Steffen Huck

WZB Berlin Social Science Center · Research Unit Economics of Change

We explore the stability of imitation in a 1,200-period experimental Cournot game where subjects do not know the payoff function but see the output quantities and payoffs of each oligopolist after every period. In line with theoretical predictions and previous experimental findings, our oligopolies reach highly competitive levels within 50 periods....

This report was commissioned by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) from London Economics in association with Steffen Huck and Jidong Zhou (University College London). It examines the implications of consumer behavioural biases for firms' decisions and hence for competitive equilibria. Consumer behavioural biases imply that consumers may not behave in...

This paper contributes empirically to our understanding of informed traders. It analyzes traders' characteristics in a foreign exchange electronic limit order market via anonymous trader identities. We use six indicators of informed trading in a cross-sectional multivariate approach to identify traders with high price impact. More information is co...

With the rise of populism in many countries, including Germany, it is more important than ever to better understand the causes and consequences of populist support. Using two experiments within the context of a large panel survey, we study how support for the German right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is associated with subj...

The papers in this Special Issue contribute to a rich literature on the economics of charitable giving. They address several novel questions covering a wide range of open issues in the philanthropic realm. For example, many of our papers study what works and what does not work for a charitable organization to boost giving money or time. Other paper...

In a large-scale natural field experiment, we partnered with a microlending company in Kyrgyzstan that asked over 180,000 of its clients for donations to social projects as a form of corporate philanthropy. In a 2 × 2 design, we explored two main (preregistered) hypotheses about giving by the poor. First, based on a conjecture that the poor are mor...

We study a form of threshold matching in fundraising where donations above a certain threshold are topped up with a fixed amount. We show theoretically that threshold matching can induce crowding in if appropriately personalized. In a field experiment, we explore how thresholds should be chosen depending on past donations. The optimal choice of thr...

In an artefactual field experiment, we implemented a crowdfunding campaign for an institute's summer party and compared donation and contribution framings. We found that the use of the word 'donation' generated higher revenue than the use of 'contribution.' While the individuals receiving the donation framing gave substantially larger amounts, thos...

We study a form of threshold matching where donations above a certain threshold are topped up with a fixed amount. We show theoretically that threshold matching can induce crowding in if appropriately personalized. In a field experiment, we explore how thresholds should be chosen depending on past donations. The optimal choice of thresholds is rath...

From the regulation of sports to lawmaking in parliament, in many situations one group of people (“agents”) make decisions that affect the payoffs of others (“principals”) who may offer action-contingent transfers in order to sway the agents' decisions. Prat and Rustichini (2003) characterize pure-strategy equilibria of such Games Played Through Ag...

While increasing the number of small donors, standard linear matching schemes have been shown to cause considerable crowding out in charitable giving with pronounced effects on large gifts. We propose a form of threshold matching where donations above a certain, potentially personalized, threshold are topped up with a fixed amount. We show theoreti...

Some companies engage in mass fundraising-where thousands of recipients are asked to make small donations-in addition to their core business. Via a corporate social responsibility (CSR) channel this may increase sales. However, recent research uncovered significant "ask avoidance" which, if present, could imply that fundraising activities may harm...

Previous studies of charitable giving have focused on middle or higher income earners in Western countries, neglecting the poor. Despite this focus, the lowest income groups are often shown to contribute substantial shares of their income to charitable causes. In a large-scale natural field experiment with over 180,000 clients of a micro-lending co...

We provide the first field evidence pointing at the role of pure self-image, independent of social image, in charitable giving. In an online fundraising campaign for a social youth project run on an opera ticket booking platform, we document how individuals seem to engage in self-deception to preserve their self-image. In addition, we provide evide...

Available online xxxx JEL classifications: C93 D64 D12 We study intertemporal crowding between two fundraising campaigns for the same charitable organization by manipulating donors' beliefs about the likelihood of future campaigns in two subsequent field experiments. The data shows that initial giving is decreasing in the likelihood of a future cam...

We provide the first field evidence pointing at the role of pure self-image, independent of social image, in charitable giving. In an online fundraising campaign for a social youth project run on an opera ticket booking platform we document how individuals appear to engage in self-deception to preserve their self-image. In addition, we provide evid...

