Contributions in Merlin

A large experimental and empirical literature on asymmetric dominance and attraction effects shows that the probability that an alternative is chosen can increase if additional alternatives become available. Hence context matters and choices and, therefore, market shares can not be accurately described by standard choice models where individuals choose the alternative that yields the highest utility. This paper analyzes a simple procedural choice model. Individuals determine their choice by a sequence of binary comparisons. The model offers an intuitive explanation for violations of regularity such as the attraction and the asymmetric dominance effect and shows their relation to the similarity effect. The model analyzes a new rationale why context matters. The model is applied to explain primacy and recency effects and to derive implications with respect to product design.

The British Industrial Revolution triggered a reversal in the social order of society whereby the landed elite was replaced by industrial capitalists rising from thenmiddle classes as the economically dominant group. Many observers have linkednthis transformation to the contrast in values between a hard-working and frugal middle class and an upper class imbued with disdain for work. We propose an economic theory of preference formation where both the divergence of attitudesnacross social classes and the ensuing reversal of economic fortunes are equilibriumnoutcomes. In our theory, parents shape their children's preferences in response toneconomic incentives. If financial markets are imperfect, this results in the stratification of society along occupational lines. Middle-class families in occupationsnthat require effort, skill, and experience develop patience and work ethic, whereas upper-class families relying on rental income cultivate a refined taste for leisure. These class-specific attitudes, which are rooted in the nature of pre-industrial professions, become key determinants of success once industrialization transforms the economic landscape.

Concerns for relative performance are integrated into a model of contractual renegotiation in bilateral trade. It is shown that concernsnfor relative performance do never impede efficient trade. Moreover, conditional on renegotiation to occur, concerns for relative performance tend to mitigate material rent expropriation. However, concerns for relative performance make the occurrence of renegotiation more likely, and may thereby lead to underinvestment even in very optimistic environments. The analysis suggests an explanation for the occurrence of the Druzhba pipeline conflictnbetween Russia and Belarus in January 2007.

Obesity is increasing worldwide for both adults and children. Genetic disposition is responsible for some variation in body weight but cannot explain the dramatic increase in the last two decades. The increase must be due to structural and behavioral changes. One such behavioral change is the increase in working females in the last decades. The absence from the mother reduces potential child care time in the family. Reduced child care time may have adverse effects on the prevalence of obesity in children and adults. This paper analyzes the effect of mother’s labor supply in childhood on young adults probability of being obese in Germany. Using a sample drawn from the German Socio-Economic Panel the results show that a higher labor supply of the mother increases the probability for her child to be obese as young adult. This result underlines the importance of childhood environment on children’s later life outcome and the importance of behavioral changes in explaining the increase in obesity.

In the course of history a large number of politicians has been assassinated. A rationalnchoice analysis is used to distinguish the expected marginal benefits of killing, and the marginal cost of attacking a politician. The comparative analysis of various equilibria helps us to gain insights into specific historical events.nThe analysis suggests that – in addition to well-known security measures – an extension of democracy, a rule by a committee of several politicians, more decentralization via the division of power and federalism, and a strengthening of civil society significantly reduce politicians’ probability of being attacked and killed.

This paper provides field experimental evidence on the prevalence and determinants ofndiscrimination and in-group favoritism in trust decisions. We observe choices of aboutn1,000 inhabitants of the city of Zurich who take part in a sequential trust game, in whichnfirst movers can condition their investments on the residential districts of second movers.nOur main results can be summarized as follows: First movers discriminate significantly in their investment choices, i.e., strangers receive different investments depending on thendistrict they live in. The systematics of the discrimination pattern is underlined by data from an additional newspaper study, where participants correctly guessed the outcome of the study. In terms of district characteristics two factors seem to be key for a district'snreputation: while expected trustworthiness of a district increases in the socio-economicnstatus it decreases in the degree of ethnic heterogeneity. Observed discrimination is notnjust based on mistaken stereotypes but can at least partly be classified as statistical discrimination. This can be inferred from the fact that, on a district level, both expected return on investment and actual investments are positively correlated with actual backntransfers. First movers correctly anticipate different levels of trustworthiness and discriminate accordingly. Furthermore, we provide evidence of in-group favoritism, i.e., peoplentrust strangers from their own district significantly more than strangers from other dis-ntricts. Finally, we discuss individual determinants of discrimination and in-group favoritism.

In Germany, competitive franchising is increasingly being used to procure passenger railway services that were previously provided by a state monopolist. This paper analyzes the 77 tenders that have taken place since the railway reform in 1994. The tenders differ with respect to the size of the franchise network, the required frequency of service, the duration of the contract and the proximity to other lines that are already run by competitors of DB Regio, a subsidiary of the successor of the former state monopolist. Our analysis shows that larger networks are less likely to be won by the competitors. Also, more recent auctions have been won by competitors more frequently than earlier auctions. Other control variables such as the duration of the contract and the adjacency to other lines run by entrants are insignificant.

Economic research offers two traditional ways of analyzing decision making under risk. One option is to compare the goodness of fit of different decision theories using the samenmodel of stochastic choice. An alternative way is to vary models of stochastic choicencombining them with only one or two decision theories. This paper proposes to look at the bigger picture by comparing different combinations of decision theories and modelsnof stochastic choice. We select a menu of seven popular decision theories and embedneach theory in five models of stochastic choice including tremble, Fechner and randomnutility model. We find that the estimated parameters of decision theories differnsignificantly when theories are combined with different models. Depending on the selected model of stochastic choice we obtain different ranking of decision theories with regard to their goodness of fit to the data. The fit of all analyzed decision theories improves significantly when they are embedded in a Fechner model of heteroscedastic truncated errors (or random utility model in a dynamic decision problem).

We ask whether offering a menu of unemployment insurance contracts is welfare-improving in a heterogeneous population. We adopt a repeated moral hazard framework as in Shavell/Weiss (1979), supplemented by unobservednheterogeneity about agents’ job opportunities. Our main theoretical contribution is an analytical characterization of the sets of jointly feasible entitlements that renders an efficient computation of these sets feasible. Our main economic result is that optimal contracts for “bad” searchers tend to be upward-sloping due to an adverse selection effect. This is in contrast to thenwell-known optimal decreasing time profile of benefits in pure moral hazard environments that continue to be optimal for “good” searchers in our model.

Cross-disciplinary ‘happiness research’ has made big progress in the measurementnof individual welfare. This development makes it tempting to pursue the old dream ofnmaximizing aggregate happiness as a social welfare function. However, we postulate that thenappropriate approach is not to maximize aggregate happiness in seeking to improve outcomesnby direct policy interventions. The goal of happiness research should rather be to improve thennature of the processes through which individuals can express their preferences. Individualsnshould become better able to advance their idea of the good life, both individually andncollectively.