In essence, while the former is based on the importance of studying organizations and strategy by adopting a level of analysis below the collective/systemic (i.e., organizational) level, the latter includes all the elements that already characterized the behavioral approach (i.e., psychological, and social factors), reinforced by insights from the behavioral economics literature and the adoption of multiple methods, including experiments. This Doctoral dissertation enters this discussion and aims to investigate exploration and exploitation by adopting a behavioral approach, a "micro-foundational" perspective, and research methods that include laboratory experiments and computer simulations. The first study is a literature review paper with three purposes, each pursued in one of its three sections. First, it addresses the conceptual development of the exploration-exploitation literature that led to the emergence of the complex body of contributions mentioned above, providing a kind of "road map" of the research field based on the major literature reviews published over the past three decades. This is intended as a contribution towards researchers who want to take the first steps in the study of exploration-exploitation research. At the end of this road map, the paper by Wilden et al. (2018) is presented, linking the entire field of research to an emerging stream of research directed toward a return to James March's behavioral approach, enhanced by contributions in the areas of "micro-foundations" (e.g., Felin et al., 2015) and behavioral strategy (Powell et al., 2011). Second, based on the approach promoted in such research stream, a review of the literature on experimental studies of exploration and exploitation is provided. Laboratory experiments are considered key methods for advancing the study of exploration and exploitation by adopting a behavioral approach. Finally, the first essay is concluded with three suggested directions for further research: the improvement of existing conceptualizations through modeling, the further sophistication of existing experimental designs to capture features of managerial decision making that are currently beyond the scope of the state-of-the-art models underlying the mainly adopted experimental investigations, and the consideration of a multilevel approach to the study of individual exploration and exploitation, which consists of examining the variables that influence individual behavior at different organizational levels. The second study consists of an experimental investigation of the role of different sources of uncertainty on individual exploration-exploitation. It is based on the rationale underlying the third further research path proposed in the first study. Although an increasing adoption of laboratory experiments can be acknowledged in the research field, it is here argued that scholars have not experimentally disentangled the effects of two different types of uncertainty that emerge in the managerial and psychological literature, namely internal uncertainty, and external uncertainty. The former consists in the inability of individuals to predict future performance; while the latter results from the external environment and consists of unknown information about phenomena that may affect the final outcomes of a decision. The experimental design deployed in the study exposes a group of participants to the presence of the sole internal uncertainty, and a treatment group to the combined presence of the two sources. Findings show that the combined presence of these two sources of uncertainty may lead to the over-exploitation of initial routines, and, consequently, to the inability of individuals to exploit new opportunities stemming by alternatives discovered over time. Finally, the third study focuses on imitation, and exploration and exploitation, and builds on an agent-based model and computer simulations. This essay follows the first research trajectory suggested in the first study. While prominent research has defined imitation as a less costly alternative to experimentation (i.e., exploration), the possible role of imitation in the exploration-exploitation trade-off appears to be under-investigated. The interplay between imitation and exploration is rendered by the modeling of two types of agents: imitators and explorers. Differently from previous studies based on modeling, agent types are explicitly modeled as Simonian "satisficers". Experimentation is modeled as random search, whereas imitation builds on research on imitative heuristics. When engaging in adaptation in a competitive environment, both the types of agent experience "over-crowding" effects depending on the characteristics of their type. The paper concludes with the acknowledgement of limitations of the adopted model and proposes further investigation paths that include the calibration through experimental data.

Le système électoral fait de plus en plus objet de débats et de discussions au Canada et ailleurs dans le monde. Bien qu’il existe de nombreuses études sur les avantages et les inconvénients des différents systèmes électoraux, très peu d’entre elles examinent les préférences des citoyens concernant les modes de scrutin et plus particulièrement la façon dont les individus expriment leur choix sur le bulletin de vote. Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, je m’attarde aux questions suivantes : quelle façon de voter les citoyens préfèrent-ils et pourquoi ? Afin de répondre à ces questions, j'ai mené une expérience en laboratoire avec près de 200 participants dans le cadre des élections fédérales canadiennes de 2019. Les participants furent invités à voter dans une série d'élections en utilisant chacune des trois façons de voter suivantes en ordre aléatoire : scrutin à vote unique, vote par approbation et vote par rangement. Après chaque vote, les participants furent informés du résultat électoral dans leur groupe et interrogés sur leur niveau de satisfaction à l'égard de chaque façon de voter. Les résultats démontrent que les citoyens préfèrent avoir la possibilité de classer les partis plutôt que d'utiliser un scrutin à vote unique ou un vote par approbation. Les individus sont également plus susceptibles d’aimer un mode scrutin lorsqu'ils sont satisfaits des résultats de l’élection. / Debates over which electoral system would best serve the general public are on the rise in Canada and in other democratic countries. Although there exists a rich literature on the benefits and shortcomings of different electoral systems, very few studies examine citizens’ preferences regarding voting rules and the ways in which individuals can cast their vote. In this paper, I address the following questions: What voting rules do citizens prefer and why? To address these questions, I conducted a within-subject laboratory experiment with nearly 200 participants in the run up to the 2019 Canadian federal election. Participants were asked to vote in a set of elections using each of the three following types of ballots in random order: one-mark ballot, approval voting and ranked voting. After each vote, participants were informed of the election results and asked about their level of satisfaction with each voting system. The results show that citizens prefer having the option to rank order the parties rather than using a one-mark ballot or approval voting. Individuals are also more likely to favour voting rules when they are satisfied with the results of the election.

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