Experimental Design Details
Our experimental design consists of 3 main parts - a prior preferences elicitation, the main survey, and the post intertemporal decisions.
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Prior preference elicitation:
Using pollfish, we ask survey participants about their opinions wrt to three political organizations in Germany. The three organizations are the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, the Bund der Steuerzahler Deutschland e. V. and the Ludwig-Erhard-Stiftung which are rather left, center and conservative when it comes to their political stance. In particular, participants are asked to provide an incentivized ranking ranging from the best to the worst of the three organizations. These preferences are used in the main survey to construct the preference profiles of the groups the participants then shall decide for.
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Three surveys with politicians and the population:
We conduct three surveys:
Survey 1
Survey 1 is conducted with politicians and a general population sample that is similar to the politicians in terms of their socio-economic status.
The survey consists of three parts:
Part 1.
- Participants make 6 preference-aggregation decisions knowing that one of the 6 decisions may be chosen to be paid out (the chosen organization receives 30 € if the respective decision is randomly chosen to be paid out). People learn that they are confronted with the preference profiles of 5 people who took part in a previous part of the study (see above) and that it is their task to aggregate the respective preferences into a joint group decision only knowing the preferences profiles (and not the identities of the organzations). The profiles are constructed such that the choices enable us to identify the type of scoring rule used by the respective decision maker.
- In addition, we collect participants' beliefs regarding the WTP of people that took part in the preference elicitation study and know the identities of the organizations, that their respective best, middle, worst organization does (not) receive 30 €.
Part 2.
- Participants make 2 decisions where they can choose to make 3 payment options for a future study participant either available or unavailable. Importantly, the 3 options differ in their total payoff and in the relative amount that the future participant receives on the earlier of two payment dates. The design makes sure that it costly to be impatient. The 2 decisions differ in their parameters and in whether the early option is with or without front-end delay.
- Participants provide beliefs in 2 choice sets about how many of 10 people would choose either of 3 options in case all 3 options are available. Again, the two choice sets differ in their parameters and in the presence of front-end delay on the earlier payment date.
- People are asked if they are in favor of forcing the population to save a certain amount for old age in addition to their pension. (on a 7-point likert scale)
Part 3.
- Standard survey questions regarding risk, time and social preferences are elicited (similar to global preference survey)
Survey 2.
Survey 2 is conducted with a general population sample that is representative for the German population.
The survey consists of 4 parts.
Part 1.
Questions on socio-demographic charateristics.
Part 2.
Identical to "Part 1" of "Survey 1"
Part 3.
Participants learn that they can delegate two preference-aggregation decisions similar to the previous part to another person. They can decide whether this person shall be a randomly chosen politician, a person from the population sample that is similar to the politicians in terms of socio-economic charateristics or from the representative population sample.
Part 4.
Participants provide incentivized beliefs regarding the behavior of 10 people of the 3 groups (politicians, similar population sample, representative population sample) in the two aggregation decisions.
Survey 3.
Survey 3 is conducted with a general population sample that is representative for the German population.
The survey consists of 4 parts.
Part 1.
Questions on socio-demographic charateristics.
Part 2.
Identical to "Part 2" of "Survey 1"
Part 3.
Participants learn that they can delegate two paternalistic-intervention decisions similar to the previous part to another person. They can decide whether this person shall be a politician, a person from the population sample that is similar to the politicians in terms of socio-economic charateristics or from the representative sample.
Part 4.
Participants provide incentivized beliefs regarding the behavior of 10 people of the 3 groups (politicians, similar population sample, representative population sample) in the two paternalistic-intervention decisions.
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Post intertemporal decisions:
We collect the decisions of the paternalees who are confronted with their possibly restricted choice-sets and are paid out accordingly.
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Design.
The pen-and-paper format of the survey for politicians prevents full randomization. Instead, we block-randomize surveys. In total, we have 16 versions of the survey varying the order of the aggregation decisions, the order of the choice options within the aggregation decisions, the order of the paternalistic-intervention decisions and the parameters of the paternalistic-intervention decisions.
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Hypotheses.
Central questions we want to adress with the data are the following:
1) Do politicians aggregate preferences differently from the general population in terms of concavity / convexity? How?
2) Are politicians more eager to interfere in others' choice options paternalistically?
3) Are politicians more prone to react to 'present bias' in the sense that they react more strongly to the absence of a front-end delay in paternalistic interventions?
4) Are potential differences between politicians and the population due to selection of those who want to become politicians into this role or due to differences in socioeconomic charateristics?
5) Who do the people want to make such decisions, politicians or the people?
6) We plan to analyze potential sources of heterogeneity wrt to our central variables of interest, such as party affiliation/preferences, gender, age, education and income.
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Update 07/02/2021. After collecting initial data for the population samples, we decided to add a comprehension check. Data collection for the updated surveys starts on 07/02/2021.
It will be implemented as follows:
"Similar to politicians"-sample: The politicians will be compared to the representative sample. In the representative sample, an attention check is conducted and only participants who pass the check are used. In addition, in the analyses, the participants of the population sample are weighted by the characteristics of the politicians sample (in particular wrt to party preferences) to make the groups comparable (note: The weights depend on the actual politician sample we collect).
“Aggregation decisions and delegation”-sample: Only participants who manage to do an attention check correctly are used in the analyses. We also plan to compare how delegation differs between the different preference profiles and how it relates to participants’ own behavior.
“Paternalistic decisions and delegation”-sample: Only participants who manage to do an attention check correctly are used in the analyses. We also compare how delegation differs between the future decision with and without front-end delay and how it relates to participants’ own behavior. In all analyses, we re-adjust the different parameters in the paternalistic decision to an identical scale. Only participants who do not decrease the future participants' payment in the final question are used in the analyses.