Defaults and effortful tasks

Experimental Economics - 2023
Lars Behlen1, Oliver Himmler2, Robert Jäckle3
1University of Erfurt, Nordhäuser Str. 63, 99089, Erfurt, Germany
2University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany
3Nuremberg Institute of Technology and Competence Center KoSIMA, Nuremberg, Germany

Tóm tắt

AbstractNothing is known about the effectiveness of defaults when moving the target outcomes requires substantial effort. We conduct two field experiments to investigate how defaults fare in such situations: we change the university exam sign-up procedure in two study programs to “opt-out” (a) for a single exam, and (b) for many exams. Both interventions increase task uptake (exam sign-up). Concerning the outcomes which require effort, we find no effects for many exams. For a single exam, the opt-out increases task completion (exam participation) in the study program where the default arguably entails stronger endorsement. Within this program, the effects on successful task completion (exam passing) are heterogeneous: treated students who in the past were willing to communicate with the university (responsive individuals) invest more effort into exam preparation and are more likely to pass the exam than their control counterparts.For non-responsive individuals, we find increased sign-ups but no effects on the target outcomes. Defaults can thus be effective and may be an attractive policy option even when the target outcome requires substantial effort provision. It is, however crucial that the interventions target the appropriate individuals.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

Abadie, A., & Gay, S. (2006). The impact of presumed consent legislation on cadaveric organ donation: A cross-country study. Journal of Health Economics, 25(4), 599–620.

Altmann, S., Falk, A., & Grunewald, A. (2022). Communicating through defaults. Review of Economics and Statistics. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01260.

Angrist, J., Autor, D., & Pallais, A. (2022). Marginal effects of merit aid for low-income students. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 137(2), 1039–1090.

Angrist, J., & Pischke, J.-S. (2008). Mostly harmless econometrics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Banerjee, A., Duflo, E., Finkelstein, A., Katz, L. F., Olken, B. A., & Sautmann, A. (2020). In praise of moderation: Suggestions for the scope and use of pre-analysis plans for rcts in economics (Tech. Rep.). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Bergman, P., Lasky-Fink, J., & Rogers, T. (2020). Simplification and defaults affect adoption and impact of technology, but decision makers do not realize it. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 158, 66–79.

Beshears, J., Choi, J. J., Laibson, D., & Madrian, B. C. (2009). The importance of default options for retirement saving outcomes: Evidence from the united states. In Social security policy in a changing environment (pp. 167-195). University of Chicago Press.

Blumenstock, J., Callen, M., & Ghani, T. (2018). Why do defaults affect behavior? Experimental evidence from Afghanistan. The American Economic Review, 108(10), 2868–2901.

Brown, J. R., & Previtero, A. (2014). Procrastination, present-biased preferences, and financial behaviors (Tech. Rep.). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Brown, J. R., Farrell, A. M., & Weisbenner, S. J. (2016). Decision-making approaches and the propensity to default: Evidence and implications. Journal of Financial Economics, 121(3), 477–495.

Bruhn, M., & McKenzie, D. (2009). In pursuit of balance: Randomization in practice in development field experiments. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(4), 200–232.

Bryan, C. J., Tipton, E., & Yeager, D. S. (2021). Behavioural science is unlikely to change the world without a heterogeneity revolution. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(8), 980–989.

Carroll, G. D., Choi, J. J., Laibson, D., Madrian, B. C., & Metrick, A. (2009). Optimal defaults and active decisions. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124(4), 1639–1674.

Chapman, G. B., Li, M., Colby, H., & Yoon, H. (2010). Opting in versus opting out of influenza vaccination. Jama, 304(1), 43–44.

Choi, J. J., Laibson, D.,Madrian, B. C., & Metrick, A. (2004). For better or for worse: Default effects and 401 (k) savings behavior. In Perspectives on the economics of aging (pp. 81- 126). University of Chicago Press.

Cox, G., & Lancefield, D. (2021). Strategies to infuse d &i into your organization. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/05/5-strategies-to-infuse-di-intoyourorganization.

Cox, J. C., Kreisman, D., & Dynarski, S. (2020). Designed to fail: Effects of the default option and information complexity on student loan repayment. Journal of Public Economics, 192, 104298.

Czibor, E., Jimenez-Gomez, D., & List, J. A. (2019). The dozen things experimental economists should do (more of). Southern Economic Journal, 86(2), 371–432.

Damgaard, M. T., & Nielsen, H. S. (2018). Nudging in education. Economics of Education Review, 64, 313–342.

De Paola, M., & Scoppa, V. (2015). Procrastination, academic success and the effectiveness of a remedial program. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 115, 217–236.

DellaVigna, S., & Gentzkow, M. (2010). Persuasion: Empirical evidence. Annual Review of Economics, 2(1), 643–669.

DellaVigna, S., & Kaplan, E. (2007). The fox news effect: Media bias and voting. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(3), 1187–1234.

DellaVigna, S., & Linos, E. (2022). Rcts to scale: Comprehensive evidence from two nudge units. Econometrica, 90(1), 81–116.

