
Maria CubelCity, University of London · Department of Economics
Maria Cubel
PhD in Economics
About
42
Publications
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Introduction
I am a behavioural economist with a background as a microeconomic theorist. My research interests are are in the fields of Applied Microeconomics and Experimental Economics with a particular focus on: Labour and Gender Economics, Public Economics and Contest and Conflict.
Publications
Publications (42)
This paper explores the role of identity in voters’ decision to retain corrupt politicians. We build up a model of electoral accountability with pure moral hazard and bring it to the lab. Politicians must decide whether to invest in a public project with uncertain returns or to keep the funds for themselves. Voters observe the outcome of the projec...
Personality has gained recognition as a key factor in understanding economic decision-making and outcomes. Research has found that personality traits, most notably The Big Five Personality Traits, can significantly influence a wide range of economic behaviors. These include labour market outcomes, choice under uncertainty, preferences, reciprocity,...
This paper studies gender differences in performance in a male‐dominated competitive environment chess tournaments. We find that the gender composition of chess games affects the behaviors of both men and women in ways that worsen the outcomes for women. Using a unique measure of within‐game quality of play, we show that women make more mistakes wh...
This paper explores the role of identity in voters’ decision to retain corrupt politicians. We build up a model of electoral accountability with pure moral hazard and bring it to the lab. Politicians must decide whether to invest in a public project with uncertain returns or to keep the funds for themselves. Voters observe the outcome of the projec...
This paper is the first to study difference-form group contests, that is, contests fought among groups where their probability of victory depends on the absolute difference of their effective efforts. We show that key equilibrium variables in these contests can be expressed as a function of a modified version of the Watts poverty index. We use the...
We investigate the existence of gender differences in strategic sophistication in two weakly dominance solvable games where a prize is at stake. The first one is the two-person beauty contest, where strategies are numbers and players must perform mathematical operations. The second is the novel “gaze coach game”, where strategies are photographs of...
We investigate whether gender differences in strategic behavior depend on the perceived gender bias of strategic interactions. We use two weakly dominance solvable games where a prize is at stake. The first one is the two-person beauty contest, where strategies are numbers and players must perform mathematical operations. The second is the novel "g...
This paper studies how the success of a community in confrontation against an out-group varies with its level of internal inequality.We present a model of conáict between two heterogeneous groups and find that their equilibrium winning probabilities can be expressed as a simple function of the groups' Atkinson indices of inequality. The properties...
The present paper analyzes multi-player contests where participants compete for a valuable prize and their probability of victory depends on the difference between their effective efforts. These difference-form contests have appealing properties but remain largely understudied due to the non-existence of pure-strategy equilibria and the preemption...
Property rights often emerge from adversarial interactions in which agents make claims and defend them from the appropriation efforts of others. In this paper, we first offer a survey of the theoretical literature on this issue. We systematize the existing models by classifying them into two families and show that they can explain the emergence of...
Property rights often emerge from adversarial interactions in which agents make claims and defend them from the appropriation efforts of others. In this paper, we first offer a survey of the theoretical literature on this issue. We systematize the existing models by classifying them into two families and show that they can explain the emergence of...
This article explores the existence and endogeneity of gender differences in strategic behaviour. We report results from two experimental studies employing the beauty contest game, one in the laboratory and one in the classroom. We observe robust and significant gender differences in observed depth of strategic reasoning in favour of men in zero‐st...
There is a growing literature looking at how men and women respond differently to competition. We contribute to this literature by studying gender differences in performance in a high-stakes and male dominated competitive environment, expert chess tournaments. Our findings show that women underperform compared to men of the same ability and that th...
This paper presents an axiomatic characterization of difference-form contests, that is, contests where agents' probability of victory depends on the difference of their effective efforts. This axiomatization rests on a pairwise comparison axiom that relates the winning probabilities of any pair of participants to their winning probabilities in a co...
While survey data supports a strong relationship between personality and labour market outcomes, the exact mechanisms behind this association remain unexplored. We take advantage of a controlled laboratory set-up to explore whether this relationship operates through productivity. Using a real-effort task, we analyse the impact of the Big Five perso...
Recent literature has emphasized that individuals display varying levels of strategic reasoning. This paper presents ten years worth of experimental data from two countries exploring the existence and endogeneity of gender differences in strategic sophistication. We report results from two experimental studies employing the beauty contest game, one...
This article explores the existence and endogeneity of gender differences in strategic behaviour. We report results from two experimental studies employing the beauty contest game, one in the laboratory and one in the classroom. We observe robust and significant gender differences in observed depth of strategic reasoning in favour of men in zero-st...
This paper presents an axiomatic characterization of difference-form contests, that is, contests where agents' probability of victory depends on the difference of their effective efforts. This axiomatization rests on a pairwise comparison axiom that relates the winning probabilities of any pair of participants to their winning probabilities in a co...
