Junjie Lin , Chunchao Wang , Sheng Xu , Ling Zhang , Yunbin Zhang
{"title":"Boarding education and children's human capital development","authors":"Junjie Lin , Chunchao Wang , Sheng Xu , Ling Zhang , Yunbin Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106948","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106948","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Boarding schools, offering an alternative residential arrangement to the traditional home environment, have been under-studied regarding their impacts on students’ non-cognitive development. This study presents findings derived from a quasi-experimental design where changes in local educational policy caused a transition from voluntary to compulsory boarding. Results indicate that boarding students outperform their non-boarding counterparts in both cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes, with disadvantaged students exhibiting the largest gains. We attribute these effects to increased teacher engagement in course preparation, closer teacher-student interactions, and heightened student effort toward academic pursuits. These findings underscore the potential of boarding schools as a powerful catalyst for enhancing students’ human capital.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"232 ","pages":"Article 106948"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143471345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social norm uncertainty: Measurement using coordination games and behavioral relevance","authors":"Robert Schmidt","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106937","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106937","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We propose a modified pure coordination game to elicit social norm perception as distributions at the individual level. In addition to receiving point estimations equivalent to Krupka and Weber (2013), the dispersion of individual-level norm distributions indicates a subject's social norm uncertainty. In an experiment involving allocation decisions, we measure and gauge the behavioral relevance of norm uncertainty. We find that subjects exhibit considerable uncertainty regarding both injunctive and descriptive social norms. Moreover, social norm uncertainty weakens the relationship between norms as point estimations and revealed social preferences. Finally, the more confident subjects are about their own norm perception, the more they disagree at the population level. The results indicate that uncertainty is a distinct and behaviorally relevant dimension of norm perception that reduces norm compliance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"232 ","pages":"Article 106937"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143471275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Violence against women and the substitution of help services in times of lockdown: Triangulation of three data sources in Germany","authors":"Cara Ebert , Janina Isabel Steinert","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106879","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106879","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on domestic violence against women in Germany in 2020. The analysis draws on three data sources: (1) longitudinal administrative data on the volume of help requests to helplines, shelters and counselling services, (2) cross-sectional survey data collected during the first wave of the pandemic, and (3) a qualitative online survey with counsellors and domestic violence experts. The number of violence-related requests at helplines increased significantly by 34% with the first physical distancing measures, whereas ambulatory care services such as shelters experienced a 14% increase in help requests only after physical distancing restrictions were lifted. Our results indicate that individuals substituted help services away from ambulatory care towards helplines. We do not observe exacerbated violence in states with greater mobility reductions, lower day care capacity for childcare or higher COVID-19 infection numbers. Yet, our cross-sectional household-level data suggests that home quarantine and financial distress may have been triggers of violence. Our findings highlight the importance of providing easily accessible online counselling offers for survivors of violence and governmental financial relief packages.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"232 ","pages":"Article 106879"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143463777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rational vs. irrational beliefs in a complex world","authors":"Gregor Boehl , Cars Hommes","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106898","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106898","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How do rational and boundedly rational agents interact in a competitive asset market? To answer this question, we build a highly nonlinear asset pricing model where agents hold heterogeneous beliefs. Our model features fully rational forward looking agents versus boundedly rational backward looking agents whose market shares evolve endogenously. This gives rise to chaotic model dynamics which are characterized by complex bubble and crash dynamics, even without any exogenous fluctuations. We show that computational methods can be applied to numerically analyze models combining agents forming rational expectations and agents forming extrapolative expectations, with the possibility of transition between one type of behavior and the other. Not only do we find that boundedly rational agents remain in the market, but document that their effect on price dynamics is even amplified by the behavior of fully rational agents. In their interaction, trend-extrapolators amplify small deviations from fundamentals, while rational agents eventually anticipate market crashes after large bubbles and drive prices back to the fundamental.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"232 ","pages":"Article 106898"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143463778","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zsuzsanna Hosszú , András Borsos , Bence Mérő , Nikolett Vágó
{"title":"The optimal choice of scaling in economic agent-based models","authors":"Zsuzsanna Hosszú , András Borsos , Bence Mérő , Nikolett Vágó","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106928","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106928","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In economics, two strategies are typically employed to reduce the size and complexity of models: (i) using representative agents by aggregating the actual entities, (ii) and downscaling, i.e. using only a sample of agents. While the first strategy has been studied in detail in mainstream economics, the implications of the second option – which is mainly used in complexity economics – are underresearched. This paper contributes to filling this gap by proposing a protocol for sensitivity analysis with respect to the scaling choice in these models. We introduce this protocol in a dual manner. First, we identify three main theoretical channels via which scaling can influence complex economic ABMs: (i) idiosyncratic shocks, (ii) information loss due to insufficient interactions, and (iii) the distribution of the characteristics of agents. Second, we analyse the implications of these mechanisms by assessing the trade-offs between three fundamental measures of model performance: <em>precision</em>, <em>accuracy</em> and <em>running time</em>, with different downscaling levels ranging between 0.25%–100% of the full population. We illustrate our approach using the model of Mérő et al. (2023), which is suitable for representing the housing market of Hungary at any scale in this interval (from 10,000 to 4 million agents). We show that in this model there is a non-trivial relationship between the scaling factor and the model performance. Not only does the model’s accuracy and precision depend on the model size in a non-linear manner, we also found that the evaluation of a scenario at a given level of precision takes only three to four times longer with 100 times more agents.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"232 ","pages":"Article 106928"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143453367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Peikun Chen , Jianbiao Li , Jingjing Pan , Chengkang Zhu
