Astrid Matthey's research while affiliated with Max-Planck-Institut für Ökonomik and other places
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Publications (24)
Using a laboratory experiment, we examine whether voluntary sanctions induce subjects to coordinate more efficiently in a repeated minimum-effort game. While most groups first experience Pareto inferior coordination in a baseline treatment, the level of effort increases substantially once ex post sanctioning opportunities are introduced, that is, w...
Self-signaling models predict less selfish behavior in a probabilistic giving setting as individuals are expected to invest in a pro-social identity. However, there is also substantial evidence that people tend to exploit situational excuses for selfish choices (for instance, uncertainty) and behave more selfishly. We contrast these two motivations...
We conduct a modified dictator game in order to analyze the role self-image concerns play in other-regarding behavior. While we generally follow Konow (2000), a cognitive dissonance-based model of other-regarding behavior in dictator games, we relax one of its assumptions as we allow for individual heterogeneity among individuals’ standards of be...
A central understanding in experimental economics is that subjects’ decisions in the lab are independent of history. We test whether this assumption of between-experiment independence is indeed justified. We analyze experiments with an allocation decision (like a dictator or ultimatum game) and find that participation in previous experiments tends...
We investigate to what extent genuine social preferences can explain observed other-regarding behavior. In a dictator game variant subjects can choose whether to learn about the consequences of their choice for the receiver. We find that a majority of subjects showing other-regarding behavior when the payoffs of the receiver are known, choose to ig...
This paper takes a critical look at the challenges and achievements in the reform of the Russian power industry. Russian politics emphasized restructuring and pri- vatization, which are widely seen as preconditions for attracting private investment. However, progress along this line has been slow and there are is little hope that the current deadlo...
If resource consumption is to be reduced through economic “de-growth”, individuals in industrialized countries may have to accept a reduction in their consumption levels. In democratic societies, implementing this process requires the consent of a majority of the population. However, as long as people have high reference levels of consumption, lowe...
Experimental and empirical evidence shows that the utility an individual derives from a certain state depends on the reference state she compares it to. According to economic theory, the reference state is determined by past, present and future outcomes of either the individual herself or her reference group. The experiment described in this paper...
Experimental and empirical evidence shows that the utility an individual de-rives from a certain state depends on the reference state she compares it to. According to economic theory, this reference state is determined by the past, present and future outcomes of either the individual herself or her reference group. The experiment described in this...
Private banks often blame state guarantees to distort competition by giv- ing public banks the advantage of lower funding costs. In this paper I show that if borrowers perceive the public bank as supporting economic develop- ment, private banks may be able to separate firms by self selection, enter the market, and obtain profits in equilibrium desp...
The paper introduces the concept of adjustment utility, that is, reference-dependent utility from expectations. It offers an explanation for observed preferences that cannot be explained with existing models, and yields new predictions for individual decision making. The model gives a simple explanation for, e.g., why people are reluctant to change...
The higher our aspirations, the higher the probability that we have to adjust them downwards when forming more realistic expectations later on. This paper shows that the costs induced by high aspirations are not trivial. We ?rst develop a theoretical framework to identify the factors that determine the effect of aspirations on expected utility. The...
In economic theory, utility depends on past, present and future outcomes. The experiment described in this paper suggests that utility also depends on people's attitudes, and that it can easily be manipulated through these attitudes. The results imply, ?rst, that purely outcome-based models of individual utility may be incomplete. Second, that refe...
We investigate to what extent genuine social preferences can explain observed other-regarding behavior. In a social dilemma situation (a dictator game variant), people can choose whether to learn about the consequences of their choice for the receiver. We �nd that a majority of the people that show other-regarding behavior when the payoffs of the r...
Die Dissertation besteht aus drei Kapiteln. Im ersten Kapitel wird unter der Bezeichnung “Adjustment Utility” eine neue Komponente individuellen Nutzens eingeführt. Mit einem Experiment, daß ich mit Studenten durchgeführt habe, zeige ich erst, daß diese Nutzenkomponente existiert. Dann entwickele ich ein Modell, welches aufzeigt, wann und in welche...
This experiment is a first attempt to analyse whether reference states adjust to expectations within short time. The results suggest that this is not the case. High aspirations, by inducing high reference states, can thus lead to persistent utility losses when outcomes fall short of them. The paper uses an indirect approach to determine the referen...
People get used to their expectations just as they get used to their income or consumption level. This affects their utility and economic decision making. I formalize this idea in a model where people form reference states with respect to their expectations. This allows me to explain observed preferences regarding future outcomes that cannot be exp...
Three results emerge from a simple experiment on imitation. First, I find behavior which strongly suggests an intention to imitate. Second, players im- itate successful other players rather than repeating successful actions. Third, to find imitation examples, players use several periods of memory. This lends support to learning models with a non-tr...
Experimental and field evidence show that people perceive and evaluate new risks differently from risks that are common. In particular, people get used to the presence of certain risks and become less eager to avoid them. We explain this observation by including risks in the reference states of individuals, which requires a more general concept of...
Restricted access to finance is often stated as one of the main obstacles to the development of the SME sector in Russia. In this paper, we propose a new lending strategy that allows private banks to profitably increase financing of this sector in spite of being at a disadvantage compared to the state owned Sberbank. By building a reputation for to...
In many economies, small and medium-sized firms have no direct access to the financial markets but depend on bank loans. In the market for bank loans, competition is often distorted by state banks enjoying lower funding costs than private banks due to a state guaran- tee on their liabilities. In this paper, we argue that if the state bank's guarant...