We study intertemporal crowding between two fundraising campaigns for the same charitable organization by manipulating donors’ beliefs about the likelihood of future campaigns in two subsequent field experiments. Theory predicts that the effect of such belief manipulations depends on whether multiple donations are perceived as substitutes or comple...

Imitation of the successful choices of others is a simple and superficially attractive learning rule. It has been shown to be an important driving force for the strategic behavior of (young) adults. In this study we examine whether imitation is prevalent in the behavior of children aged between 8 and 10. Surprisingly, we find that imitation seems t...

Human cooperation has been explained through rationality as well as heuristics-based models. Both model classes share the feature that knowledge of payoff functions is weakly beneficial for the emergence of cooperation. Here, we present experimental evidence to the contrary. We let human subjects interact in a competitive environment and find that,...

Supplementary Figures, Supplementary Table, Supplementary Discussion and Supplementary Methods.

In a laboratory experiment designed to capture key aspects of the interaction between physicians and patients, we study the effects of medical insurance and competition in the guise of free choice of physician, including observability of physicians’ market shares. Medical treatment is an example of a credence good: only the physician knows the appr...

We experimentally examine the effects of price competition in markets for experience goods where sellers can build up reputations for quality. We compare price competition to monopolistic markets and markets where prices are exogenously fixed. Although oligopolies benefit consumers regardless of whether prices are fixed or endogenously chosen, we f...

More than any other area of regulation, antitrust economics shapes law and policy in the United States, the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In a number of different areas of antitrust, advances in theory and empirical work have caused a fundamental reevaluation and shift of some of the assumptions behind antitrust policy. This reevaluation has profound...

The eponymous hero of Wagner’s Tannhäuser treads a path of stark contrasts and rapid swings that culminate in the opera’s central episode, the song contest at Wartburg. Instead of securing his reintegration within the court with a brilliant performance, Tannhäuser spoils the event with insolent remarks and the exhibitionist disclosure of his Venusb...

In this note we shall discuss a concept that – despite its prominence in both Hume (1739) and Smith (1759), its obvious relevance for social behavior, and its not so infrequent use in colloquial language – has never gained a foothold in economic theory: the concept of empathy. Specifically, we illustrate how some insights from the psychological lit...

In this note, we argue that the Eurozone needs an institutional exit mechanism to enhance Eurozone stability, and propose modifications to the Dobbs' NEWNEY mechanism, the only mechanism that satisfies the twin properties of eliminating incentives for intra-Eurozone capital flight and maintaining Eurozone price stability. Our modifications eliminat...

We study the effects of reputation and competition in a stylized market for experience goods. If interaction is anonymous, such markets perform poorly: sellers are not trustworthy, and buyers do not trust sellers. If sellers are identifiable and can, hence, build a reputation, efficiency quadruples but is still at only a third of the first best. Ad...

This paper studies the interplay between economic incentives and social norms in firms. We introduce a general framework to model social norms arguing that norms stem from agents’ desire for, or peer pressure towards, social efficiency. In a simple model of team production we examine the interplay of three different types of contracts with social n...

We administer the Allais paradox questions to both a representative sample of the Dutch population and to student subjects. Three treatments are implemented: one with the original high hypothetical payoffs, one with low hypothetical payoffs and a third with low real payoffs. Our key findings are: (i) violations in the non-lab sample are systematic...

We take a first step towards analysing fundraising on the internet. Internet fundraising allows amongst other things for the possibility of instantaneous feedback on campaign progress. Analysing data from a large number of small scale internet fundraising campaigns we show that the rich feedback information provided to donors alters subsequent dono...

Recent advances in understanding links between genes and the susceptibility to particular diseases have considerably increased the scope for predictive diagnosis. Methods. We analyse how the introduc- tion of predictive diagnosis affects patients’decisions to undergo medical screenings relying on a “rational choice”model. Findings. We show that pre...

In this paper, we study bilateral mergers in experimental Cournot markets with initially three or four firms. Theory predicts pre-and post-merger total output well. However, merged firms produce significantly more than firms without a merger history. As a result, mergers are not as unprofitable as predicted. By analyzing two control treatments, we...

