Search

‘Nudges’ receive growing attention as an effective strategy to alter people's decisions without significantly changing economic incentives or limiting options. However, being often very subtle and covert, nudges are also criticized as unethical. By not being transparent about the intention to influence individual choice they might be perceived as limiting freedom of autonomous actions and decisions. So far, empirical research on this issue is scarce. In this study, we investigate whether nudges can be made transparent without limiting their effectiveness. For this purpose, we conduct a laboratory experiment where we ‘nudge’ contributions to carbon emission reduction by introducing a default value. We test how different types of transparency (i.e. knowledge of the potential influence of the default, its purpose, or both) influence the effect of the default. Our findings demonstrate that the default increases contributions, and information on the potential influence combined with the purpose of the default, or just its purpose, do not significantly affect contributions. Findings are somewhat inconclusive with respect to information on the potential behavioral influence. Furthermore, we do not find evidence that psychological reactance interrelates with the influence of transparency. Generally, our findings support the policy-relevant claim that nudges (in the form of defaults) can be transparent and yet effective.

The welding technique used for ASIS 304 and 316L austenitic stainless steel sheets both with a thickness of 3mm is gas tungsten arc welding (TIG) and manual metal arc welding (MMAW). Mechanical properties that were verified include: hardness test and tensile test before welding and after it. The welding process was done on two types of specimens: with a central hole and without hole. We concluded that there was a decrease in the properties of tensile for both specimens with central hole, and 316L had tensile characteristics better than 304 when using the technique TIG. As for 304, it had tensile characteristics better than 316L when using the technique MMAW. We also concluded that the existence of central holes had an influence on the hardness characteristics on both types. The hardness increased in 304 but decreased in 316L. The welding process also showed that there was no influence of MMAW on hardness on both specimens. However it showed that there was no influence of TIG on the hardness for 304, but for 316L values increased.

International audience; We investigate how institutions can shape differently the expression for efficiency and equity. We run four variants of the triple dictator game and the trust game in a within-subject design that enables to plot individual patterns. A veil of ignorance, a positional fee and information about others’ behaviors are successively introduced to the two standard games. Alongside those treatments, we also control for individual preferences towards risk and other regarding preferences. Results show that while individuals demonstrate consistency in their preferences, the prospect of transfers in the trust game and the veil of ignorance increases efficiency and equity. Second, the option to choose their position as investor at some cost attracts the less cooperative players: they pay to be investor and keep more for themselves. Third, subjects who modify their investment decision after learning the average investment in their group tend to move closer to the average.

We aim to investigate whether trust is mainly influenced by pro-social concerns or by risk-related issues. In a within-subjects framework, we elicit subjects’ other regarding attitude as well as preference towards risk via respectively the ring test (Griesinger and Livingston [1973]) and the Holt and Laury test [2002]. These measures are then exploited in two different sorts of giving games: (i) a standard trust game, which – by construction – embodies a dimension of risk (i.e. the transfer-back from the receiver to the sender), and (ii) a (triple) dictator game in which the component of risk is removed. The measures of other regarding preferences and risk preferences were also used to explain the gaps of transfer due to strategic anticipation. The results show that giving behavior in trust game is driven by other regarding preferences and not by risk-related considerations. However, we find no significant correlation between the gaps of transfer and both social and risk preferences.; Dans une expérience en laboratoire, nous cherchons à déterminer si la confiance est plutôt fondée sur l’attention à l’autre ou sur la prise de risque. Nous élicitons les préférences sociales des participants avec le test dit « de l’anneau » (Griesinger et Livingston [1973]) et les préférences pour le risque avec le test de Holt et Laury [2002]. Ces mesures sont ensuite exploitées dans deux versions du jeu de l’investissement : (i) la version standard, qui, par construction, intègre une part de risque (à travers l’anticipation stratégique d’un retour sur investissement) et ii) une autre version (appelée « jeu du dictateur triple » dans la littérature) dans laquelle cette part de risque est éliminée. Les mesures issues des tests d’élicitation des préférences sont aussi utilisées pour expliquer les écarts entre les montants investis dans les deux jeux. Les résultats de l’expérience montrent que ce sont plutôt les préférences sociales qui fondent les comportements d’investissement. En revanche, les écarts entre les montants investis et les mesures des préférences ne sont pas corrélés.