Jonathan Yeo

• PhD Economics
• Professor (Assistant) at Nanyang Technological University

Using a repeated public goods game, we experimentally examine how apologies support mutual cooperation in groups. In two treatments where participants can send either public or private apologies, contributions increase by 0.43 and 0.87 standard deviations respectively, compared to a control treatment. Examining the mechanisms, we find much consiste...

In a laboratory experiment, we study how bridging individuals --- people who belong to multiple identity groups --- influence decisions on how to interact with others. We utilise a novel game which adapts Schelling's segregation model, examining subjects' movements on a two-dimensional board and their decisions of whether to cooperate with neighbou...

Group identity is known to exert a powerful socio-psychological influence on behaviour but has largely been explored as a uni-dimensional phenomenon. Theoretically, an increase in the number of identity dimensions considered should make it harder to draw clear boundaries between people. Therefore, we ask whether broadening awareness of identity to...

How do we persuade people to part with money they feel they have rightly earned? We conducted a dyadic experiment (N=1,986) where luck determined which of the players’ performance counted toward winning the game. Despite luck playing a large part, we found strong evidence of justified deservingness among the winners. The better they performed in th...

This paper constructs a new game—the “rule-the-roost game”—where players compete repeatedly for power (“chickens”) and wealth (“eggs”) in the laboratory. We find that a vicious circle develops where the powerful accumulate more power and wealth over time, leading to substantial inequality. At the same time, the powerless take actions to oppose the...

Using a repeated public goods game, we experimentally examine how apologies support mutual cooperation in groups. In two treatments where participants can send either public or private apologies, contributions increase by 0.37 and 0.61 sd respectively, compared to a control. Examining the mechanisms, we find that generally, norms of apology exist:...

With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging and the vaccination program still rolling out, there continues to be an immediate need for public health officials to better understand the mechanisms behind the deep and perpetual divide over face masks in America. Using a random sample of Americans (N = 615), following a pre-registered experimental design a...

With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging and the vaccination program still rolling out, there continues to be an immediate need for public health officials to better understand the mechanisms behind the deep and perpetual divide over face masks in America. Using a random sample of Americans (N=615), following a pre-registered experimental design and...

Incentive theory has paid relatively little attention to workers’ identities. In this paper, I conduct the first experiment exploring the relationship between identity and optimal incentives. I construct workgroups which are either homogeneous or heterogeneous in members' identities and examine their productivity at a real-effort task under tournam...

Useful knowledge stored in members’ collective minds is an important advantage to organisations; understanding what motivate its transfer is thus important. I consider the role of esteem in the knowledge transferring activities of teaching and learning in a model motivated by Akerlof(2015). In teaching, there is a trade-off: conferred esteem in the...

Trust and trustworthiness are important in social relationships. Levels of trust and trustworthiness are likely to depend on “social” utility; the magnitude of which is influenced by the social context governing individual relationships. Social networks are an example of such a social context. This paper investigates how social networks influence t...

Social capital has been cited as one of the major reasons for the success of micro finance in developing countries. In particular, greater social connectivity of individuals within networks has been found to have positive effects on repayments and savings. This highlights the role that community building may play as a social policy. In this paper,...