Destatis. (2020). Bildung und kultur - studierende an hochschulen. (http://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bildung-Forschung-Kultur/Hochschulen/Publikationen/Downloads-Hochschulen/studierendehochschulen-endg-2110410207004.pdf?)

Dinner, I., Johnson, E. J., Goldstein, D. G., & Liu, K. (2011). Partitioning default effects: Why people choose not to choose. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 17(4), 332.

Elkington, J., Stevenson, M., Haworth, N., & Sharwood, L. (2014). Using police crash databases for injury prevention research-a comparison of opt-out and opt-in approaches to study recruitment. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 38(3), 286–289.

Heffetz, O., O’Donoghue, T., & Schneider, H. S. (2022). Reminders work, but for whom? evidence from New York city parking ticket recipients. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 14(4), 343–370.

Himmler, O., Jäckle, R., & Weinschenk, P. (2019). Soft commitments, reminders, and academic performance. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 11(2), 114–42.

Jachimowicz, J. M., Duncan, S., Weber, E. U., & Johnson, E. J. (2019). When and why defaults influence decisions: A meta-analysis of default effects. Behavioural Public Policy, 3(2), 159–186.

Jin, L. (2011). Improving response rates in web surveys with default setting: The effects of default on web survey participation and permission. International Journal of Market Research, 53(1), 75–94.

Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. (2003). Do defaults save lives? (Vol. 302) (No. 5649). American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Kraft, M. A. (2020). Interpreting effect sizes of education interventions. Educational Researcher, 49(4), 241–253.

Kramer, D. A., II., Lamb, C., & Page, L. C. (2021). The effects of default choice on student loan borrowing: Experimental evidence from a public research university. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 189, 470–489.

Loeb, K. L., Radnitz, C., Keller, K., Schwartz, M. B., Marcus, S., Pierson, R. N., & DeLaurentis, D. (2017). The application of defaults to optimize parents’ health-based choices for children. Appetite, 113, 368–375.

Madrian, B. C., & Shea, D. F. (2001). The power of suggestion: Inertia in 401 (k) participation and savings behavior. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(4), 1149–1187.

McKenzie, C. R., Liersch, M. J., & Finkelstein, S. R. (2006). Recommendations implicit in policy defaults. Psychological Science, 17(5), 414–420.

Mertens, S., Herberz, M., Hahnel, U. J., & Brosch, T. (2022). The effectiveness of nudging: A meta-analysis of choice architecture interventions across behavioral domains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(1), e2107346118.

Morgan, K. L., & Rubin, D. B. (2012). Rerandomization to improve covariate balance in experiments. The Annals of Statistics, 40(2), 1263–1282.

Narula, T., Ramprasad, C., Ruggs, E. N., & Hebl, M. R. (2014). Increasing colonoscopies? A psychological perspective on opting in versus opting out. Health Psychology, 33(11), 1426.

Niebuur, J., van Lente, L., Liefbroer, A. C., Steverink, N., & Smidt, N. (2018). Determinants of participation in voluntary work: A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies. BMC Public Health, 18(1), 1–30.

Nosek, B. A., & Errington, T. M. (2017). Reproducibility in cancer biology: Making sense of replications. Elife, 6, e23383.

OECD. (2019). Education at a glance 2019. Retrieved from https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/content/publication/f8d7880d-enhttps://doi.org/10.1787/f8d7880d-en

Ortmann, A., Ryvkin, D., Wilkening, T., & Zhang, J. (2023). Defaults and cognitive effort. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 212, 1–19.

Reuben, E., Sapienza, P., & Zingales, L. (2015). Procrastination and impatience. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 58, 63–76.

Rogers, T., & Frey, E. (2015). Changing behavior beyond the here and now. The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making, 2, 723–748.

Salamon, J., Blume, B. D., Orosz, G., & Nagy, T. (2021). The interplay between the level of voluntary participation and supervisor support on trainee motivation and transfer. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 32(4), 459–481.

Scherer, R., Howard, S. K., Tondeur, J., & Siddiq, F. (2021). Profiling teachers’ readiness for online teaching and learning in higher education: Who’s ready? Computers in Human Behavior, 118, 106675.

Snellman, K., Silva, J. M., Frederick, C. B., & Putnam, R. D. (2015). The engagement gap: Social mobility and extracurricular participation among American youth. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 657(1), 194–207.

Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Sverke, M., Coimbra, J. L., & De Witte, H. (2018). Intentions to participate in training among older unemployed people: A serial mediator model. Journal of Career Development, 45(3), 268–284.

Sunstein, C. R. (2013). Deciding by default. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 162, 1.

Sunstein, C. R. (2017). Nudges that fail. Behavioural Public Policy, 1(1), 4–25.

Tannenbaum, D., Fox, C. R., & Rogers, T. (2017). On the misplaced politics of behavioural policy interventions. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(7), 1–7.

Trachtman, H. (2021). Does promoting one behavior distract from others? Evidence from a field experiment. Evidence from a Field Experiment (November 29, 2021).

Trevena, L., Irwig, L., & Barratt, A. (2006). Impact of privacy legislation on the number and characteristics of people who are recruited for research: A randomised controlled trial. Journal of Medical Ethics, 32(8), 473–477.

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Experimental Economics

Thông tin tác giả