We introduce a new model of aggregate information cascades where only one of two possible actions is observable to others. Agents make a binary decision in sequence. The order is random and agents are not aware of their own position in the sequence. When called upon, they are only informed about the total number of others who have chosen the observ...

A compelling body of evidence indicates that observing a task-irrelevant action makes the execution of that action more likely. However, it remains unclear whether this 'automatic imitation' effect is indeed automatic or whether the imitative action is voluntary. The present study tested the automaticity of automatic imitation by asking whether it...

This paper provides the first experimental test of Edward Lazear's (1979) model of deferred compensation. We examine the relationship between firms' wage offers and workers' effort supply in a multi-period environment. If firms can ex ante commit to a wage schedule with deferred compensation, workers should respond by supplying sufficient effort to...

We consider a multi-game interactive learning environment in which subjects sometimes only have access to the aggregate distribution of play of the opponents over the various games and sometimes are told the joint distribution of actions and games in a more or less accessible way. Our main findings are: 1) In the presence of feedback spillover, lon...

Why does Elsa succumb to asking the forbidden question in Richard Wagner's Lohengrin? The perceived wisdom is that not knowing your spouse's "Nam und Art" is simply too much for any human being. This study challenges this assumption and offers a radically different explanation based on a rigorous analysis of the main characters' belief systems and...

We present evidence from a natural field experiment designed to shed light on the efficacy of fundraising schemes in which donations are matched by a lead donor. In conjunction with the Bavarian State Opera House, we mailed 14,000 regular opera attendees a letter describing a charitable fundraising project organized by the opera house. Recipients w...

We examine the role of consumer networks in markets that suffer from moral hazard. Consumers exchange information with neighbors about past experiences with different sellers. Networks foster incentives for reputation building and enhance trust and efficiency in markets.

Once Wagner’s most popular opera, Lohengrin has suffered scholarly neglect in the postwar period. This essay reengages with the work from the novel perspective of game theory analysis. Centering on Elsa’s breach of the Frageverbot, it offers a rigorous epistemological study of the opera’s main characters. Against traditional interpretations of the...

In large-scale fundraising campaigns based on direct mailings, typically less than 5% of individuals donate to the charitable cause. We present evidence from two field experiments designed to measure the existence of transaction costs that inhibit charitable giving in such fundraising campaigns, and shed light on the nature of such transaction cost...

In many economic contexts, an elusive variable of interest is the agent's expectation about relevant events, e.g. about other agents' behavior. Recent experimental studies as well as surveys have asked participants to state their beliefs explicitly, but little is known about the causal relation between beliefs and other behavioral variables. This p...

In this paper we examine the strategic savviness of the medieval church as portrayed in Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser. We show that the church employed an optimal randomization strategy based on arguments of dominance or trembling-hand perfection. Particular attention is paid to the employed randomization device.

In this note we argue that Lars von Trier’s movie Dogville can be viewed as an illustration of a simple economy where one agent has only her body as initial endowment. The movie illustrates some interesting comparative statics of equilibrium allocations. It shows how life would be like in a world where, in the absence of constitutional or legal con...

In this paper we examine the strategic savviness of the medieval church as portrayed in Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser. We show that the church employed an optimal randomization strategy based on arguments of dominance or trembling-hand perfection. Particular attention is paid to the employed randomization device.

Bubbles in asset markets have been documented in numerous experi-mental studies. However, all experiments in which bubbles frequently occur, pay dividends after each trading day. In this paper, we experi-mentally study other ingredients for bubble formation that are present in financial markets, namely the existence of inside information and commun...

We analyse behavior in lottery choice problems that assign payoffs to the decision maker and one other subject. Lotteries are based on randomly generated 2x2 games where the column player’s choice is replaced by a draw from an urn. We find that the vast majority of subjects displays behavior that might have been generated by a monotone von Neumann...

A well-known result by Vega-Redondo (1997) [18] implies that in symmetric Cournot oligopolies, imitation leads to the Walrasian outcome. We show that this result is not robust to the slightest asymmetry in costs, since every outcome where agents choose identical actions will be played some fraction of the time in the long run. We then conduct exper...

We test the no-trade theorem in a laboratory financial market where subjects can trade an asset whose value is unknown. Subjects receive clues on the asset value and then set a bid and an ask at which they are willing to buy or to sell from the other participants. In treatments with no gains from trade, theory predicts no trading activity, whereas,...

