William T. Harbaugh

University of Oregon | UO · econ

Testosterone has been theorized to direct status-seeking behaviors, including competitive behavior. However, most human studies to date have adopted correlational designs, and findings across studies are inconsistent. This experiment (n = 115) pharmacologically manipulated men's testosterone levels prior to a mixed-gender math competition and exami...

Testosterone has been theorized to direct status-seeking behaviors, such as competitive decision-making. However, individual differences in basal cortisol and cues that signal an opponent’s status (an opponent’s gender or a prior win/loss in a competition) may moderate testosterone’s relationship with status-seeking behavior. This experiment (n = 1...

Stress often precedes the onset of mental health disorders and is linked to negative impacts on physical health as well. Prior research indicates that testosterone levels are related to reduced stress reactivity in some cases but correlate with increased stress responses in other cases. To resolve these inconsistencies, we tested the causal influen...

Individual and life span differences in charitable giving are an important economic force, yet the underlying motives are not well understood. In an adult, life span sample, we assessed manifestations of prosocial tendencies across 3 different measurement domains: (a) psychological self-report measures, (b) actual giving choices, and (c) fMRI-deriv...

We analyze the effects of a school-based program that offers children an opportunity to win prizes if they walk or bike to school during prize periods. We use daily child-level data and individual fixed effects models to measure the effect of the prizes, with variation in the timing of prize periods across different schools allowing us to estimate...

By conducting an experiment with 885 adult subjects at a shopping mall, we investigate the effects of providing two different information policies, either mandatory or voluntary (but costly) performance feedback, prior to having individuals make choices between piece-rate and tournament pay. Before feedback men of all ages choose tournaments more t...

Existing theories on life span changes in confidence or motivation suggest that individuals' preferences to enter competitive situations should gradually decline with age. We examined competitive preferences in a field experiment using real financial stakes in 25- to 75-year-olds (N = 543). The critical dependent variable was whether participants c...

Older adults' decision quality is considered to be worse than that of younger adults. This age-related difference is often attributed to reductions in risk tolerance. Little is known about the circumstances that affect older adults' decisions and whether risk attitudes directly influence economic decisions. We measure the influence of risk attitude...

We report results from economic experiments of decisions that are best described as petty larceny, with high school and college students who can anonymously steal real money from each other. Our design allows exogenous variation in the rewards of crime, and the penalty and probability of detection. We find that the probability of stealing is increa...

We examine the robustness of the fourfold pattern of risk attitudes under two elicitation procedures. We find that individuals are, on average, risk-seeking over low-probability gains and high-probability losses and risk-averse over high-probability gains and low-probability losses when we elicit prices for the gambles. However, a choice-based elic...

Unlike experiments on markets or mechanisms, experiments on altruism are about an individual motive or intention. This raises serious obstacles for research. How do we define an altruistic act, and how do we know altruism when we see it?

This chapter focuses on voluntary decisions about charitable giving. Most charity involves what economists call public goods. The bulk of the evidence from empirical and experimental studies supported the existence of a purely altruistic motive for charitable giving, but that in societies of more than 20 or so people this motive lost its force, and...

In experiments, women are less likely than men to choose competitive compensation mechanisms, such as tournaments. We replicate this result and show that giving feedback about relative performance makes high ability females more likely to compete, makes low ability men less likely to compete, and makes the gender difference insignificant. We then u...

Economic experiments have shown that in mixed gender groups women are more reluctant than men to choose tournaments when given the choice between piece rate and winner-take-all tournament style compensation. These gender difference experiments have all relied on a framework where subjects were not informed of their abilities relative to potential c...

Experimental work on preferences over risk has typically considered choices over a small number of discrete options, some of which involve no risk. Such experiments often demonstrate contradictions of standard expected utility theory. We reconsider this literature with a new preference elicitation device that allows a continuous choice space over o...

We call an act altruistic when it is a sacrifice that benefits others. We discuss how experiments have demonstrated that altruistic choices appear to follow the same regularity conditions as those assumed for private goods. In particular they vary rationally in response to changes in prices and circumstances. We show how experiments have distinguis...

Civil societies function because people pay taxes and make charitable contributions to provide public goods. One possible motive for charitable contributions, called “pure altruism,” is satisfied by increases in the public good no matter the source or intent. Another possible motive, “warm glow,” is only fulfilled by an individual's own voluntary d...

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...

Revealed preference tests are elegant nonparametric tools that ask whether individual or aggregate data conform to economic models of optimizing be- havior. In designing a test using revealed preference, however, one faces a vexing tension between goodness-of-fit and power. If the test finds vio- lations, then one must ask if the test was too deman...

The principle that it is better to let some guilty individuals be set free than to mistakenly convict an innocent person is generally shared by legal scholars, judges and lawmakers of modern societies. The paper shows why this common trait of criminal procedure is also efficient. It extends the standard Polinsky and Shavell (2007) model of deterren...

Determining the productivity of individual workers engaged in team production is difficult. Monitoring expenses may be high, or the observable output of the entire team may be some single product. One way to collect information about individual productivity is to observe how total output changes when the composition of the team changes. While some...

