{"title":"No mood effects in the field: The case of car inspections","authors":"Margaret Samahita , Håkan J. Holm","doi":"10.1016/j.joep.2023.102612","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We study mood effect in the field to measure its economic impact and address shortcomings in the existing literature, which typically uses one single mood proxy and ignores selection effects. Using over 50 million car inspections in Sweden and England and multiple mood proxies, we study whether car inspectors are more lenient on good mood days and if car owners self-select into those days. We find evidence of a “Friday effect” in England and a small selection bias, but no support for consistent mood effect. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the expectations of rational actors who may exploit mood effect and the need to study mood in the field using different settings and multiple proxies to avoid hasty conclusions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48318,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Economic Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487023000132","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We study mood effect in the field to measure its economic impact and address shortcomings in the existing literature, which typically uses one single mood proxy and ignores selection effects. Using over 50 million car inspections in Sweden and England and multiple mood proxies, we study whether car inspectors are more lenient on good mood days and if car owners self-select into those days. We find evidence of a “Friday effect” in England and a small selection bias, but no support for consistent mood effect. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the expectations of rational actors who may exploit mood effect and the need to study mood in the field using different settings and multiple proxies to avoid hasty conclusions.
期刊介绍:
The Journal aims to present research that will improve understanding of behavioral, in particular psychological, aspects of economic phenomena and processes. The Journal seeks to be a channel for the increased interest in using behavioral science methods for the study of economic behavior, and so to contribute to better solutions of societal problems, by stimulating new approaches and new theorizing about economic affairs. Economic psychology as a discipline studies the psychological mechanisms that underlie economic behavior. It deals with preferences, judgments, choices, economic interaction, and factors influencing these, as well as the consequences of judgements and decisions for economic processes and phenomena. This includes the impact of economic institutions upon human behavior and well-being. Studies in economic psychology may relate to different levels of aggregation, from the household and the individual consumer to the macro level of whole nations. Economic behavior in connection with inflation, unemployment, taxation, economic development, as well as consumer information and economic behavior in the market place are thus among the fields of interest. The journal also encourages submissions dealing with social interaction in economic contexts, like bargaining, negotiation, or group decision-making. The Journal of Economic Psychology contains: (a) novel reports of empirical (including: experimental) research on economic behavior; (b) replications studies; (c) assessments of the state of the art in economic psychology; (d) articles providing a theoretical perspective or a frame of reference for the study of economic behavior; (e) articles explaining the implications of theoretical developments for practical applications; (f) book reviews; (g) announcements of meetings, conferences and seminars.