Max R. P. Grossmann

When is autonomy granted to a decision-maker conditional on their knowledge, and if no autonomy is granted, what form will the intervention take? We formulate a parsimonious formal theory about paternalistic intervention based on an absence of knowledge. This theory sheds light on how policymakers exploit decision-maker mistakes when these mistakes go in policymakers' subjectively preferred direction and when mistakes are used as a justification for intervention. In two experiments, policymakers (“Choice Architects”) can intervene in a choice faced by a decision-maker. The choice is between a fixed amount of money and a simple lottery. The first experiment varies the amount of ambiguity inherent in the lottery. We find that reduced ambiguity leads to fewer interventions in the decision-maker's choice. We conduct a high-powered followup experiment. Across both experiments, full decision-maker knowledge causes more than a 60\% reduction in intervention rates. Beliefs have a small but statistically significant effect. When Choice Architects are informed about the decision-maker’s preference, this information is used to determine the option imposed on the Chooser. However, Choice Architects employ their own preference to a similar extent as the decision-maker’s. Choice Architects are causally more willing to impose a riskless option, as if it were a bliss point, correlated with but conceptually distinct from Choice Architects' own preference. This is an important qualification to what has been termed “projective paternalism.” Choice Architects disproportionately prefer to have the decision-maker make informed decisions, even when they could exploit the decision-maker's ignorance. However, interveners are less likely to provide information. As predicted by theory, the same applies to Choice Architects who believe that mistakes go in the direction of their own preference.

This paper studies the relationship between soft and hard paternalism by examining two kinds of restriction: a waiting period and a hard limit (cap) on risk-seeking behavior. Mandatory waiting periods have been instituted for medical procedures, gun purchases and other high-stakes decisions. Are these policies substitutes for hard restrictions, and are delayed decisions more respected? In an experiment, decision-makers are informed about an impending high-stakes decision. Treatments define when the decision is made: on the spot or after one day, and whether the initial decision can be revised. In a general population survey experiment, another class of subjects (Choice Architects) is granted the opportunity to make rules for decision-makers. Given a decision's temporal structure, Choice Architects can decide on a cap to the decision-maker's risk taking. In another treatment, Choice Architects can implement a mandatory waiting period in addition to the cap. This allows us to study the substitutional relationship between waiting periods and paternalistic action and the effect of deliberation on the autonomy afforded to the decision-maker. Our highly powered experiment reveals that exogenous deliberation has no effect on the cap. Moreover, endogenously prescribed waiting periods represent add-on restrictions that do not substitute for the cap. Choice Architects believe that, with time, the average decision-maker will take less risk and---because of the distribution of Choice Architects' bliss points---come closer to Choice Architects' subjective ideal choice. These findings highlight the complementarity of policy tools in targeting various parts of a distribution of decision-makers.

The privacy paradox is concerned with an ostensible disconnect between stated and revealed preferences for data sharing. The existence of this paradox has recently been questioned on methodological grounds. We study an interpersonal privacy paradox that overcomes these challenges. We test the claim of hypocrisy directly: do people want more privacy for others than themselves? We conduct an experiment in which Choosers can state a Willingness-to-Accept (WTA) for the publication of data about themselves. Another group of subjects (Choice Architects) can intervene in the Chooser's decision by imposing minimum and/or maximum prices to prevent publication even beyond the WTA. All of these measures are revealed preferences in the economic sense and thus comparable. We find that 30 percent of Choice Architects set a minimum price, but only few set a maximum price. Choice Architects don’t merely impose their own WTA on Choosers: they grant Choosers some liberty to express their own preferences. We conclude that Choice Architects do not act hypocritically at all: they are not stricter towards Choosers than towards themselves. The own WTA of Choice Architects who set a minimum-price exceeds the WTA of non-interventionist Choice Architects. When we correlate the minimum price to interventionists’ own WTA, we find a strong relationship. We find that beliefs over WTAs are strongly and systematically biased. The frequency of low WTAs is underestimated, while that of high WTAs is overestimated. This study sheds light on privacy paternalism and adds to a growing body of work that contests the privacy paradox.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have the potential to profoundly transform and enrich experimental economic research. We propose a new software framework, "alter_ego", which makes it easy to design experiments between LLMs and to integrate LLMs into oTree-based web experiments with human subjects. Our toolkit is freely available at github.com/mrpg/ego. To illustrate, we run simple differently framed prisoner's dilemmas with interacting machines as well as with human-machine interaction.

When policies are unpopular, it is often claimed that this is due to poor communication and a lack of the transmission of facts in the public debates of these policies. We investigate this claim at the hand of a recent controversial policy in Germany, the so-called Heating Law. We conduct a survey experiment in which we experimentally vary participants' factual knowledge of the Law. We find that knowledge plays no role for participants' attitudes and reaction to the Law. Instead, a pre-existing pro-environmental policy preference and socio-demographic factors are significantly predictive of attitudes and behaviors. These results suggest public support for climate policy is more strongly anchored in ideological beliefs and values than in understanding of policy details. We also find evidence for motivated reasoning and false consensus bias. Our findings have implications for public administration and research on misinformation: communicating facts may be insufficient to resolve policy disagreements.

We introduce a new, advanced, and web-based experimental framework.

See here for further information. The previous world record computation (from 2013, also by me) can be downloaded here.