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Field
Trial Start Date
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Before
April 04, 2023
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After
April 18, 2023
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Field
Last Published
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Before
March 28, 2023 10:55 PM
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After
April 08, 2023 11:31 AM
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Field
Intervention (Public)
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Before
We are running a lab experiment with a setting where participants can discover how to specialize. We study if market efficiency and specialization differ between groups with different race and gender compositions. We are also interested in market size effects.
Update:
We have decided to run an online experiment on mTurk and/or Prolific instead. There are two main reasons. First, a more diverse subject pool will allow us to recruit people from different ethnicities into our markets. We initially thought this is possible at the UT Dallas lab, but we anticipate limitations. Relatedly, we anticipate a larger number of treatments than initially planned. Therefore, a larger online subject pool is beneficial. Second, we believe homophily effects may occur more naturally in a general population setting rather than at the laboratory where all participants are students and are used to interacting across ethnicities.
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After
We are running a lab experiment with a setting where participants can discover how to specialize. We study if market efficiency and specialization differ between groups with different race and gender compositions. We are also interested in market size effects.
Update April 8th 2023:
We have decided to run an online experiment on mTurk and/or Prolific instead. There are two main reasons. First, a more diverse subject pool will allow us to recruit people from different ethnicities into our markets. We initially thought this was possible at the UT Dallas lab, but after examining the subject pool in more detail, we learned that the number of white/Caucasian subjects would be limited. We also plan a larger number of treatments than initially planned. Therefore, a larger online subject pool is beneficial. Second, we believe homophily effects may occur more naturally in a general population setting rather than at the laboratory where all participants are students and are used to interacting across ethnicities.
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Field
Intervention Start Date
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Before
April 05, 2023
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After
April 18, 2023
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Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Efficiency
Efficiency in the last 14 periods
Degree and speed of specialization
Number of same-race (or gender) versus across-race (or gender) specialized pairs in Mixed treatment
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After
Efficiency
Efficiency in the last 14 periods
Degree and speed of specialization
Number of same-race (or gender) versus across-race (or gender) specialized pairs in Mixed treatment
Dropouts during the experiment conditional on race
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Field
Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
Efficiency is the percentage of realized gains relative to the most efficient outcome (competitive equilibrium).
Specialization is the shift in time devoted to the good for which a participant has a comparative advantage relative to the autarky outcome.
Specialization across race or gender is the degree to which it happens between individuals of different races/genders.
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After
Efficiency is the percentage of realized gains relative to the most efficient outcome (competitive equilibrium).
Specialization is the shift in time devoted to the good for which a participant has a comparative advantage relative to the autarky outcome.
Specialization across race or gender is the degree to which it happens between individuals of different races/genders.
Dropouts/attrition can be a problem for online experiments. For us, it's a possible outcome variable. There are 4 or 8 people in a market, and if some drop out, it hinders specialization, but the market can continue. Dropouts reflect low anticipated earnings, a dislike for the interactions, etc., or randomness. So, if, on average, white (respectively, Asian) participants are more likely to drop out in Mixed than in Homogenous, this is part of the treatment effect we want to capture.
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Field
Intervention (Hidden)
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Before
We have two main treatments. Markets have 4 participants and last 35 rounds (updated from 48 initially due to moving to the online environment). A participant's task in each round is to choose how much time to devote to producing Goods Orange and Blue. They can discover possibilities for trade and specialization to generate gains from trade. Everyone chooses an image that most closely represents them. Images differ in race and gender and are selected from the Chicago Face Database.
In the Baseline (Homogenous) condition, markets are homogenous (i.e., all males, all females, all South-Asian, all white). In the Mixed condition, markets consist of two pairs that are superficially similar within pairs and different across pairs. For example, a market has 2 white females and 2 male South Asians. Importantly, in Mixed, gains from trade are designed to be larger for cooperation between dissimilar people.
We also plan to increase the market size to 8 people to study the impact of competition and market size on specialization. We further plan to manipulate the observability of people's actions, which will increase search costs and potentially amplify homophily effects.
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After
We have two main treatments. Markets have 4 participants and last 35 rounds (updated from 48 initially due to moving to the online environment). A participant's task in each round is to choose how much time to devote to producing Goods Orange and Blue. They can discover possibilities for trade and specialization to generate gains from trade. Everyone chooses an image that most closely represents them. Images differ in race and gender and are selected from the Chicago Face Database.
In the Baseline (Homogenous) condition, markets are homogenous (i.e., all South-Asian, all white). In the Mixed condition, markets consist of two pairs that are superficially similar within pairs and different across pairs. For example, a market has 2 white and 2 South Asian players. Importantly, in Mixed, gains from trade are designed to be larger for cooperation between dissimilar people.
We also plan to increase the market size to 8 people to study the impact of competition and market size on specialization. We further plan to manipulate the observability of people's actions, which will increase search costs and potentially amplify homophily effects.
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