AMU - AMSE
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Luchini
Publications
Public good games are at the core of many environmental challenges. In such social dilemmas, a large share of people endorse the norm of reciprocity. A growing literature complements this finding with the observation that many players exhibit a self-serving bias in reciprocation: “weak reciprocators” increase their contributions as a function of the effort level of the other players, but less than proportionally. In this paper, we build upon a growing literature on truth-telling to argue that weak reciprocity might be best conceived not as a preference, but rather as a symptom of an internal trade-off at the player level between (i) the truthful revelation of their private reciprocal preference, and (ii) the economic incentives they face (which foster free-riding). In truth-telling experiments, many players misrepresent private information when this is to their material benefit, but to a significantly lesser extent than what would be expected based on the profit-maximizing strategy. We apply this behavioral insight to strategic situations, and test whether the preference revelation properties of the classic voluntary contribution game can be improved by offering players the possibility to sign a classic truth-telling oath. Our results suggest that the honesty oath helps increase cooperation (by 33% in our experiment). Subjects under oath contribute in a way which is more consistent with (i) the contribution they expect from the other players and (ii) their normative views about the right contribution level. As a result, the distribution of social types elicited under oath differs from the one observed in the baseline: some free-riders, and many weak reciprocators, now behave as pure reciprocators.
This study explores whether an oath to honesty can reduce both shirking and lying among crowd-sourced internet workers. Using a classic coin-flip experiment, we first confirm that a substantial majority of Mechanical Turk workers both shirk and lie when reporting the number of heads flipped. We then demonstrate that lying can be reduced by first asking each worker to swear voluntarily on his or her honor to tell the truth in subsequent economic decisions. Even in this online, purely anonymous environment, the oath significantly reduced the percent of subjects telling “big” lies (by roughly 27%), but did not affect shirking. We also explore whether a truth-telling oath can be used as a screening device if implemented after decisions have been made. Conditional on flipping response, MTurk shirkers and workers who lied were significantly less likely to agree to an ex-post honesty oath. Our results suggest oaths may help elicit more truthful behavior, even in online crowd-sourced environments.
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We propose a structural econometric model that incorporates altruism towards other household members into the willingness to pay for a public good. The model distinguishes preferences for public good improvements for oneself from preferences for improvements for other household members. We test for three different types of altruism - ‘pure self-interest’, ‘pure altruism’ and ‘public-good-focused non-pure altruism’. Using French contingent valuation data regarding air quality improvements, we find positive and significant degrees of concern for children under the age of 18, which are explained by determinants related to health and subjective air quality assessment. All other forms of pure or air-quality-focused altruism within the family are insignificant, including for children over 18, siblings, spouses, and parents. This result suggests that benefit estimates that do not consider altruism could undervalue improvements in air quality in France.
Background
Opinion polls on vaccination intentions suggest that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is increasing worldwide; however, the usefulness of opinion polls to prepare mass vaccination campaigns for specific new vaccines and to estimate acceptance in a country's population is limited. We therefore aimed to assess the effects of vaccine characteristics, information on herd immunity, and general practitioner (GP) recommendation on vaccine hesitancy in a representative working-age population in France.
Methods
In this survey experiment, adults aged 18–64 years residing in France, with no history of SARS-CoV-2 infection, were randomly selected from an online survey research panel in July, 2020, stratified by gender, age, education, household size, and region and area of residence to be representative of the French population. Participants completed an online questionnaire on their background and vaccination behaviour-related variables (including past vaccine compliance, risk factors for severe COVID-19, and COVID-19 perceptions and experience), and were then randomly assigned according to a full factorial design to one of three groups to receive differing information on herd immunity (>50% of adults aged 18–64 years must be immunised [either by vaccination or infection]; >50% of adults must be immunised [either by vaccination or infection]; or no information on herd immunity) and to one of two groups regarding GP recommendation of vaccination (GP recommends vaccination or expresses no opinion). Participants then completed a series of eight discrete choice tasks designed to assess vaccine acceptance or refusal based on hypothetical vaccine characteristics (efficacy [50%, 80%, 90%, or 100%], risk of serious side-effects [1 in 10 000 or 1 in 100 000], location of manufacture [EU, USA, or China], and place of administration [GP practice, local pharmacy, or mass vaccination centre]). Responses were analysed with a two-part model to disentangle outright vaccine refusal (irrespective of vaccine characteristics, defined as opting for no vaccination in all eight tasks) from vaccine hesitancy (acceptance depending on vaccine characteristics).
