Published and Forthcoming Papers

Mind the framing when studying social preferences in the domain of losses with Armenak Antinyan, Luca Corazzini, and Tommaso Reggiani in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2024. (Cardiff Economics WorkingPapers, No. E2022/16)

There has been an increasing interest in altruistic behaviour in the domain of losses recently. Nevertheless, there is no consensus in whether the monetary losses make individuals more generous or more selfish. Although almost all relevant studies rely on a dictator game to study altruistic behaviour, the experimental designs of these studies differ in how the losses are framed, which may explain the diverging findings. Utilizing a dictator game, this paper studies the impact of loss framing on altruism. The main methodological result is that the dictators’ prosocial behaviour is sensitive to the loss frame they are embedded in. More specifically, in a dictator game in which the dictators have to share a loss between themselves and a recipient, the monetary allocations of the dictators are more benevolent than in a standard setting without a loss and in a dictator game in which the dictators have to share what remains of their endowments after a loss. These differences are explained by the different social norms that the respective loss frames invoke.

Reproducibility in Management Science with Ben Greiner, Christoph Huber, Elena Katok, Ali Ozkes, and Management Science Reproducibility Collaboration in Management Science, 2023. (OSF Preprints, 1 Nov. 2023.)

With the help of more than 700 reviewers we assess the reproducibility of nearly 500 articles published in the journal Management Science before and after the introduction of a new Data and Code Disclosure policy in 2019. When considering only articles for which data accessibility and hard- and software requirements were not an obstacle for reviewers, the results of more than 95% of articles under the new disclosure policy could be fully or largely computationally reproduced. However, for 29% of articles at least part of the dataset was not accessible to the reviewer. Considering all articles in our sample reduces the share of reproduced articles to 68%. These figures represent a significant increase compared to the period before the introduction of the disclosure policy, where only 12% of articles voluntarily provided replication materials, out of which 55% could be (largely) reproduced. Substantial heterogeneity in reproducibility rates across different fields is mainly driven by differences in dataset accessibility. Other reasons for unsuccessful reproduction attempts include missing code, unresolvable code errors, weak or missing documentation, but also soft- and hardware requirements and code complexity. Our findings highlight the importance of journal code and data disclosure policies, and suggest potential avenues for enhancing their effectiveness.

Ovulatory shift, hormonal changes, and no effects on incentivized decision-making with Lubomír Cingl, Tommaso Reggiani, Eva Kundtová-Klocová, Radek Kundt, Jan Krátký, Katarína Kostolanská, Petra Bencúrová, Marie Kudličková Pešková, and Klára Marečková in Journal of Economic Psychology, 2023.

Employing an incentivized controlled lab experiment, we investigate the effects of ovulatory shift on salient behavioral outcomes related to (i) risk preferences, (ii) rule violation, and (iii) exploratory attitude. As evolutionary psychology suggests, these outcomes may play an important role in economic decision-making and represent behavioral aspects that may systematically vary over the menstrual cycle to increase the reproductive success. Exploiting a within-subjects design, 124 naturally cycling females participated in experimental sessions during their ovulation and menstruation, the phases between which the difference in the investigated behavior should be the largest. In each session, hormonal samples for cortisol, estradiol, and testosterone were collected. The group of women was also contrasted against an auxiliary reference group composed of 47 males, who are not subject to hormonal variations of this nature. Our results reveal no systematic behavioral differences between the ovulation and menstruation phases.

Coordinating Donations via an Intermediary: The Destructive Effect of A Sunk Overhead Cost with Diya Abraham, Luca Corazzini, and Tommaso Reggiani in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2023 (MUNI ECO Working Paper, 2021-14)

Donors often use the services of an intermediary to prevent their donations from being too thinly distributed over multiple public projects. We explore whether donors' willingness to coordinate their funds via an intermediary depends on the extent of the intermediary's discretion over their contributions, as well as the organizational overhead costs incurred by the intermediary. We investigate this using a laboratory experiment in which donors face multiple identical threshold public goods and the opportunity to coordinate their contributions via another donor assigned to the role of intermediary. In line with standard game theoretic predictions, we find that donors make use of the intermediary only when they know she is heavily restricted in terms of the proportion of their contributions she can expropriate for herself. However, we find strong evidence that the positive effect of these restrictions is undone once the intermediary incurs a sunk overhead cost. Our analysis suggests that the ex-ante inequality created as a result of this sunk cost reduces the trustworthiness of the intermediary in the donors' eyes, which in turn reduces the donors' willingness to use the intermediary to coordinate their contributions effectively. 

