Masculinity and Lying

Dishonesty in communication has important economic implications. The standing literature has shown that lying is less pervasive than predicted by standard economic theory. We explore whether biology can help to explain this behavior. In a sample of men, we study whether masculine traits are related to (dis)honesty in a sender-receiver game. We study three masculine physical traits: the second-to-fourth digit ratio, facial morphometric masculinity and the facial width-to-height ratio. These biomarkers display significant associations with lying and deception in the game. We also explore the extent to which these effects operate through social preferences or through beliefs about the behavior of receivers.

Adolescent Time and Risk Preferences: Measurement, Determinants and Field Consequences

We use experimental and survey measures to evaluate the time and risk preferences of nearly 500 adolescents aged 16-19 years old. We find that survey questions about time and risk preferences are weakly correlated with corresponding experiments in which participants trade-off monetary rewards. We find potentially substantial inter-generational transfer of time and risk preferences: parent time and risk preferences are strongly predictive of adolescent preferences for both survey and experimental measures. There are also interesting heterogeneities: girls are less risk seeking and more patient than boys when risk and time preferences are measured via surveys. Interestingly, the survey measures have more predictive power for field outcomes than the experimental measures. Higher patience as measured by the survey is significantly associated with lower body mass index (BMI), less time spent on sedentary activities, more time spent on physical activity and lower consumption of fast food and sweets.

Risk Preferences of Children and Adolescents in Relation to Gender, Cognitive Skills, Soft Skills, and Executive Functions

We conduct experiments eliciting risk preferences with over 1,400 children and adolescents aged 3-15 years old. We complement our data with an assessment of cognitive and executive function skills. First, we find that adolescent girls display significantly greater risk aversion than adolescent boys. This pattern is not observed among young children, suggesting that the gender gap in risk preferences emerges in early adolescence. Second, we find that at all ages in our study, cognitive skills (specifically math ability) are positively associated with risk taking. Executive functions among children, and soft skills among adolescents, are negatively associated with risk taking. Third, we find that greater risk-tolerance is associated with higher likelihood of disciplinary referrals, which provides evidence that our task is equipped to measure a relevant behavioral outcome. For academics, our research provides a deeper understanding of the developmental origins of risk preferences and highlights the important role of cognitive and executive function skills to better understand the association between risk preferences and cognitive abilities over the studied age range.

Toward an understanding of the development of time preferences: Evidence from field experiments

Time preferences have been correlated with a range of life outcomes, yet little is known about their early development. We conduct a field experiment to elicit time preferences of over 1,200 children ages 3-12, who make several intertemporal decisions. To shed light on how such primitives form, we explore various channels that might affect time preferences, from background characteristics to the causal impact of an early schooling program that we developed and operated. Our results suggest that time preferences evolve substantially during this period, with younger children displaying more impatience than older children. We also find a strong association with race: black children, relative to white or Hispanic children, are more impatient. Finally, assignment to different schooling opportunities is not significantly associated with child time preferences.

Fluid Intelligence and Cognitive Reflection in a Strategic Environment: Evidence from Dominance-Solvable Games

Dominance solvability is one of the most straightforward solution concepts in game theory. It is based on two principles: dominance (according to which players always use their dominant strategy) and iterated dominance (according to which players always act as if others apply the principle of dominance). However, existing experimental evidence questions the empirical accuracy of dominance solvability. In this study, we study the relationships between the key facets of dominance solvability and two cognitive skills, cognitive reflection, and fluid intelligence. We provide evidence that the behaviors in accordance with dominance and one-step iterated dominance are both predicted by one's fluid intelligence rather than cognitive reflection. Individual cognitive skills, however, only explain a small fraction of the observed failure of dominance solvability. The accuracy of theoretical predictions on strategic decision making thus not only depends on individual cognitive characteristics, but also, perhaps more importantly, on the decision making environment itself.

Conditioning on What? Heterogeneous Contributions and Conditional Cooperation

We experimentally investigate how different information about others' individual contributions affects people's willingness to cooperate in a one-shot linear public goods game. We find that when information about individual contributions is provided, contributions are generally higher than when only average information is available. This effect is particularly strong when others' individual contributions are relatively homogeneous. When both types of information are provided, this effect is moderated. In the case of individual feedback we find the willingness to contribute to be higher the lower the variation in others' contributions, but with pronounced heterogeneity in individuals' reactions. While the majority of people are mainly guided by others' average contributions, more people follow the bad example of a low contributor than the good example of a high contributor. Overall, we provide evidence that information (and lack thereof) about others' individual contributions affects people's willingness to cooperate in systematic ways.