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printable versionDoctoral Programme in Economics and Management - Second Year Presentations
Venue:
Lab 4 - School of Social Sciences - Via Verdi 26 - TN
February 7th, 2013
h. 14.00
- Andrushchenko Mariia: Strategic Matching Behavior in Dating Markets
Abstract
Matching theory was introduced in the 1960s and offers practical solutions to real-world problems that involve one-to-one matching, such as the assignment of students to school, doctors to hospitals, and other situations with competitive environments. The most intuitive and experimentally feasible area of research in matching is dating markets, where the price of a mate may be represented as an evaluation of his or her personal traits. The so-called stable marriage problem is a widely applicable setting for describing people’s strategic interactions in situations with conflicting interests.
The proposed study will examine individuals’ behavioral strategies in dating markets by introducing the modified Keynesian beauty concept game into the Gale-Shapley matching algorithm. The research design consists of developing an experiment where the players will be asked to match with the participants of the opposite gender regarding their own personal preferences and their beliefs about the most popular candidate. Using experimental data, this study will investigate the coordination problem and players’ abilities to reach equilibrium in matching markets with correlated preferences and uncertainty conditions. Moreover, this methodology makes it possible to compare people’s personal preferences and stereotypic expectations about the most preferred traits for a mate.
- Baggio Marianna: Consensus building over redistributive norms: an experimental approach to nudging techniques
Abstract
Consensus building – the mediation of a conflict involving various stakeholders before the implementation of a policy – is a major challenge for policy makers since it can determine the success or failure of a policy. In view of the fact that traditional consensus-building techniques often lead to unsatisfactory outcomes, this research emphasizes the use of nudging techniques to build consensus over redistributive norms. The proposed approach consists of exploiting the biases and heuristics of decision makers in order to gently push them towards the acceptance of a norm.The research design consists of two interlocking analysis based on laboratory and framed field experiments. The first consists of developing an experiment where alternative representations of the same redistributive norm are shown to different groups of experimental subjects. These representations are generated using specific deviations from the homo economicus model (framing effect, system justification bias, and social preferences). Individuals must then play either a public good or bad game. The results of this game will be interpreted as a measure of consensus. The second paper will verify the laboratory findings by conducting a field experiment with participants involved in the consultation process over a regional redistributive policy.
- Ilbeigi Alireza: Impact Evaluation of Public Subsidies for Individual R&D and Collaboration in R&D on Innovation Activities
Abstract
Public authorities provide innovation incentives to urge firms to conduct R&D and to collaborate in R&D to increase innovation activities for higher social welfare. The study suggests a framework that deals with impact of R&D subsidies through individual R&D effort and collaboration in R&D on innovation activities.
R&D collaboration is the strategic choice of firms to perform common research and development activities. In the proposed model, collaboration in R&D impacts innovation activities through first- and second-order additionality. First-order additionality is the amount that the firms spend additionally for R&D after being supported by public subsidies. Second-order additionality results from knowledge spillovers, technology diffusion, and knowledge exchanges within communities of firms. Hypothesized relationships between components of the framework will be examined.
In order to estimate the effects of the treatments, counterfactual impact evaluation will be implemented for groups of subsidized and unsubsidized firms. Homogeneity of these firms will be satisfied by controlling for variables related to firms’ characteristics and exogenous factors. Dataset for empirical analysis is provided partly by the Local Bureau of Statistics and the local Bureau for Industrial Policy in Province of Trento, Italy. The other part of dataset will be compiled by survey.
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Doctorate in Economics and Management 
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