Media Negativity Bias and Tax Compliance: Experimental Evidence with Tommaso Reggiani, Fabio Sabatini, and Jiří Špalek in International Tax and Public Finance, 2022 (Cardiff Economics Working Papers, no. E2021/26)

We study the impact of the media negativity bias on tax compliance. Through a framed laboratory experiment, we assess how the exposure to biased news about government action affects compliance in a repeated taxation game. Subjects treated with positive news are signicantly more compliant than the control group. Instead, the exposure to negative news does not prompt any significant reaction compared to the neutral condition, suggesting that participants may perceive the media negativity bias in the selection and tonality of news as the norm rather than the exception. Overall, our results suggest that biased news provision is a constant source of psychological priming and plays a vital role in taxpayers' compliance decisions.

Committed to Reciprocate on a Bribe or Blow the Whistle: The Effects of Staff-Rotation in Public Administration with Ondřej Krčál, Jiří Špalek, and Rostislav Staněk in Public Performance & Management Review, 2021 (MUNI ECON Working Papers 2019-01)

Periodic rotation of staff in public administration may lead to lower corruption, as it disrupts long-term relationships between public officials and potential bribers. We use an experimental design to test the anti-corruption effect of staff rotation in situations in which public officials have committed to reciprocating bribes. We find that staff rotation does not influence the proportion of firms offering bribes but reduces the share of bribe acceptance and inefficient decisions due to bribery. The outcome of the staff rotation treatment, in which firms offered bribes even though they were rarely accepted by officials, is consistent with the game having a quantal response equilibrium.

Gender Differences in Beliefs and Actions in a Framed Corruption Experiment with Matúš Kubák, Jiří Špalek, and James Tremewan in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 2016

We elicit actions and beliefs in a framed corruption experiment enabling us to investigate how gender differences in corrupt behaviour relate to gender differences in both beliefs about the behaviour of others and the relationship between those beliefs and actions. We find that women are less likely to engage in costly punishment of corruption, and believe corruption to be more prevalent than men. Differences between the genders in the relationship between beliefs and actions provides evidence that men experience a greater psychological cost as a result of social sanctions. Controlling for beliefs and gender differences in sensitivity to beliefs we find that males are, in many instances, more likely to offer bribes, while females are less likely to conform to a norm of bribe-giving. This result was not apparent in the raw data, and highlights the importance of considering beliefs in corruption experiments.

Governmental Research Support Programs and Private Entities in Slovakia with Zuzana Malíková, Matúš Kubák, and Radovan Báčík in Review of Economic Perspectives, 2014

The paper analyses public subsidies aimed to enhance development and innovation in the Slovakian private sector. The paper reviews theoretical approaches of the necessity of public support to research and development activities in order to increase private investment in research and development. An overview of research and development support tools in Slovakia is presented. The analytical part of the work is oriented on a comparative analysis of two granting agencies in Slovakia [Agency for Research and Development (ARD) and Agency of Operational Program Research and Development (OPRD)]. Special attention is given to direct public financial support. Logit analysis showed a relationship between success of grant applicants and their characteristics. We find that the following have impact on success of the application: Age of the company, amount of the grant required, legal form of the company, and the agency to which the application for grant was submitted. Applicants with legal form Ltd. (limited liability company) have a higher chance of receiving grant than other legal forms. The highest chance of success has a request for a grant of up to 500.000 €. According to the results of our analysis, the chance to obtain a grant decreases with each passing year.

Working Papers

A Competitive Audit Selection Mechanism with Incomplete Information with Ondřej Krčál, Rostislav Staněk, Jiří Špalek, and James Tremewan. MUNI ECON Working Papers 2019-08.

The experimental tax and regulatory compliance literature has shown the effectiveness of competitive audit selection mechanisms (ASMs) based on declarations and a signal of the taxpayers' actual income. However, collecting information about actual income prior to audit selection is costly. In this article, we test the effectiveness of an endogenous ASM based solely on declared income. We show theoretically and in a laboratory experiment that this new endogenous ASM significantly increases compliance in comparison with an ASM where all taxpayers face audit with equal probability. However, a further consequence of conditioning solely on declared income is that poorer taxpayers are audited more frequently, reducing the effectiveness of this ASM in generating revenue and reducing inequality. We further compare the new mechanism with an ASM that also uses a noisy signal of actual income and show that it is a significant improvement over the other two ASMs in terms of compliance, revenue, and inequality. Our results suggest that ASMs that condition only on reported income can increase compliance but should be implemented with caution, and investing in acquiring information before audit selection can have substantial benefits. 

 Work in Progress