{"title":"Expectations matter in bottom-line setting: Theory and evidence","authors":"Peikun Chen , Jianbiao Li , Jingjing Pan , Chengkang Zhu","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106944","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106944","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The bottom-line, or minimum acceptable offer (MAO), is a crucial concept in real-world economic negotiations. This study demonstrated a causal relationship between responders’ expectations of proposers’ offer and their MAOs setting, in a controlled ultimatum game. We develop three theoretical models (reference dependence, frustration aversion and bounded rationality) to further investigate the underlying mechanism. By considering two distinct scenarios - responders setting MAOs before and after knowing the proposer's offer - we generate distinguishable predictions from our models. We then conduct two experiments to test these predictions, exogenously manipulating subjects’ offer expectations and comparing the observed shifts in MAOs to our theoretical predictions. Our findings indicate that bounded rationality significantly contributes to the causal effect of responders’ expectations on their MAOs, providing a new perspective on how expectations shape bargaining behavior. Furthermore, our results help reconcile divergent findings under the strategy method and direct-response method, highlighting the effects of expectations as a key driver alongside emotion.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"231 ","pages":"Article 106944"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143465146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lengthy waiting corrupts, especially when unexpected","authors":"Linda Dezső , Gergely Hajdu , Yossef Tobol","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106939","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106939","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Results of two studies demonstrate that long and unexpected waits adversely shape moral behavior. In Study 1, passengers who had just joined the check-in line at Ben Gurion Airport guessed how long they would have to wait to check in, and then their actual wait duration was recorded. After checking in, they privately rolled a die, reported <em>an</em> outcome while knowing that higher reports yield higher earnings. We found that wait duration is positively associated with lying. Study 2 (laboratory experiment) exogenized the duration of waits (long versus short) and whether those durations were known (expected) or unknown (unexpected) to subjects in advance. We find that long waits cause, on average, more lying than short waits, and that average lying is the highest for long and unexpected waits. We propose that after long and unexpected waits, people may seek compensation in the monetary domain via relaxed morals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"232 ","pages":"Article 106939"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143453362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Miguel A. Martínez-Carrasco , Eric Schmidbauer , John Hamman
{"title":"Project selection with biased advice: An experiment on competitive cheap talk","authors":"Miguel A. Martínez-Carrasco , Eric Schmidbauer , John Hamman","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106936","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106936","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>When agents with private information compete for resources from an uninformed decision-maker and are biased towards their own favored projects (e.g., a CEO decides which division manager’s project to fund), they have incentive to strategically communicate about their project’s value. However, possible future interaction can mitigate this problem even without reputational concerns, since an agent who induces acceptance of a low-valued project today consumes firm resources that crowd out better opportunities that may arrive in the future. We study this organizational environment both theoretically and empirically using laboratory experiments. We hypothesize and find that truth telling is easier to support as low-quality projects lose value or become more likely to occur, but harder to support as agent competition grows. We see an interesting behavioral result in which beliefs influence responsiveness to parameter changes. Specifically, as agents grow more pessimistic about the likelihood of truthful reporting by their competitors, they respond more sharply to parameter changes, in line with the model’s predictions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"232 ","pages":"Article 106936"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143445407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From pandemics to portfolios: Long-term impacts of the 2009 H1N1 outbreak on household investment choices","authors":"Naijia Guo , Charles Ka Yui Leung , Shumeng Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106931","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106931","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how experiencing a pandemic affects household investment behaviors. By leveraging cross-state variations in the H1N1 mortality rate in 2009, our difference-in-differences analysis reveals interesting findings. Although the pandemic does not significantly affect stock market participation, it depresses the proportion of liquid assets invested in risky assets among households who participate in the stock market. This effect persists for up to eight years after the pandemic and is particularly pronounced among households characterized by higher risk aversion and greater income volatility. Analysis conducted using different datasets consistently suggests that the pandemic primarily influences portfolio choices through a shift in risk attitudes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"231 ","pages":"Article 106931"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143444994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inequity aversion, mandates, and the provision of threshold public goods","authors":"Caroline E. Johnson, Maik Kecinski","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106935","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.106935","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Previous research has shown that individuals have preferences for equity that deviate from traditional payoff maximizing economic theory. In this research, we use an adapted model of inequity aversion to predict how inequity induced through mandated contributions influences voluntary contribution behavior in a threshold public goods game. Contrary to the model’s predictions, we find that individuals do not have preferences for equitable outcomes. Rather, we find that individuals tend to have preferences for equitable contributions to the public good among group members, regardless of income inequities within groups. In addition, we find that mandates significantly decrease the voluntary provision of the public good. That is, groups exposed to mandated contributions met the threshold less frequently than groups not exposed to mandated contributions. Thus, suggesting that mandates can have significant and negative impacts on voluntary action. The results of this research illustrate the impacts of mandates on voluntary contribution behavior, as well as the behavioral implications of inequity in the provision of public goods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"231 ","pages":"Article 106935"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143436592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}