Findings
Survey responses were collected from 1942 working-age adults, of whom 560 (28·8%) opted for no vaccination in all eight tasks (outright vaccine refusal) and 1382 (71·2%) did not. In our model, outright vaccine refusal and vaccine hesitancy were both significantly associated with female gender, age (with an inverted U-shaped relationship), lower educational level, poor compliance with recommended vaccinations in the past, and no report of specified chronic conditions (ie, no hypertension [for vaccine hesitancy] or no chronic conditions other than hypertension [for outright vaccine refusal]). Outright vaccine refusal was also associated with a lower perceived severity of COVID-19, whereas vaccine hesitancy was lower when herd immunity benefits were communicated and in working versus non-working individuals, and those with experience of COVID-19 (had symptoms or knew someone with COVID-19). For a mass vaccination campaign involving mass vaccination centres and communication of herd immunity benefits, our model predicted outright vaccine refusal in 29·4% (95% CI 28·6–30·2) of the French working-age population. Predicted hesitancy was highest for vaccines manufactured in China with 50% efficacy and a 1 in 10 000 risk of serious side-effects (vaccine acceptance 27·4% [26·8–28·0]), and lowest for a vaccine manufactured in the EU with 90% efficacy and a 1 in 100 000 risk of serious side-effects (vaccine acceptance 61·3% [60·5–62·1]).
Interpretation
COVID-19 vaccine acceptance depends on the characteristics of new vaccines and the national vaccination strategy, among various other factors, in the working-age population in France.
Funding
French Public Health Agency (Santé Publique France).
An acceleration index is proposed as a novel indicator to track the dynamics of COVID-19 in real-time. Using data on cases and tests in France for the period between the first and second lock-downs—May 13 to October 25, 2020—our acceleration index shows that the pandemic resurgence can be dated to begin around July 7. It uncovers that the pandemic acceleration was stronger than national average for the [59–68] and especially the 69 and older age groups since early September, the latter being associated with the strongest acceleration index, as of October 25. In contrast, acceleration among the [19–28] age group was the lowest and is about half that of the [69–78]. In addition, we propose an algorithm to allocate tests among French “départements” (roughly counties), based on both the acceleration index and the feedback effect of testing. Our acceleration-based allocation differs from the actual distribution over French territories, which is population-based. We argue that both our acceleration index and our allocation algorithm are useful tools to guide public health policies as France might possibly enter a third lock-down period with indeterminate duration.
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In a competitive business environment, dishonesty can pay. Self-interested executives and managers can have incentive to shade the truth for personal gain. In response, the business community has considered how to commit these executives and managers to a higher ethical standard. The MBA Oath and the Dutch Bankers Oath are examples of such a commitment device. The question we test herein is whether the oath can be used as an effective form of ethics management for future executives/managers—who for our experiment we recruited from a leading French business school—by actually improving their honesty. Using a classic Sender-Receiver strategic game experiment, we reinforce professional identity by pre-selecting the group to which Receivers belong. This allows us to determine whether taking the oath deters lying among future managers. Our results suggest “yes and no.” We observe that these future executives/managers who took a solemn honesty oath as a Sender were (a) significantly more likely to tell the truth when the lie was detrimental to the Receiver, but (b) were not more likely to tell the truth when the lie was mutually beneficial to both the Sender and Receiver. A joint product of our design is our ability to measure in-group bias in lying behavior in our population of subjects (comparing behavior of subjects in the same and different business schools). The experiment provides clear evidence of a lack of such bias.