Challenging the construct validity of bribery in experimental economics

The bribery construct employed by experimental studies of corruption faces three interrelated challenges. First, the notion of trust used in the bribery construct reduces it to a mere calculation of risk. Second, and as a consequence of the above, the appropriate context of interaction is undetermined. Finally, the experiments show an insufficient clarification of the normative framework. In short, researchers on corruption should be mindful of the challenges of the construct they employ in the lab, and they should tackle the aforementioned issues in order not to compromise the validity of their results.

Psychopathy and Economic Behavior Among Prison Inmates: An Experiment

This paper investigates whether there is a connection between psychopathy and certain manifestations of social and economic behavior, measured in a lab-in-the-field experiment with prison inmates. In order to test this main hypothesis, we let inmates play four games that have often been used to measure prosocial and antisocial behavior in previous experimental economics literature. Specifically, they play a prisoner's dilemma, a trust game, the equality equivalence test that elicits distributional preferences, and a corruption game. Psychopathy is measured by means of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP) questionnaire, which inmates filled out after having made their decisions in the four games. We find that higher scores in the LSRP are significantly correlated with anti-social behavior in the form of weaker reciprocity, lower cooperation, lower benevolence and more bribe-oriented decisions in the corruption game. In particular, not cooperating and bribe-maximizing decisions are associated with significantly higher LSRP primary and LSRP secondary scores. Not reciprocating is associated with higher LSRP primary and being spiteful with higher LSRP secondary scores.

What is considered deception in experimental economics?

In experimental economics there is a norm against using deception. But precisely what constitutes deception is unclear. While there is a consensus view that providing false information is not permitted, there are also “gray areas” with respect to practices that omit information or are misleading without an explicit lie being told. In this paper, we report the results of a large survey among experimental economists and students concerning various specific gray areas. We find that there is substantial heterogeneity across respondent choices. The data indicate a perception that costs and benefits matter, so that such practices might in fact be appropriate when the topic is important and there is no other way to gather data. Compared to researchers, students have different attitudes about some of the methods in the specific scenarios that we ask about. Few students express awareness of the no-deception policy at their schools. We also briefly discuss some potential alternatives to “gray-area” deception, primarily based on suggestions offered by respondents.

The replication crisis, the rise of new research practices and what it means for experimental economics

Report from the Economic Science Association on the implications of the replication crisis, and the emergence of new research practices, for experimental economics.