Center for Behavioral and Experimental Economic Science

Current Projects

 

Giving to Government

In an effort to better understand charitable giving, Catherine Eckel (UTD), Phil Grossman (St. Cloud State University) and Sherry Li (UTD) are conducting a study of giving where they compare donations to private and government-funded organizations with closely-related functions.

For this study, subjects are given an endowment, then have the opportunity to donate any part of their endowment to an organization. Subjects make a series of decisions, and for each decision they are paired with an organization. This organization is either government-funded or is a nongovernmental charity. The government organizations are at varying levels such as the U.S. federal government, the Texas state government and the Dallas local government. The nongovernment charities also serve different geographic areas such as the U.S., the State of Texas and the local Dallas area. These organizations benefit one of four causes: Parks and Wildlife, Cancer Prevention and Research, Disaster Relief or Education Enhancement. Subjects make decisions of how much on an endowment to keep for themselves or and how much to pass to the organization. These decisions give us a measure of their support for different organizations and activities. We also collect subjects' perceptions of the effectiveness of the organizations.

Presentation Slides
Sample Instructions

Houston Schools Project

We know that people have different outcomes in life. This is evident by just looking out your front door. What we don't know is why people have different outcomes. Surely, education is important, and so is the opportunity set into which you are born. However, one would think that the ability to be successful in life is also a function of an individual's preferences. We would expect that people who are more patient would invest more in education and other forms of human capital, as well as investing more in their bank accounts. We would expect people who are more risk seeking to be more likely to become an entrepreneur or CEO. And, we would expect that people who are more altruistic would be more likely to find jobs in service industries... [more]

Individual Heterogeneity and Uncertainty in Public Good Provision

Neighbors with unkempt lawns, obstinate colleagues, unaccommodating team-members…we have all been involved in groups where one sour apple put their individual interests above that of the group and thus destroyed what had been a cooperative and efficient interaction. This research investigates behavior in social dilemmas (instances where the individual optimum and social optimum are in direct conflict), which pose some of the most interesting and rich problems in social science research... [more]

Type Elicitation Task Screen Shots
Lab Study Screen Shots

Neighborhoods Project

Preferences and Poverty Traps: Experimental Investigations of Risk, Time and Social Preferences in Low-Income Neighborhoods... [more]

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Network Survey
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Towards an Improved Methodology in Analyzing Corruption

At the beginning of the Fall semester in Pakistan, Sheheryar Banuri continued the Pakistan treatment of the bribery game developed by Banuri, Croson, Eckel, and Kline. The experiment seeks to understand whether differences in responses to corruption exist across cultures, and whether these can be attributed to the citizen's own perceptions and tolerance of corrupt activities. Experimental methodology is especially useful in studying corruption due to the unavailability of reliable data at both the individual and societal levels. Experiments can thus simulate corrupt situations in laboratory settings and allow researchers to then study the responses of individual citizens to corrupt activities... [more]

Presentation Slides

Wireless Interactive Teaching System (WITS)

The Wireless Interactive Teaching System (WITS) uses handheld devices and wireless technology to facilitate interactive learning in large classes by putting technology in the hands of the students during class. The system consists of Dell Axim x30 PDAs equipped with wireless capabilities, a laptop server, a wireless access point, and a projector, and the proprietary WITS software. The system forms an intra-net using the 802.11b wireless standard. The WITS system allows students to trade in markets, play standard economics games (prisoners' dilemma, public good, 2x2 matrix, etc.), take multiple choice quizzes, and communicate with the instructor during class.

Additional Information

ADVANCE Faculty Advancement and Faculty Life at UTD

The UTD faculty advancement and faculty life project is designed to identify, evaluate, and improve the culture, policies, procedures, and resources needed to advance the research, teaching, and professional service careers of UTD faculty...[more]

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