We analyze individual behavior in a secretary search problem. Our ex- perimental design allows us to directly observe individual search strategies, rather than inferring them from stopping times as in earlier studies. The results suggest that subjects' search is i) too short on average, confirming previous findings, ii) very heterogeneous, both acr...
Citations
... 8 Needless to say, no theoretical model with standard preferences would predict that an agent would choose the taking game. 9 For another use of this phrase, see Regner and Matthey [56]. 10 We refer to the rationalization in psychology, meaning the defense mechanisms in which apparent logical reasons are given to justify behavior that is motivated by unconscious instinctual impulses. ...
... Inclusion of efficiently playing agents and exclusion of inefficiently playing agents has the flavor of reward and punishment, respectively, two mechanisms much investigated in cooperation problems 43,[45][46][47][48][49] . However, for coordination games, very little is known about the effect of punishment 50,51 and, to our knowledge, nothing about the effect of reward. We do not observe a significant effect of including efficiently playing agents into one's neighborhood, which contrasts with the positive effect of reward identified in some cooperation problems 49 . ...
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... Third, our study relates to the small strand of the literature that investigates repeated participation in lab experiments. Matthey & Regner (2013) find a negative correlation between generosity in allocation decisions and the number of previous rounds of participation in other experimental sessions. In a similar vein, Benndorf, Moellers, & Normann (2017) find that experienced subjects show less trustworthiness and trust than inexperienced subjects. ...
... There is a wealth of potential for this with higher aspirations associated with higher academic performance and likelihood of attaining tertiary education, higher wages and job prestige as well as drive for self betterment (Kiyama, 2010;Leung, Chen, and Lam, 2010;Staff, Harris, Sabates, and Briddell, 2010;Koo and Fishbach, 2010). Augmenting aspirations may also reduce risk taking behaviour through establishing realistic expectations or minimising hedonic adaptation (the tendency for updating of goals to erode gains in SWB) (March, 1988;Matthey, 2008;Easterlin, McVey, Switek, Sawangfa, and Zweig, 2010;Graham and Oswald, 2010;Lucas, 2007). Also it is hoped exposing further limitations of ...
... Considering the ecological and biophysical limits of the planet, the increasing growth demands of countries will worsen the impact of the crises that may occur in the future (Matthey, 2010). In line with neoliberal policies, reducing public spending and state intervention in welfare states has led to an increase in poverty and inequality (Diop-Christensen, 2018;Holden, 2003;Matthies et al., 2020). ...
... 4 Based on the type, priming can occur via the speed of processing (Reisberg 2007), via items of a similar form or meaning (Biederman and Cooper 1992), via exposure repetition (Forster and Davis 1984), via items sharing similar semantic features (Ferrand and New 2003), or via stimuli that trigger visuomotor system effects (Klotz and Wolff 1995). In addition, priming has been shown to influence subsequent behavior in the context of various stimuli: visual, spatial, physical, olfactory, and verbal cues (Kay et al. 2004, Biederman andCooper 1992), and most recently temporal stimuli (Trope and Liberman 2000, Huber et al. 2002, Blandin and Dehaene 2002, Fujita et al. 2006, Kivetz and Tyler 2007, Ebert and Prelec 2007, Mannetti et al. 2009, Naccache, Zauberman et al. 2009, Yashar and Lami 2010, Bauer, Muller and Usher 2009 For recent economic studies that explicitly consider priming in individual decision-making, see Matthey (2010), Benjamin, Choi, and Strickland (2010), and Cohn et al. (2015). 6 Shah, Shafir, and Mullainathan (2015) document various recent behavioral biases, including priming, in the context of economic decision-making. ...
... behaviors in a binary DG. However, despite the seemingly robust effect of willful ignorance found in university laboratories (e.g., Dana et al., 2007;Larson and Capra, 2009;Matthey and Regner, 2011;Feiler, 2014), we found no evidence of willful ignorance in this online study, nor observed a decrease in prosocial decisions. Results across the mixed-effect models suggested that information transparency (complete vs incomplete information condition; H1a) and information seeking behavior (reveal vs. not reveal donation distribution; H2b) did not significantly predict donation decisions. ...
... Flavin (1981) points out that whenever a household observes that its current realization of income is greater than what it had anticipated, it revises upward its expectations of future income, and because this means it is revising upward its permanent income, it also revises its consumption decisions accordingly. Furthermore, it is likely that a household's expectation about its future consumption has an impact on its current level of utility (Abeler, Falk, Goette, & Huffman, 2011;Kőszegi & Rabin, 2009;Matthey, 2008). ...
... They largely replicate DWK's results, albeit with a much smaller sample. Also, Feiler (2007) varies probabilities and payoffs, and Matthey and Regner (2007) produce a similar result in a social dilemma. ...
... Experimental evidence for expectations and beliefs driving reference point formation and hence behavior abounds (Abeler, 2011;Ericson et al., 2011). Goals can also explicitly act as reference points via loss aversion 5 to help overcome present-bias and self-control problems (Heath et al., 1999;Suvorov and van de Ven, 2008;Koch and Nafziger, 2011), yet excessively high goals can be counterproductive (Matthey et al, 2007). However, much relevant research on goals is either theoretical or experimental, and little is known about whether temporary goals suggested through mobile health platforms outside of a laboratory might influence behavior via loss aversion and reference-dependent utility. ...
