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We evaluate the effect of information disclosure on players’ behaviour in a multiperiod common pool resource game experiment run in an area of notably scarce social capital such as the Nairobi slum of Kibera. We document divergence of average withdrawal rates across time with an increasingly lower cooperation in the non anonimous setting. We demonstrate that information induced asymmetric conformity contributes to explain what we observe, that is, players who withdraw less than the average of the group in the previous round react more negatively when individual payoffs are disclosed than when they are not, and their reaction is less than compensated by the mean reversion of those who withdrew more. Our results are consistent with the (Ostrom, 2000) hypothesis that, in absence of punishment, disclosure of information about individual (cooperative or non cooperative) behaviour makes common resource management more difficult and tragedy of the commons easier. common pool resource game, conformism, information disclosure field experiments, tragedy of commons

This study uses a telephone field experiment to assess the degree of discrimination against female Albanians in Athenian rental housing markets. By examining a large sample represented by 122 urban areas we found that Albanians faced lower access to housing than the corresponding probability for Greeks. Moreover, Albanians faced lower access in newer apartments, above ground apartments, and repaired apartments. Meanwhile, Albanian home-seekers have to pay more than Greeks for these house characteristics. Of further importance is the finding that Albanians found to face higher access to housing in areas closer to the Athens centre, detecting the role of landlords in creating residential ethnic segregation. All findings are significant and suggest that Albanians both anticipate and encounter housing discrimination.

In a beauty contest experiment with over 6,000 chess players, ranked from amateur to world class, we found that Grandmasters act very similar to other humans. This even holds true when they play exclusively against players of approximately their own strength. In line with psychological research on chess players' thinking, we argue that they are not more rational in a game theoretic sense per se. Their skills are rather specific for their game.

The current study employs a field experiment to assess the degree of discrimination against female Albanians in Greek housing markets. We divide rental housing into three categories by rent and designate the different levels of rent as working-, middle-, and upper-class. Albanians are significantly less likely to be asked to visit advertised rental housing in all three categories, while rental penalties for Albanians are also significant. Interestingly, more discrimination was observed with higher status rental properties. The outcomes suggest that the existence of isolated and racially segregated housing may be a result of prejudice and/or negative stereotypes against Albanians.

This paper focuses on behavioural reasons underlying stated attribute non-attendance. In order to identify and incorporate procedures for dealing with heterogeneous attribute processing strategies, we ask respondents follow-up questions regarding their reasons for ignoring attributes. Based on these statements, we conclude that the standard way of assigning a zero impact of ignored attributes on the likelihood is inappropriate. We find that some respondents act in accordance with the passive bounded rationality assumption since they ignore an attribute simply because it does not affect their utility. Excluding these genuine zero preferences, as the standard approach essentially does, might bias results. Other respondents claim to have ignored attributes to simplify choices. However, we find that these respondents have actually not completely ignored attributes. We argue along the rationally adaptive behavioural model that preferences are indeed elicited in these cases, and we show how using a scaling approach can appropriately weight these observations in the econometric model. Finally, we find that some respondents ignore attributes for protest-like reasons which essentially convey no information about preferences. We suggest that using the standard approach combined with weighting procedures and recoding of non-attendance statements conditional on the specific reasons for non-attendance could be more appropriate than the current standard way of taking stated non-attendance into account.

Irrigation water is a constrained common-pool resource in Uzbekistan that leads to an increasing competition over its allocation among farmers. We examine how the management of the commons in this region affects individual strategic behavior. We conduct an experiment with farmers from Uzbekistan in which two policies are analyzed, a penalty and a bonus. The paper studies a non-cooperative game and identifies the efficient use of water for irrigation. We compare our theoretical results with the experimental observations. Our findings suggest that the penalty and bonus mechanisms are effective in reducing individual water appropriation compared to the benchmark case in which these mechanisms are absent. Finally, we identify two different effects that drive subjects’ opportunistic behavior. Resource /Energy Economics and Policy

Since the 1990s flood risk and the effects of flooding episodes have reemerged as an important natural hazard concern in central and northern Europe. These concerns have also been exacerbated as a result of widespread and ever increasing awareness of global climate change, and significant wetland loss due to rising sea levels. Global climate change and wetland loss are expected to increase the frequency and extent of floods in the future (Nichols et al., 1999). These floods are expected to cause significant changes in the current land use and population patterns. Contrary to the flooding episodes of the past centuries, recent floods in Europe have milder effects in terms of loss of human life. Economic costs of flooding, however, are rapidly increasing as a result of high costs of damages to infrastructure and production in primary, secondary and tertiary sectors, and disruptions to transport. In Poland and surrounding countries, the estimated costs of the damages of the floods of 1997 and 2001 are in the region of one billion USD for Poland, and 250 million USD, for the surrounding countries (Brakenridge et al, 1997, 2001). As a consequence of the increasing economic and social costs of floods, European governments have taken a more involved approach in flood risk reduction.

This study shows that transient anonymity affects buyer discrimination based on seller’s gender and foreignness in online auctions. Sellers’ names are categorized by gender and foreignness. Half of the sellers’ disclose their names in the usernames and the other half employ anonymous usernames, concealing gender and foreignness. After the price is set and the auction ends, the seller’s name is always disclosed to the buyer by eBay. We explore buyers’ discrimination in willingness to pay, measured as price. Furthermore, we study how buyers’ discrimination in providing feedback is affected by sellers having an anonymous username or not (measured after seller name is known to the buyer). Our results indicate only some evidence of buyer discrimination in willingness to pay. However, interestingly we find that anonymity matters for discrimination; among sellers employing anonymous usernames male sellers with foreign-sounding names receive fewer pieces of feedback than non-foreign female sellers. This is not found among groups of sellers whose names were revealed in the usernames. This discrimination is only present among female and not among male buyers.