We present evidence from a natural field experiment designed to shed light on the efficacy of alternative fundraising schemes. In conjunction with the Bavarian State Opera House, we mailed 25,000 regular opera attendees a letter describing a charitable fundraising project organized by the opera house. Recipients were randomly assigned to one of six...

From book description: Competition policy in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere is embedded in a complex regime of laws predicated on the public policy choices of each jurisdiction. While other books provide a comprehensive treatment of the current state of antitrust law in the United States, this 3-volume hardcover set examines directly and...

From book description: The first ultimatum game, conducted by Werner Güth in the late 1970s, marks a crucial point in the history of modern economics-suddenly game theory lost its innocence and there was a chasm-between the beauty and elegance of the theory on one hand and the dour facts of behaviour on the other. Since then, the economics literatu...

We study the merger paradox, a relative of Harsanyi's bargaining paradox, in an experiment. We examine bilateral mergers in experimental Cournot markets with initially three or four firms. Standard Cournot-Nash equilibrium predicts total outputs well. However, merged firms produce significantly more output than their competitors. As a result, merge...

Reciprocal customers may disproportionately improve the performance of markets for experience goods. Reciprocal customers reward (punish) firms for providing good (bad) quality by upholding (terminating) the customer relation. This may induce firms to provide good quality which, in turn, may induce a positive externality for non-reciprocal customer...

We experimentally examine the effects of flexible and fixed prices in markets for experience goods in which demand is driven by trust. With flexible prices, we observe low prices and high quality in competitive (oligopolistic) markets, and high prices coupled with low quality in non-competitive (monopolistic) markets. We then introduce a regulated...

We introduce a generalized theoretical approach to study imitation models and subject the models to rigorous experimental testing. In our theoretical analysis we find that the different predictions of previous imitation models are due to different informational assumptions, not to different behavioral rules. It is more important whom one imitates r...

Often information structures are such that while individual reputation building is impossible groups of agents would have the possibility of building up a reputation. We experimentally examine whether groups of sellers in markets that suffer from moral hazard are able to build up reputations and, thus, avoid market breakdown. We contrast our findin...

We propose a dynamic model of neighbourhood watch schemes. While the state chooses punishment levels, apprehension of criminals depends on the watchfulness of citizens. We show that, contrary to standard intuition, crime levels can increase in punishments. This is because neighbourhood watch schemes can fall victim to their own success if recruitme...

We study the merger paradox, a relative of Harsanyi's bargaining paradox, in an experiment. We examine bilateral mergers in experimental Cournot markets with initially three or four firms. Standard Cournot-Nash equilibrium predicts total outputs well. However, merged firms produce significantly more output than their competitors. As a result, merge...

This paper calculates indices of central bank autonomy (CBA) for 163 central banks as of end-2003, and comparable indices for a subgroup of 68 central banks as of the end of the 1980s. The results confirm strong improvements in both economic and political CBA over the past couple of decades, although more progress is needed to boost political auton...

We present evidence from a natural field experiment designed to shed light on whether individual behavior is consistent with a neoclassical model of utility maximization subject to budget constraints. We do this through the lens of a field experiment on charitable giving. In conjunction with the Bavarian State Opera House, we mailed 25,000 regular...

We consider a multi-game interactive learning environment and ask ourselves whether long run behaviors in one game are a¤ected by behaviors in the other, i.e whether there are learning spillovers. Our main …nding is that learning spillovers arise whenever the feedback provided to subjects about past play is not easily accessible game by game and th...

Corruption in the public sector erodes tax compliance and leads to higher tax evasion. Moreover, corrupt public officials abuse their public power to extort bribes from the private agents. In both types of interaction with the public sector, the private agents are bound to face uncertainty with respect to their disposable incomes. To analyse effect...

We study the behavior of experimental subjects who have to make a sequence of risky investment decisions in the presence of network externalities. Subjects follow a simple heuristic—investing after positive experiences and reducing their propensity to invest after a failure. This result contrasts with the theoretical findings of Jeitschko and Taylo...

