scholarly journals Labor Drops: Experimental Evidence on the Return to Additional Labor in Microenterprises

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 202-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suresh de Mel ◽  
David McKenzie ◽  
Christopher Woodruff

A field experiment in Sri Lanka provided wage subsidies to randomly chosen microenterprises to test whether hiring additional labor benefits such firms and whether a short-term subsidy can have a lasting impact on firm employment. Using 12 rounds of surveys to track dynamics 4 years after treatment, we find that firms increased employment during the subsidy period. Treated firms were more likely to survive, but there was no lasting impact on employment and no effect on profitability or sales either during or after the subsidy period. There is some heterogeneity in effects; the subsidies have a more durable effect on manufacturers. (JEL C93, J22, J24, J31, J38, O14, O15)

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damon Jones

Within a field experiment, I present a treatment group with reductions in information, administrative, stigma, and procrastination costs associated with the Advance EITC. The treatment increases Advance participation from 0.3 to 1.2 percent. Another treatment simultaneously encourages 401(k) savings, increasing 401(k) participation from 46 to 50 percent. However, there is no additional increase in Advance participation when coupled with the 401(k) treatment, casting doubt on a long-term forced savings motive. The results indicate that EITC recipients actively forgo the Advance. Further work is needed to identify what underlies these preferences. Possible explanations include uncertainty and/or short-term forced savings motives. (JEL D14, D82, H23, H24, H31)


Author(s):  
Andrea Morone ◽  
Rocco Caferra ◽  
Alessia Casamassima ◽  
Alessandro Cascavilla ◽  
Paola Tiranzoni

AbstractThis work aims to identify and quantify the biases behind the anomalous behavior of people when they deal with the Three Doors dilemma, which is a really simple but counterintuitive game. Carrying out an artefactual field experiment and proposing eight different treatments to isolate the anomalies, we provide new interesting experimental evidence on the reasons why subjects fail to take the optimal decision. According to the experimental results, we are able to quantify the size and the impact of three main biases that explain the anomalous behavior of participants: Bayesian updating, illusion of control and status quo bias.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Goldberg

I use a field experiment to estimate the wage elasticity of employment in the day labor market in rural Malawi. Once a week for 12 consecutive weeks, I make job offers for a workfare-type program to 529 adults. The daily wage varies from the tenth to the ninetieth percentile of the wage distribution, and individuals are entitled to work a maximum of one day per week. In this context (the low agricultural season), 74 percent of individuals worked at the lowest wage, and consequently the estimated labor supply elasticity is low (0.15), regardless of observable characteristics. (JEL C93, J22, J31, O15, O18, R23)


2020 ◽  
pp. 45-74
Author(s):  
Ethan Porter

This chapter studies the relationship between consumer fairness, political preferences, and policy uptake. Americans who support Donald Trump are especially likely to believe the government should be judged by the standards of private companies. New experimental evidence documents that, when politicians of both parties use consumer rhetoric, co-partisans of those leaders subsequently come to view politics in strikingly consumerist terms. In another experiment, results show that voters with low levels of political knowledge look most positively upon a hypothetical political candidate who promises cost-benefit alignability, compared to a candidate who promises more benefits than costs. The chapter then describes a field experiment administered in cooperation with a health insurance cooperative funded under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A message that framed the cooperative as meeting the standards of cost-benefit alignability caused people to enroll in the cooperative.


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