The role of moral sentiments and emotions in human nature: an interdisciplinary empirical approach. This project investigates the effects of moral sentiments and emotions on decision processes. It will identify states of physiological arousal, determine whether a significant genetic effect is present, assess the relevance of individuals' environment and inherited values, and provide a better biological micro-foundation for human behaviour.
Scientist career path: An explorative analysis. This project aims to uncover important insights into scientists, their interactions, and their career dynamics, seeking to understand scientific success and scientific innovations by understanding scientists themselves. The project will generate the largest data set on scientists ever collected and analysed, resulting in new knowledge into the mechanisms underlying scientific progress and innovation; scientists’ resilience and adaptation to positiv ....Scientist career path: An explorative analysis. This project aims to uncover important insights into scientists, their interactions, and their career dynamics, seeking to understand scientific success and scientific innovations by understanding scientists themselves. The project will generate the largest data set on scientists ever collected and analysed, resulting in new knowledge into the mechanisms underlying scientific progress and innovation; scientists’ resilience and adaptation to positive and negative life shocks or environmental changes; their pattern of collaboration and cooperation; and their creative development. The project will provide significant benefits to universities and policy makers in fulfilling their role of creating and disseminating new knowledge.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140101014
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$349,785.00
Summary
Extending economic design to non-market settings: An experimental study of mechanism design with intention-based preferences. Mechanism design is the engineering side of economic theory, which starts with assumptions regarding human nature and builds economic systems to best maximise efficiency according to these assumptions. This project studies mechanism design in experimental settings where individuals exhibit a desire to be kind to those who have been kind to them and unkind to those who ha ....Extending economic design to non-market settings: An experimental study of mechanism design with intention-based preferences. Mechanism design is the engineering side of economic theory, which starts with assumptions regarding human nature and builds economic systems to best maximise efficiency according to these assumptions. This project studies mechanism design in experimental settings where individuals exhibit a desire to be kind to those who have been kind to them and unkind to those who have not. Such preferences are common in many non-market settings and can have dramatic effects on the efficiency of potential mechanisms. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop applied mechanisms that are robust to heterogeneity in such intention-based preferences and which can be used in bilateral exchange, contract design and many other non-market settings.Read moreRead less
Using behavioural economic insights to overcome student procrastination. This project aims to study the relations between present-biased time preference, procrastination, and achievement at school, using economic experiments. Investment in human capital generates economic benefits for students, families, employers, and society, but its benefits are realised far into the future. Because of these immediate costs and delayed benefits, behavioural economic theory predicts that students will procrast ....Using behavioural economic insights to overcome student procrastination. This project aims to study the relations between present-biased time preference, procrastination, and achievement at school, using economic experiments. Investment in human capital generates economic benefits for students, families, employers, and society, but its benefits are realised far into the future. Because of these immediate costs and delayed benefits, behavioural economic theory predicts that students will procrastinate. This project will identify the characteristics of students at greatest risk of procrastination, evaluate practical strategies to overcome it, and examine whether it is associated with poorer outcomes. This should help schools and policy makers reduce educational inequalities, and yield long-term benefits over students’ lives.Read moreRead less
Voter behaviour and polarisation: The role of social preferences. This project aims to investigate how peer pressure and other social concerns affect voter participation, vote choice, and political polarisation. It will marry behavioural experimental economics with political economics and make use of complementary experimental methods that will allow for the study of carefully controlled elections, followed by a large-scale real-world test of the results. Expected outcomes include improved under ....Voter behaviour and polarisation: The role of social preferences. This project aims to investigate how peer pressure and other social concerns affect voter participation, vote choice, and political polarisation. It will marry behavioural experimental economics with political economics and make use of complementary experimental methods that will allow for the study of carefully controlled elections, followed by a large-scale real-world test of the results. Expected outcomes include improved understanding of how social media and other social factors, and political institutions such as compulsory voting, distort election representation and outcomes. Major benefits include the ability to advise policies to reduce polarisation and improve political institutions to ensure they reflect true societal preferences.Read moreRead less
Status seeking and economic behaviour. The project will look at the importance of status seeking behaviour for the health system, behavioural experiments, international growth, and labelling. The insights will be useful for optimal redistribution policies, international cooperation, and behavioural research.
Information acquisition and voting behaviour. This project aims to understand citizens’ decisions to acquire information about different policy proposals within a democracy and how such information affects their voting behaviour. Proper democracies rely on the informed participation of their citizens in the political debate and political institutions. The project intends to provide formal theories of information acquisition together with empirical evidence on how voting decisions are shaped by t ....Information acquisition and voting behaviour. This project aims to understand citizens’ decisions to acquire information about different policy proposals within a democracy and how such information affects their voting behaviour. Proper democracies rely on the informed participation of their citizens in the political debate and political institutions. The project intends to provide formal theories of information acquisition together with empirical evidence on how voting decisions are shaped by the quantity and quality of information. Understanding how citizens decide to acquire information would help devise policies to reduce polarisation and improve the quality of the political debate and the democracy.Read moreRead less
Honesty and efficiency in the provision of expert services: doctors and other experts as participants in economic experiments. Experts serve us when we see the doctor, the financial planner or the car mechanic. In all these case the expert can take advantage of his superior knowledge and sell us something we do not need. This research will inform policy makers about the underlying motives of real world experts and allow them to design better institutions.
Designing for uncertainty in conservation auctions. Economic theory and case study evidence show that tenders or auctions are more efficient than grant mechanisms for encouraging landholders to produce environmental outcomes on private land. These studies have ignored the effects of uncertainty of both bidders and administrators about factors such as landholder participation and the level of environmental benefits that will be delivered. This project will test whether distributing environmental ....Designing for uncertainty in conservation auctions. Economic theory and case study evidence show that tenders or auctions are more efficient than grant mechanisms for encouraging landholders to produce environmental outcomes on private land. These studies have ignored the effects of uncertainty of both bidders and administrators about factors such as landholder participation and the level of environmental benefits that will be delivered. This project will test whether distributing environmental funds via tenders is still efficient when uncertainty about various important factors is considered. Results from this research are expected to inform the cost effective design of systems to pay landholders for the provision of environmental benefits even when there is high uncertainty.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120101270
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
The behavioural birthdate effect: the impact of relative position within cohorts on risk aversion, self-confidence and aspiration levels. The 'birthdate effect' describes the phenomenon where children born just after the school entry cut off date are more successful in life than those born just before. This project will study why these children make very different life choices, those born just after the cut-off date are expected to take greater risks and have higher self esteem.