We study the behavior of experimental subjects who have to make a sequence of risky investment decisions in the presence of network externalities. Subjects follow a simple heuristic–investing after positive experiences and reducing their propensity to invest after a failure. This result contrasts with the theoretical findings of Jeitschko and Taylo...

The quadratic scoring rule (QSR) is often used to guarantee an incentive compatible elicitation of subjective probabilities over events. Experimentalists have regularly not been able to ensure that subjects fully comprehend the consequences of their actions on payoffs given the rules of the games. In this note, we present a procedure that allows th...

We study the mechanics of leading by example in teams. Leadership is beneficial for the entire team when agents are conformists, i.e., dislike effort differentials. We also show how leadership can arise endogenously and discuss what type of leader benefits a team most.

In this paper we provide textual evidence on the sophistication of medieval deterrence strategies. Drawing on one of the great opera librettos based on medieval sources, Wagner s Tannhauser, we shall illustrate the use of optimal randomization strategies that can be derived by applying notions of dominance or trembling-hand perfection. Particular a...

Studying evolutionarily successful behavior we show in a general framework that when individuals maximizing payoff differentials invest resources in punishing others. Interestingly, these investments are increasing in individuals, own wealth and decreasing in the wealth of others.

This paper explorers rationalizability issues for finite sets of observations of stochastic choice in the framework introduced by Bandyopadhyay et al. (JET, 1999). Is is argued that a useful approach is to consider indirect preferences on budgets instead of direct preferences on commodity bundles. Stochastic choices are rationalizable in terms of s...

In this unusual book, first published by The MIT Press in 1980 and now updated with a new chapter, Steven Brams applies the mathematical theory of games to the Hebrew Bible. Brams's thesis is that God and the human biblical characters acted rationally—that is, given their preferences and their knowledge of other players' preferences, they made stra...

We study the effects of reputation and competition in a stylized market for experience goods. If interaction is anonymous, such markets perform poorly: sellers are not trustworthy, and buyers do not trust sellers. If sellers are identifiable and can, hence, build a reputation, efficiency quadruples but is still at only a third of the first best. Ad...

Consider a committee that in the past has made a promise not to confiscate the profits from an investor. After the investment has taken place, there is a material benefit if the committee decides to default on the earlier promise. But in some situations there are also some small moral costs for those who vote in favor of default. For the symmetric...

The endowment effect describes the fact that people demand much more to give up an object than they are willing to spend to acquire it. The existence of this effect has been documented in numerous experiments. We attempt to explain this effect by showing that evolution favors individuals whose preferences embody an endowment effect. The reason is t...

The seminal paper by Salant, Switzer and Reynolds (1983) showed that merger in a standard Cournot framework with linear demand and linear costs is not profitable unless a large majority of the firms are involved in the merger. However, many strategic aspects matter for firm competition such as the internal organization of the firm, the time structu...

We examine the effects of different forms of feedback information on the performance of markets that suffer from moral hazard problems due to sequential exchange. As orthodox theory would predict, we find that providing buyers with information about sellers' trading history boosts market performance. More surprisingly, this beneficial effect of inc...

The mere potential for one player to burn money prior to play has been shown in theory to be an effective device to select this player's most preferred outcome, e.g., in the battle-of-the-sexes game [J. Econ. Theory 48 (1989) 476, J. Econ. Theory 57 (1992) 36]. In this study we assess the behavioral relevance of this theoretical claim. It is shown...

In this note, we experimentally investigate the extended game with action commitment in a Cournot duopoly with asymmetric cost. Risk dominance considerations allow to select a unique equilibrium in which the low-cost firm is the Stackelberg leader. The data, however, do not support the theory as simultaneous-move play is modal. Average output choic...

In this note, we experimentally investigate the extended game with action commitment in a Cournot duopoly with asymmetric cost. Risk dominance considerations allow to select a unique equilibrium in which the low-cost firm is the Stackelberg leader. The data, however, do not support the theory as simultaneous-move play is modal. Average output choic...

We introduce a simple adaptive rule where agents choose a cooperative effort on a grid. Agents can adjust this effort step by step and G ains and L osses A djust D irections. We show that this process converges to the cooperative outcome in a two-person Prisoners’ Dilemma game, and we provide simulations showing that the results also holds with a l...