Economists offer a rational-choice perspective on conflict, using approaches that range from the game theoretic to the experimental.
Modern economics has largely ignored the issue of outright conflict as an alternative way of allocating goods, assuming instead the existence of well-defined property rights enforced by an undefined third party. And y...
Recent literature has emphasized that individuals display different depths of reasoning when playing games. In this paper, we explore gender differences in strategic sophistication and study whether these differences are endogenous. We report results from two different experiments employing the beauty contest. In the first, large study, we show tha...
Contests are situations in which a set of agents compete for a valuable object, rent or award. The present paper analyzes difference-form group contests, that is, contests fought among groups and where their probability of victory depends on the difference of their effective efforts. First, we show that the non-existence of pure-strategy equilibria...
While survey data supports a strong relationship between personality and labor market outcomes, the exact mechanisms behind this association remain unexplored. In this paper, we take advantage of a controlled laboratory set-up to test whether this relationship operates through productivity, and isolate this mechanism from other channels such as bar...
In this paper we extend the research on happiness and spatial theory of voting by exploring whether strategic and sincere voting affect subjective well-being. We conduct the analysis with data on a large sample of individuals over 50 elections in 16 OECD countries. The results of the analysis show the existence of a negative effect of strategic vot...
A group of agents must defend their individual income from an external threat by pooling their efforts against it. The winner of this confrontation is determined by a contest success function where members' efforts display a varying degree of complementarity. Individual effort is costly and its cost follows a convex isoelastic function. We investig...
En este trabajo se plantean diversos escenarios de reforma del Fondo de Compensación Interterritorial (FCI), uno de los recursos condicionados de origen nacional a disposición de las comunidades autónomas españolas de menor nivel de renta. Para ello se concretan los principales elementos de este fondo vertical (dotación, alcance territorial y crite...
In this paper we use a classroom exercise to reveal the main efficiency and equity aspects of the Tiebout hypothesis. We conduct and extend the exercise developed by Brouhle et al (2005) by including a second phase in which students have the opportunity to evaluate the implications of the Tiebout model when both individual incomes and preferences a...
In this work we explore different scenarios for the reform of the Fondo de Compensación Interterritorial (FCI), which is a conditional grant from the state to the relatively poorer Spanish autonomous communities. To undertake the analysis we define the main elements of that vertical grant (amount, territorial scope and distribution' criteria) and e...
In this paper we analyze the political viability of equalization rules in the context of a decentralized country. In concrete terms, we suggest that when equalization devices are perceived as unfair by one or more regions, political conflict may emerge as a result. Political conflict is analysed through a non cooperative game. Regions are formed by...
En este trabajo se plantean diversos escenarios de reforma del Fondo de Compensación Interterritorial (FCI), uno de los recursos condicionados de origen nacional a disposición de las comunidades autónomas españolas de menor nivel de renta. Para ello se concretan los principales elementos de este fondo vertical (dotación, alcance territorial y crite...
A switch from any given income tax schedule to a tax structure in which two groups of taxpayers are treated differently, each
still facing the same degree of progression, can induce an increase in welfare despite causing horizontal inequity (HI). The
thrust of much recent research, however, is that removing the HI from an income tax system, by repl...
Is it better to have a national income tax or a set of income taxes, different in the different regions? In this article, the authors conduct marginal analysis to determine dominance conditions on the configuration of income distributions in the regions under which small and related new regional taxes are superior to an across-the-board alternative...
Is it possible to increase overall welfare through a spatial di®erentiation of the income tax ? In this paper we explore the possibility for a marginal tax reform based on the di®erentiation of a proportional tax among jurisdictions. We use a methodology developed by Yitzhaki and Slemrod (1991) to analyse Dalton-improving tax reforms applied to com...
A switch from any given income tax schedule to a differentiated tax structure in which two groups of taxpayers are treated differently, each still facing the same local degree of progression, can induce an increase in welfare despite causing horizontal inequity. We demonstrate this result in a number of special case and make a general conjecture, t...
In this paper we analyze the possibility of going into a situation of con‡ict when equalization rules are perceived as unfair by some regions. Con‡ict is modeled as a game where players seek to maximize their pay- os in a Nash framework. Players are groups of individuals with identical preferences and con‡ict is measured as the contribution of each...
We explore the possibility for decentralized redistribution consid- ering a tax competition model where local governments undertake re- distribution through the income tax. Two kind of individuals are con- sidered: rich households who are assumed to be immobile and poor households who are imperfectly mobile. We obtain that local redis- tribution le...
As part of a project to promote active learning we incorporated simulation games into our lectures on public economics at the University of Barcelona. This paper describes a game used to illustrate the main aspects of the Tiebout model of public sector decentralization. By means of a simple voting mechanism, students have to decide the level of soc...
Esquemes dels temes 1 a 3 de l'assignatura Hisenda Autonòmica i Local. Incorpora els principals arguments sobre la descentralització de les funcions del Sector Públic.