Three essays on experimental economics

Abstract

This Ph.D. thesis consists of three chapters. In chapter 1, with Sara Atehortúa, we propose a lab experiment to understand if environments of resource restrictions and uncertainty on the relative needs of future beneficiaries affect physicians' resource allocation decisions and how. When there are incentives to over-treat, we find that a patient tended by a constrained physician under uncertainty obtains higher benefits and receives allocations closer to her optimum than patients from physicians with no constraints or deciding under uncertainty alone. In addition, we observe a redistribution of resources when physicians decide with resource restrictions and uncertainty. In particular, when resources are scarce, physicians tend to allocate limited services to patients with higher benefits in the absence of medical services, a higher capacity to benefit from the resources, the scantiest need for service units, and the lowest benefits at the optimum. Finally, we find that constraints, with or without complete information on patient characteristics, lead selfish physicians to approximate what is best for the patient. In chapter 2, in co-authorship with Mariana Blanco and Darwin Cortés, we propose a laboratory experiment to understand how social exclusion affects the participants of this antisocial interaction in terms of performance and reported emotions. We adopt a widely used ostracism manipulation from psychology and take it to an experimental economics laboratory. We find that social exclusion events only affect lightly excluded participants and that this effect is explained by the emotions generated after exclusion. In addition, the victims of exclusion report reductions in the valence dimension of emotions, as do those who have the option to exclude but decide not to. The possibility of bystanders punishing potential offenders, the generalized disapproval of exclusion, and an extended approval of inclusion reduce the incidence of exclusion. This reduction comes at the cost of negative changes in the reported emotions of most participant types, but it does not translate into changes in performance in a task. Last, we find that previous exclusion increases the decision of former victims to ostracize. In chapter 3, I propose an experimental design to analyze how female or male leaders favor the adoption of a communal norm over an agentic one in a workplace setting. I also study how the gender composition of a group and the selection of a leader via merit favor the adoption of an egalitarian distribution. Although their individual preference is against an egalitarian rule, male leaders are more influential than female leaders in favoring changes toward equality. In addition, no particular mixed-gender composition favors one norm over the other. However, women in female-majority groups are less likely to select a tournament compensation and to change to an egalitarian rule when they are part of a group