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Table of ContentsDoes Military Draft Discourage Enrollment in Higher Education? Evidence from OECD Countries Assortative Mating and Divorce: Evidence from Austrian Register Data Outrunning the Gender Gap - Boys and Girls Compete Equally Investigating Motives Behind Punishment and Sacrifice: A Within-Subject Analysis | ||||||||||
BEHAVIORAL & EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS ABSTRACTS"Does Military Draft Discourage Enrollment in Higher Education? Evidence from OECD Countries"
KATARINA R. I. KELLER, Susquehanna University Using data from 1960-2000 for OECD countries, we analyze the impact of compulsory military service on the demand for higher education, measured by students enrolled in tertiary education as a share of the working-age population. Based on a theoretical model, we hypothesize that military draft has a negative effect on education. Empirically, we confirm this for the existence of conscription, albeit usually at low statistical significance. However, the intensity of its enforcement, measured by the share of the labor force conscripted by the military and the duration of service, significantly reduces enrollment in higher education. "Assortative Mating and Divorce: Evidence from Austrian Register Data"
WOLFGANG FRIMMEL, University of Linz This paper documents that changes in assortative mating patterns over the last four decades along the dimensions of age, ethnicity and religion are not responsible for the increasing marital stability in Austria. Quite the contrary, without the rise in the age at marriage, divorce rates would be considerably higher. Immigration and secularization, and the resulting supply of spouses with diverse ethnicity and religious denominations had no overall effect on divorce rates. Countervailing effects ï¾– in line with theoretical predictions ï¾– offset each other. The rise in the incidence in divorce is most probably caused by changing social norms. "The Short-Term Impacts of a Schooling Conditional Cash Transfer Program on the Sexual Behavior of Young Women"
SARAH BAIRD, George Washington University Recent evidence suggests that conditional cash transfer programs for schooling are effective in raising school enrollment and attendance. However, there is also reason to believe that such programs can affect other outcomes, such as the sexual behavior of their young beneficiaries. Zomba Cash Transfer Program is a randomized, ongoing conditional cash transfer intervention targeting young women in Malawi that provides incentives (in the form of school fees and cash transfers) to current schoolgirls and recent dropouts to stay in or return to school. An average offer of US$10/month conditional on satisfactory school attendance - plus direct payment of secondary school fees - led to significant declines in early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and self-reported sexual activity among program beneficiaries after just one year of program implementation. For program beneficiaries who were out of school at baseline, the probability of getting married and becoming pregnant declined by more than 40 percent and 30 percent, respectively. In addition, the incidence of the onset of sexual activity was 38 percent lower among all program beneficiaries than the control group. Overall, these results suggest that conditional cash transfer programs not only serve as useful tools for improving school attendance, but may also reduce sexual activity, teen pregnancy, and early marriage. "Outrunning the Gender Gap - Boys and Girls Compete Equally"
ANNA DREBER, Institute for Financial Research (SIFR) Recent studies find that women are less competitive than men. This gender difference in competitiveness has been suggested as a possible explanation for why men occupy the majority of top positions in many sectors. In this study we explore competitiveness in children. A related field experiment on Israeli children shows that only boys react to competition by running faster when competing in a race and that only girls react to the gender of their opponent. Here we test if these results carry over to 8-10 year old Swedish children. Sweden is typically ranked among the most gender equal countries in the world, thus culture could explain a potential difference in our results to those on Israeli children. We also introduce two more “female� sports: skipping rope and dancing, in order to study if reaction to competition is task dependent. Our results extend previous findings in two ways. First, we find no gender difference in reaction to competition in running. In our study, both boys and girls compete. We also find no gender differences in reaction to competition in skipping rope and dancing. Second, we find no clear effect on competitiveness of the opponent’s gender, neither on girls or boys, in any of the tasks. Our findings suggest that the existence of a gender gap in competitiveness among children may be partly cultural, and that the gap found in previous studies on adults may be caused by factors that emerge later in life. It remains to be explored whether these later factors are biological or cultural. "Investigating Motives Behind Punishment and Sacrifice: A Within-Subject Analysis"
LUKE GARROD, University of East Anglia - ESRC Centre for Competition Policy and School of Economics We analyse an experiment that observes each subject’s behaviour for both roles in the ultimatum and dictator game, and two modified ultimatum games where in the event of a decline the proposer and responder receive a λ- and (1-λ)-share of their proposed payoffs, respectively, where in our games λ=1 (impunity game) and λ=0 (guarantor game). It is shown that inequality aversion or self-interest cannot describe the behaviour of over 60% of subjects across a number of roles given reasonable levels of error, because many subjects sacrifice material payoffs without a pecuniary punishment motive and some punish when the proposal is not unfavourable to them. The within-subject analysis suggests that many of the former may be motivated by a willingness to avoid ‘unfair’ bargains whereas a proportion of the latter may be motivated by spite. | ||||||||||
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Solicitation of Abstracts
The SSRN Behavioral & Experimental Economics eJournal distributes working papers and accepted paper abstracts covering various aspects of behavioral and experimental economics. The objective of this eJournal is to foster insight into the cognitive and affective (emotional) factors that influence the human judgment and decision making process. The discipline of behavioral economics focuses on why individuals make decisions which appear to reflect bounded rationality, quasi rationality, and irrational behavior. This eJournal disseminates research that integrates the methods used in behavioral decision theory with the ones long established in traditional economics.
Distribution ServicesIf your organization is interested in increasing readership for its research by starting a Research Paper Series, or sponsoring a Subject Matter eJournal, please email: RPS@SSRN.com Distributed by:DirectorsERN SUBJECT MATTER EJOURNALS MICHAEL C. JENSEN Please contact us at the above addresses with your comments, questions or suggestions for ERN-Sub. Advisory BoardBehavioral & Experimental Economics MORRIS ALTMAN GERRIT ANTONIDES OFER H. AZAR COLIN CAMERER WERNER F.M. DEBONDT CATHERINE C. ECKEL RICHARD G. FRANK URI GNEEZY CLAIRE A. HILL CATHLEEN A. JOHNSON DANIEL KAHNEMAN BIJOU YANG LESTER JOHN A. LIST GEORGE LOEWENSTEIN ROBERT J. OXOBY JOOST M. E. PENNINGS MICHAEL J. ROSZKOWSKI HUGH SCHWARTZ ANDREI SHLEIFER PAUL SLOVIC GLENN E. SNELBECKER CASS R. SUNSTEIN RICHARD H. THALER JOHN F. TOMER PAUL J. ZAK JASON ZWEIG
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