The School of Public Policy at Central European University cordially invites you to the SPP Research Seminar of
Anand Murugesan
(Assistant Professor, SPP)
Let them play games!
Using coordination games to measure beliefs and norms
We propose incentivized experimental methods to study beliefs and norms, a topic of long-standing curiosity that has eluded quantitative measurements until recently. We provide evidence from India for significant bias in self-reported surveys (on sensitive or illicit behaviors) compared with our technique, where people reveal their beliefs and expectations while playing coordination games in framed contexts (e.g., bribing, littering, gender bias). We find that in socially unacceptable settings, such as religion-based discrimination in the rental market (61% believe it is unacceptable), people self-report a high willingness to rent to someone with a different religion (84%). However, they believe a majority will not rent (72%). On the other hand, in socially acceptable contexts, such as bribing a train ticket examiner (70% believe it is acceptable), there are no differences in self-reported own bribing (78%) or their beliefs about others bribing (77%). Finally, we provide a survey hack for social scientists when it is infeasible to use incentivized methods.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89057855981?pwd=MW1JWDF3dkJjenJ4dkVOM2F4RG5IUT09
Meeting ID: 890 5785 5981
Password: 9wzCfn