We examine rewards and punishments in a simple proposer-responder game. The proposer first makes an offer to split a fixed-sized pie. According to the 2×2 design, the responder is or is not given a costly option of increasing or decreasing the proposer's payoff. We find substantial demands for both punishments and rewards. While rewards alone have...

All work and no play makes Bill a dull boy. All work and no play makes Bill a dull boy. All work and no play makes Bill a dull boy. All work and no play makes Bill a dull boy. All work and no play makes Bill a dull boy. All work and no play makes Bill a dull boy. All work and no play makes Bill a dull boy. All work and no play makes Bill a dull boy...

The most distinctive prediction of prospect theory is the fourfold pattern (FFP) of risk attitudes. People are said to be (1) risk-seeking over low-probability gains, (2) risk-averse over low-probability losses, (3) risk-averse over high-probability gains, and (4) risk-seeking over high-probability losses. Using simple gambles over real payoffs, we...

We study the development of bargaining behavior in children age seven through 18, using ultimatum and dictator games. We find that bargaining behavior changes substantially with age and that most of this change appears to be related to changes in preferences for fairness, rather than bargaining ability. Younger children make and accept smaller ulti...

This paper uses an updated and revised panel data set on ambient air pollution in cities worldwide to examine the robustness of the evidence for the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between national income and pollution. We test the sensitivity of the pollution- income relationship to functional forms, to additional covariates, and to...

In this paper we examine how risk attitudes change with age. We present participants from age 5 to 64 with choices between simple gambles and the expected value of the gambles. The gambles are over both gains and losses, and vary in the probability of the non-zero payoff. Surprisingly, we find that many participants are risk seeking when faced with...

This paper describes some simple economic experiments that can be done using children as subjects. We argue that by conducting experiments on children economists can gain insight into the origins of preferences, the development of bargaining behavior and rationality, and into the origins of "irrational" behavior in adults. Most of the experiments a...

Governments can and do adopt many policies that will improve the health and reduce the mortality risks of children. Given this, estimates of the value of improvements in children’s health and reductions in their mortality risk are needed so that governments can rationally choose which of the many possible policies to adopt. These estimates should b...

In this paper we study trust/reciprocity behavior in children ages eight to eighteen using an augmented version of Berg et al.’s (1995) trust game. This study is intended to inspect and reveal when certain aspects of trust behavior are formed in individuals. In addition, we examine the affect of certain characteristics in subjects that lead to high...

We find that large increases in age do not reduce the endowment effect, supporting the hypothesis that people have reference-dependent preferences which are not changed by repeated experience getting and giving up goods.

children who reason better also choose more rationally? In this paper we report on the results of an experiment that tests whether children make rational choices about consumption goods. We studied 7- and 11-year-old children and, for comparison, college undergraduates. The exper- iment tests variations on what might be seen as the most basic requi...

We examine the development of altruistic and free-riding behavior in 6-12 year-old children. We find that the level of altruistic behavior in children is similar to that of adults but that repetition has a different effect. Younger children's contributions of older children, like those of adults, tend to decline. Group attachment is associated with...

For many years experimental observations have raised questions about the rationality of economic agents--for example, the Allais Paradox or the Equity Premium Puzzle. The problem is a narrow notion of rationality that disregards fear. This article extends the notion of rationality with new axioms of choice under uncertainty and the decision criteri...

Increasing environmental performance is one of the changes involved by sustainable development and became a condition of success in economic activities. Efforts invested in this direction are explained by a number of strategic advantages – operational ecoefficiency, reputation, strategic direction, risk management, human resources management, produ...

Charities publicize the donations they receive, generally according to dollar categories rather than the exact amount. Donors in turn tend to give the minimum amount necessary to get into a category. These facts suggest that donors have a taste for having their donations made public. This paper models the effects of such a taste for "prestige" on t...

Charities publicize the donations they receive, generally according to dollar categories rather than the exact amount. Donors in turn tend to give the minimum amount necessary to get into a category. These facts suggest that donors have a taste for having their donations made public. This paper models the effects of such a taste for "prestige" on t...

Of those eligible, about 40% do not vote in presidential elections. When asked, about a quarter of those nonvoters will lie to the survey takers and claim that they did. Increases in education are associated with higher voting rates and lower rates of lying overall, but with increased rates of lying conditional on not voting This paper proposes a m...

We study the development of bargaining behavior in children age seven through 18, using ultimatum and dictator games. We find bargaining behavior changes substantially with age and that most of this change appears to be related to changes in preferences for fairness, rather than bargaining ability. Younger children make smaller dictator proposals t...

Experimental and real world evidence show that many aspects of risk-taking behavior can be explained by assuming that people weight outcomes by a subjective rather than objective probability. In this paper we explore how these probability weights change with age by looking at risk-taking behavior in participants from age 5 to 64. Our participants m...

In economic experiments on the voluntary provision of public goods, adults are more altruistic than the narrow definition of self interest would predict. In this paper we see if the same is true among six- through twelve-year-old children. We find that in aggregate the level of altruistic behavior of children is similar to that of adults, but that...