Changing Preferences: An Experiment and Estimation of Market-Incentive Effects on Altruism

Byambadalai, Undral; Albert, Ching‐to; Wiesen, Daniel

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3431002

“…The exceptions are two incentivized laboratory experiments, using the same experiment but on different samples (Byambadalai et al., 2021; Ge & Godager, 2021). They examine choices amongst different levels of quality involving direct trade‐offs between profit and patient benefit under monopoly, duopoly, and quadropoly.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They examine choices amongst different levels of quality involving direct tradeoffs between profit and patient benefit under monopoly, duopoly, and quadropoly. However, though they used the framing of medical treatment choices, both used university student subjects from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, for example, with less than 10% studying medicine in Byambadalai et al (2021), and so their findings are not generalizable to physicians. Both studies show that more competition increases quality, but their results are difficult to reconcile because each study uses a different structural model and different analytic methods, and reach different conclusions about why competition increases quality.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both studies show that more competition increases quality, but their results are difficult to reconcile because each study uses a different structural model and different analytic methods, and reach different conclusions about why competition increases quality. Byambadalai et al (2021) allow preferences to vary and conclude that more competition reduces altruism, whilst Ge and Godager (2021) keep preferences fixed and show that more competition reduces randomness in behavior and that this individual-specific unobserved heterogeneity (scale) is the main mechanism through which competition influences quality.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Motivation and competition in health care

Scott

¹

,

Sivey

²

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The effect of competition and other economic incentives in health care will depend, in part, upon the objectives of health care providers. The aim of this paper is to examine whether the degree of monetary motivation modifies the impact of economic incentives on physicians. This has not yet been examined empirically in health care. This paper examines whether physicians with a low monetary motivation, measured by their marginal utility of income (MUY), are less likely to respond to a change in competition relative to physicians with a relatively high monetary motivation. We contribute to the literature by linking preference parameters from a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to real world data on market structure and prices charged.In health care, evidence that physicians respond to financial incentives is interpreted as physicians being motivated by income. However, theoretical models have always acknowledged that physicians may also be altruistic (

show abstract

“…When intensifying competition in their setup, by increasing the relative number of sellers, the share of pro-social transactions increases. 6 Other examples in which competition and pro-social behavior can be mutually reinforcing are provided by Byambadalai, Ma & Wiesen (2019) and van Leeuwen, Offerman & Schram (2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morals in Multi-unit Markets

Ziegler

¹

,

Romagnoli

²

,

Offerman

³

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examine how the erosion of morals in markets depends on the market power of individual traders. Previously studied single-unit markets provide market power to individual traders by limiting the roles of two forces: (i) the replacement logic, whereby immoral trading is justified by the belief that others would trade otherwise; (ii) market selection, by which the least moral trader determines quantities. In an experiment, we compare single-unit to (more common) multi-unit markets which may activate these forces. We find that, in contrast to single-unit markets, multi-unit markets show full erosion of morals.Especially the replacement logic drives this finding. In addition, we find that (i) market experience leads to biased social learning, whereby subjects believe that others are less moral than they actually are; (ii) erosion of morals persists partially after multi-unit markets; (iii) changes in social norms are not driving these results.

show abstract

“…When intensifying competition in their setup, by increasing the relative number of sellers, the share of pro-social transactions increases. 6 Other examples in which competition and pro-social behavior can be mutually reinforcing are provided by Byambadalai, Ma & Wiesen (2019) and van Leeuwen, Offerman & Schram (2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morals in multi-unit markets

Ziegler¹,

Offerman²,

Romagnoli³

2019

AEA Randomized Controlled Trials

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examine how the erosion of morals in markets depends on the market power of individual traders. Previously studied single-unit markets provide market power to individual traders by limiting the roles of two forces: (i) the replacement logic, whereby immoral trading is justified by the belief that others would trade otherwise; (ii) market selection, by which the least moral trader determines quantities. In an experiment, we compare single-unit to (more common) multi-unit markets which may activate these forces. We find that, in contrast to single-unit markets, multi-unit markets show full erosion of morals.Especially the replacement logic drives this finding. In addition, we find that (i) market experience leads to biased social learning, whereby subjects believe that others are less moral than they actually are; (ii) erosion of morals persists partially after multi-unit markets; (iii) changes in social norms are not driving these results.

show abstract

Changing Preferences: An Experiment and Estimation of Market-Incentive Effects on Altruism

Cited by 12 publications

References 36 publications

Motivation and competition in health care

Motivation and competition in health care

Morals in Multi-unit Markets

Morals in multi-unit markets

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About