Andrew Luccasen

• PhD from Texas A&M University
• Professor at Mississippi University for Women

Some problems are more easily solved if context is provided. A stylized result from beauty contest experiments is that most choices are consistent with level-1 or level-2 thinking rather than the Nash equilibrium. The experiment reported in this paper includes a treatment in which context is added to the beauty contest. In this treatment, participa...

This paper revisits the experimental test of the warm glow giving hypothesis reported by Crumpler and Grossman (2008). In all treatments, each participant is presented with the opportunity to contribute from her own endowment to a charity of her choice. We use a 2x3 design to vary the choice set (give to charity or take from charity) and the source...

We report the results of a laboratory experiment on crowd-out in a voluntary contribution mechanism public good game. In our setting, a standard argument states that a tax should not be effective in raising contributions, because agents respond by reducing voluntary contributions by the amount of the tax. Our experimental design focuses in on this...

We report on a laboratory experiment designed to test the robustness of crowd-out results in public goods games. We present subjects with a series of one-shot public goods games played without feedback. In all games, the equilibrium contribution level is positiv e, and neutrality results from the literature apply. We find that when subjects have an...

We extend the study of behavioural types in voluntary contribution games, adapting the elicitation method of Fischbacher et al. (2001) to a broader range of economic and strategic incentives. Our results in the standard VCM game align with previous findings in many respects; in particular, we identify one-quarter of participants as a distinctive gr...

The arts in the USA receive little federal support relative to other developed nations. Because culture and the arts are often viewed as a nonessential role of government, public officials have proposed eliminating public funding for the arts. We examine support for public arts funding using a real-donation experiment (Eckel and Grossman in Games E...

Experiments which elicit preferences for conditional cooperation in public goods games with linear payoffs find that about one-quarter of people approximately match the average contributions of others. To identify from among possible explanations proposed for this strong form of conditional cooperation, we extend the elicitation method of Fischbach...

We propose a framework for identifying discrete behavioural types in experimental data. We re-analyse data from six previous studies of public goods voluntary contribution games. Using hierarchical clustering analysis, we construct a typology of behaviour based on a similarity measure between strategies. We identify four types with distinct stereot...

Many Americans hold erroneous beliefs regarding the level of inequality in the United States and the efforts by the federal government to alleviate poverty. In general, they overestimate the extent of poverty relief undertaken by government. Given that poverty relief programs are a public good and likely underprovided, overestimation of the level o...

Giving in dictator games has been shown to vary with the nature of the endowment (earned vs. house money) and the action space (give only vs. the option to give or take). This article is the first to test if these factors similarly affect warm-glow giving alone. There is no reason that one would expect the same outcomes given that the motivations f...

R. Morris Coats, late Professor of Economics and Argent Bank Professor of Business Administration (2000–2006) at Nicholls State University, was a prolific scholar in the area of public (choice) economics. The present memoriam piece contends that he was a highly significant figure among the “second wave” of public choice scholars.

Students learn more from doing than from viewing. By seeing and diagramming the relationships they have developed themselves, students learn more than by merely reading over what someone else has done. For the dynamic problems encountered in environmental and resource economics, Excel has a comparative advantage as a learning aid. We develop a simp...

One criticism of the dictator experiment is that the decision task is contrived with no equivalent counterpart in the field. This note discusses two types of giving that receive media attention but are not discussed in the economics literature. The Secret Santas walk around shopping centers and hand out $100 bills to complete strangers. Individuals...

This paper reports experimental results that link other‐regarding preferences, personality, and demographic characteristics to contributions to a public good and the responsiveness of contributions to tax‐financed contributions. Contribution levels are higher among those with cooperative preferences, those with Myers–Briggs personality types of int...

Objective Irrelevant information, such as one's Social Security number, has been shown to influence decisions in experiments. The objective of this article is to investigate this anchoring effect with respect to the randomly assigned participant number in an economic experiment. Methods The game is a public good contribution game. In one session, p...

An experiment is designed to test if the addition of an irrelevant action (decoy) has a positive (assimilation) or negative (contrast) effect on voluntary contributions to a public good or use of a common resource. The usual decision space is augmented with an action that results in earnings of zero in all states. One treatment includes this decoy...

Participants in public good contribution experiments have been shown to reduce voluntary contributions when taxed. The decrease is less than dollar-for-dollar, a result known as incomplete crowd-out. This paper reports the result of an experiment in which the Pareto efficient contribution is selected as the default contribution if no other choice i...

Multimedia materials are underused and powerful tools for teaching economics. We present examples from cartoons that can be used to illustrate important principles in an introductory macroeconomics class. Clips from Beavis and Butthead, Duck Tales, Futurama, and The Simpsons are used to explain the velocity of money, inflation and long-run monetary...

Undergraduate students are often interested in applications of economic principles. Although popular television shows and movies are not real-world examples, drawing from these sources can motivate disinterested students and provide a pedagogical tool that enhances instruction. In this article, the authors discuss several basic introductory economi...

Merriman (2002) argues that cigarette smuggling does not reduce the health benefits of cigarette taxation, because, in addition to the purchase price of smuggled cigarettes, those purchasing smuggled cigarettes have to pay a higher inconvenience price for their cigarettes, so that smuggled cigarettes no more than replace legal cigarettes. Here, it...

Abstract We report the results of a voluntary contributions mechanism (VCM) public good game designed to distinguish among,four major competing,models of behavior. A new user interface and implementation,of a tax are introduced to focus attention on the effect that a government contribution to a public good financed by lump-sum taxes has o n volunt...

Thesis (M.A. in Economics)--Vanderbilt University, 1996. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 40).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas A&M University, 2003 Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-91 Vita. "Major Subject: Economics