Nobel and novice: Author prominence affects peer review.

Peer review is a well-established cornerstone of the scientific process, yet it is not immune to biases like status bias, which we explore in this paper. Merton described this bias as prominent researchers getting disproportionately great credit for their contribution, while relatively unknown researchers get disproportionately little credit [R. K. Merton, Science 159, 56-63 (1968)]. We measured the extent of this bias in the peer-review process through a preregistered field experiment. We invited more than 3,300 researchers to review a finance research paper jointly written by a prominent author (a Nobel laureate) and by a relatively unknown author (an early career research associate), varying whether reviewers saw the prominent author's name, an anonymized version of the paper, or the less-well-known author's name. We found strong evidence for the status bias: More of the invited researchers accepted to review the paper when the prominent name was shown, and while only 23% recommended "reject" when the prominent researcher was the only author shown, 48% did so when the paper was anonymized, and 65% did when the little-known author was the only author shown. Our findings complement and extend earlier results on double-anonymized vs. single-anonymized review [R. Blank, Am. Econ. Rev. 81, 1041-1067 (1991); M. A. Ucci, F. D'Antonio, V. Berghella, Am. J. Obstet. Gynecol. MFM 4, 100645 (2022)].

Experimental tests of the tolerated theft and risk-reduction theories of resource exchange.

Here we report the results of an experiment that tests the reciprocal risk reduction 1 and 'tolerated theft' or taking hypotheses 2 for why the human species is unique in having extensive exchange of resources among non-kin. We designed an experiment to determine whether, in response to variance of resource acquisition, people exchange food resources via taking or, alternatively, form reciprocal relationships based on giving. In the experiment, subjects forage individually, experience variation in resource acquisition, and then consume either by actions in which resources are taken from, or moved to, others in a group environment. The key feature of the experimental design is that individuals can transfer resources to others, attempt to take resources from others and defend against take-away attempts. Many subjects begin by attempting to take resources from others, who can resist those attempts at a cost to each. Over time, subjects shift to a cooperative strategy of voluntary reciprocal giving, a response not suggested by the instructions. These results provide evidence that people are independently able to overcome initial use of taking strategies, evaluate gains from exchange, and create endogenous reciprocal trading relationships as a response to unsynchronized variance in resource availability.

Retrading, production, and asset market performance.

Prior studies have shown that traders quickly converge to the price-quantity equilibrium in markets for goods that are immediately consumed, but they produce speculative price bubbles in resalable asset markets. We present a stock-flow model of durable assets in which the existing stock of assets is subject to depreciation and producers may produce additional units of the asset. In our laboratory experiments inexperienced consumers who can resell their units disregard the consumption value of the assets and compete vigorously with producers, depressing prices and production. Consumers who have first participated in experiments without resale learn to heed their consumption values and, when they are given the option to resell, trade at equilibrium prices. Reproducibility is therefore the most natural and most effective treatment for suppression of bubbles in asset market experiments.

Risk and the evolution of human exchange.

Compared with other species, exchange among non-kin is a hallmark of human sociality in both the breadth of individuals and total resources involved. One hypothesis is that extensive exchange evolved to buffer the risks associated with hominid dietary specialization on calorie dense, large packages, especially from hunting. 'Lucky' individuals share food with 'unlucky' individuals with the expectation of reciprocity when roles are reversed. Cross-cultural data provide prima facie evidence of pair-wise reciprocity and an almost universal association of high-variance (HV) resources with greater exchange. However, such evidence is not definitive; an alternative hypothesis is that food sharing is really 'tolerated theft', in which individuals possessing more food allow others to steal from them, owing to the threat of violence from hungry individuals. Pair-wise correlations may reflect proximity providing greater opportunities for mutual theft of food. We report a laboratory experiment of foraging and food consumption in a virtual world, designed to test the risk-reduction hypothesis by determining whether people form reciprocal relationships in response to variance of resource acquisition, even when there is no external enforcement of any transfer agreements that might emerge. Individuals can forage in a high-mean, HV patch or a low-mean, low-variance (LV) patch. The key feature of the experimental design is that individuals can transfer resources to others. We find that sharing hardly occurs after LV foraging, but among HV foragers sharing increases dramatically over time. The results provide strong support for the hypothesis that people are pre-disposed to evaluate gains from exchange and respond to unsynchronized variance in resource availability through endogenous reciprocal trading relationships.

The design of water markets when instream flows have value.

The main objective of this paper is to design and test a decentralized exchange mechanism that generates the location-specific pricing necessary to achieve efficient allocations in the presence of instream flow values. Although a market-oriented approach has the potential to improve upon traditional command and control regulations, questions remain about how these rights-based institutions can be implemented such that the potential gains from liberalized trade can be realized. This article uses laboratory experiments to test three different water market institutions designed to incorporate instream flow values into the allocation mechanism through active participation of an environmental trader. The smart, computer-coordinated market described herein offers the potential to significantly reduce coordination problems and transaction costs associated with finding mutually beneficial trades that satisfy environmental constraints. We find that direct environmental participation in the market can achieve highly efficient and stable outcomes, although the potential does exist for the environmental agent to influence outcomes.

A compensation election for binary social choice.

We report experimental results examining the properties of a bidding mechanism, the "Compensation Election," which is designed to implement a simple binary choice between two options. We may think of the group decision problem as a choice between a new rule and the status quo. The rule and the status quo are each common outcomes that apply across all individuals, but the value or cost that they induce on each individual differs according to each individual's circumstances: some gain, some lose, and others are unaffected by a change to the new from the old. Rather than casting votes, each subject submits a bid reflecting his willingness to pay to induce the group to select one option and the amount he wishes to be paid if the alternative option is selected. The Compensation Election chooses the option that receives the highest sum of bids. We find that, although the Compensation Election allows subjects to strategically bid above their value (or even for the option they do not prefer), such behavior is not the norm. We also find that subjects' bids more truthfully reveal their values when there are more bidders in the election.

Controlling market power and price spikes in electricity networks: Demand-side bidding.

In this article we report an experiment that examines how demand-side bidding can discipline generators in a market for electric power. First we develop a treatment without demand-side bidding; two large firms are allocated baseload and intermediate cost generators such that either firm might unilaterally withhold the capacity of its intermediate cost generators from the market to benefit from the supracompetitive prices that would result from only selling its baseload units. In a converse treatment, ownership of some of the intermediate cost generators is transferred from each of these firms to two other firms such that no one firm could unilaterally restrict output to spawn supracompetitive prices. Having established a well controlled data set with price spikes paralleling those observed in the naturally occurring economy, we also extend the design to include demand-side bidding. We find that demand-side bidding completely neutralizes the exercise of market power and eliminates price spikes even in the presence of structural market power.