Job Market Signaling and Job Search

The high cost of searching for employers borne by prospective employees increases friction in the labor market and inhibits formation of efficient employer-employee relationships. It is conventionally agreed that mechanisms that reduce the search costs (e.g., internet portals for job search) lower unemployment and improve overall welfare. We demonstrate that a reduction of the search costs may have the converse effect. We show that in a signaling job market with random matching lower search costs lead to fewer employees willing to exert effort and, in a separating equilibrium, to more individuals opting to stay completely out of the job market and remain unemployed. Furthermore, we show that lower search costs not only deteriorate the market composition, but also impair efficiency by leading to more expensive signaling in a separating equilibrium.Signaling; job market; job search; separating equilibrium; unemployment; moral hazard

The Uncontrolled Social Utility Hypothesis Revisited

The experiment disentangles communication and social effect in face-to-face communication. The results question the previous interpretation of communication effects in ultimatum bargaining, and suggest that separate processes, both of a strategic and of an affective-social nature induce cooperative outcomes.

The uncontrolled social utility hypothesis revisited

The experiment disentangles communication and social effect in face-to-face communication. The results question the previous interpretation of communication effects in ultimatum bargaining, and suggest that separate processes, both of a strategic and of an affective-social nature induce cooperative outcomes

When being wasteful appears better than feeling wasteful

"Waste not want not" expresses our culture's aversion to waste. "I could have gotten the same thing for less" is a sentiment that can diminish pleasure in a transaction. We study people's willingness to "pay" to avoid this spoiler. In one scenario, participants imagined they were looking for a rental apartment, and had bought a subscription to an apartment listing. If a cheaper subscription had been declined, respondents preferred not to discover post hoc that it would have sufficed. Specifically, they preferred ending their quest for the ideal apartment after seeing more, rather than fewer, apartments, so that the length of the search exceeds that available within the cheaper subscription. Other scenarios produced similar results. We conclude that people may sometimes prefer to be wasteful in order to avoid feeling wasteful.waste aversion, mental accounting, violation of dominance, counterfactual, regret

Social motives in intergroup conflict

We experimentally test the social motives behind individual participation in intergroup conflict by manipulating the framing and symmetry of conflict. We find that behavior in conflict depends on whether one is harmed by actions perpetrated by the out-group, but not on one's own influence on the outcome of the out-group. The way in which this harm is presented and perceived dramatically alters participation decisions. When people perceive their group to be under threat, they are mobilized to do what is good for the group and contribute to the conflict. On the other hand, if people perceive to be personally under threat, they are driven to do what is good for themselves and withhold their contribution. The first phenomenon is attributed to group identity, possibly combined with a concern for social welfare. The second phenomenon is attributed to a novel victim effect. Another social motive - reciprocity - is ruled out by the data

Let the Dummy Talk! - Unilateral Communication and Discrimination in Three-Person Dictator Experiments -

To explain why pre-play communication increases cooperation in games, one refers to a) strategic causes such as efficient communication or reputation effects, and b) changes in the utilities due to social processes. Hitherto experimental support for both explanations is mixed and confounded. Our experimental design eliminates all strategic factors and allows to focus on the effects of communication processes. We clearly find social effects, but none of revealed anonymity or salient communication. The social processes invoked are very heterogeneous but not irregular for different communicators.bargaining, communication, social utility, n-persons dictator game

Cycles of conditional cooperation in a real-time voluntary contribution mechanism

This paper provides a new way to identify conditional cooperation in a real-time version of the standard voluntary contribution mechanism. Our approach avoids most drawbacks of the traditional procedures because it relies on endogenous cycle lengths, which are defined by the number of contributors a player waits before committing to a further contribution. Based on hypothetical distributions of randomly generated contribution sequences, we provide strong evidence for conditionally cooperative behavior. Moreover, notwithstanding a decline in contributions, conditional cooperation is found to be stable over time

Imperfect Recall and Time Inconsistencies: An experimental test of the absentminded driver "paradox"

Absentmindedness is a special case of imperfect recall which according to Piccione and Rubinstein (1997a) leads to time inconsistencies. Aumann, Hart and Perry (1997a) question their argument and show how dynamic inconsistencies can be resolved. The present paper explores this issue from a descriptive point of view by examining the behavior of absentminded individuals in a laboratory environment. Absentmindedness is manipulated in two ways. In one treatment, it is induced by cognitively overloading participants. In the other, it is imposed by randomly matching decisions with decision nodes in the information set. The results provide evidence for time inconsistencies in all treatments. We introduce a behavioral principal, which best explains the data.imperfect recall, absentmindedness, dynamic inconsistency, experiment