Essays in experimental economics

Ferraro, Giacomo

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URN:	urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-709325
Dokumenttyp:	Dissertation
Erscheinungsjahr:	2025
Ort der Veröffentlichung:	Mannheim
Hochschule:	University of Mannheim
Gutachter:	Mill, Wladislaw
Sprache der Veröffentlichung:	Englisch
Einrichtung:	Fakultät für Rechtswissenschaft und Volkswirtschaftslehre > Verhaltensökonomik (Juniorprofessur) (Mill 2018-)
Lizenz:	Creative Commons Namensnennung 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Fachgebiet:	330 Wirtschaft
Freie Schlagwörter (Englisch):	experiment , media
Abstract:	A relatively recent strand of economic literature studies information and its impact. In this dissertation, I have employed both theoretical experimental and empirical analysis to make advances in the field of information economics. The information that decision-makers process plays a role in determining their decisions: I focus on its impact on social preferences and channels driving the result. Furthermore, in the social media era, each information consumer is an information pro- ducer at the same time. Nowadays, there is an almost infinite amount of information each agent can freely consume; however, information can have different quality. Studying how attitudes are formed is fundamental to understand how people process consumed information. The study about attitude formation is particularly relevant in the current age of misinformation. Low-quality information (e.g., fake news, conspiracy theories) is quickly spreading online, affecting how individuals behave, with negative spillovers on both individual outcomes (e.g., health-related decisions) and collective outcomes (e.g., climate change). We lack a deeper understanding of these phenomena. My results inform policymakers about relevant and novel issues relative to how information is generated, processed and its implication. Chapter 1 Rising polarization endangers social cohesion, and threatens the maintenance and the growth of a healthy society. This study investigates the impact of exposure to polarized articles on social preferences,focusing on how such exposure influences altruism, cooperativeness, and anti-social behavior. The research explores three key channels — emotions, group identity, and expectations about the others — that may drive the deterioration of social preferences in a polarized news environment. I conduct an online experiment, wherein I have participants reading polarized articles and then interact with other participants whose characteristics are not disclosed. I find that pro-attitudinal and counter-attitudinal articles impact the level of cooperation and altruism: reading pro-attitudinal articles increases cooperation and decreases anti-social behavior. Conversely, reading counter-attitudinal articles decreases altruism and increases anti-social behavior. The impact is asymmetrical among different political supporters, providing the first experimental evidence that polarized articles affect social preferences. Chapter 2 In joint work with Federico Innocenti and Marco Minozzo. We investigate how slanted articles influence attitudes. We implemented a field experiment where university students were randomly assigned to different treatments, reading news articles with either a positive or negative slant on several topics over four weeks. We collected students’ attitudes weekly and in a follow-up survey four weeks later. We find that: a) slanted information significantly shifts attitudes in the intended direction; b) the effect is more substantial for novel topics; c) the first impression about a novel topic shapes attitudes; d) the change in attitudes persists over time; e) different attitudes drive different economic decisions. Our findings highlight that media are more effective when shaping initial attitudes rather than altering existing ones. Thus, our results show the importance of timely information provision, especially in the early stages of public discourse. Chapter 3 I investigate the effect of social capital on vaccination decision-making among the French population during the COVID-19 pandemic. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first paper to perform a dynamic analysis of the role of social capital in vaccinations. By utilizing geographical variation within the country’s departments, I show a positive role of social capital in increasing the vaccinated population. Furthermore, the role of social capital is mitigated only by the mplementation of (dis)incentives as the green pass. My results are robust to different specifications of the model and different proxies for social capital. The provided results highlight the need to strengthen social capital to have not only positive economic returns but also social and health behaviors. Additionally, policy interventions that increase the stringency of rules can result in a rapid and significant increase in vaccination rates, particularly in areas with lower social capital.