My doctoral thesis
I am presently working on my doctoral thesis, preliminarily entitled Essays on Political Economy. My thesis focuses on how people make rules for others, especially in the context of paternalism.
Outline
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Introduction
This chapter provides an introduction to the thesis.
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Paternalism in Data Sharing
This chapter is co-authored with Axel Ockenfels.
🔹 Abstract
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.
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Knowledge and Freedom: Evidence on the Relationship Between Information and Paternalism
This chapter is single-authored.
🔹 Abstract
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.
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Paternalism and Deliberation: An Experiment on Making Formal Rules
This chapter is single-authored.
🔹 Abstract
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.
Progress
- 2024-07-15
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- Started at commit 03623654.
- Worked on Chapter 3: Complete restructuring, worked on theory sections.
- Thesis has 111 pages now (started with 109).
- 2024-07-16
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- Worked on Chapter 3: Compiled initial results of followup.
- Thesis has 112 pages now.
- 2024-07-17
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- Worked on Chapter 3: Thought much about it. Prepared one new table.
- Worked on Chapter 4: Made small changes to structure.
- Thesis has 112 pages now.
- 2024-07-18
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- Worked on Chapter 3: Worked on results sections, including tables.
- Thesis has 117 pages now.
- 2024-07-19
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- Worked on Chapter 3: Worked on results sections and appendices. Major work on tables.
- Thesis has 122 pages now.
- 2024-07-20
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- Worked on Chapter 3: Worked on results sections and appendices. Major work on tables, including a pull request for texreg (how I use texreg). Updated replication package.
- Thesis has 132 pages now. (Blew up because of instructions/screenshots in the appendix.)
- Can I finish Chapter 3 tomorrow? Maybe…
- 2024-07-21
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- Changed title of Chapter 3.
- Worked on Chapter 3: Worked on all parts, but especially introduction and conclusion. Added another section linking Mill and the experiment.
- Chapter 3 seems ready now, except for one table in the appendix. Will do a last pass later and then distribute it to some important people.
- Thesis has 135 pages now.
- 2024-07-22
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- Finished Chapter 3.
- Started work on Chapter 4. This Chapter has to be written up completely. Created replication package. Created some plots and tables.
- Thesis has 137 pages now.
- 2024-07-23
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- Made some tiny changes to Chapter 3, sent it to highly important individuals.
- Overall, did almost nothing on this day.
- Thesis still has 137 pages.
- 2024-07-24
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- Changed the structure of Chapter 3, merging sections 2 and 3.
- Deleted a bunch of stuff from Chapter 2.
- Did data work for Chapter 4.
- Thesis has 135 pages now.
- 2024-07-25
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- Worked on Chapter 4: introduction and results.
- Thesis has 138 pages now.
- Formulated a bit of a plan: will continue working on Chapter 4, and seasoning Chapter 3, until August 5. On August 6, start work on Chapter 2. On August 16, take stock and complete Chapter 1. Let's see if this works…
- 2024-07-26
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- Worked on Chapter 3: Introduction and conclusion. Changed title.
- Worked on Chapter 4.
- Thesis has 146 pages now.
- 2024-07-27
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- Deleted a whole bunch of crap from Chapter 1. Formulated a couple of new kick-ass introductory sentences.
- Updated Chapter 3's abstract.
- Worked on Chapter 4: Work on introduction and design sections. Added stuff on material interpretation of results.
- Oof, that's a difficult one. Change of plans: will continue working on Chapter 4 until August 2. Will submit Chapter 3 soon. On August 3, start work on Chapter 2. On August 15, complete Chapter 1.
- Thesis has 143 pages now.
- 2024-07-28
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- Did almost nothing.
- Thesis has 141 pages now.
- 2024-07-29
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- Worked on Chapter 4.
- Updated this website: First progress bar shows the passage of time (time passing is bad, thus red), while the second progress bar shows subjectively perceived progress across the thesis (progress is good, thus green).
- Thesis has 143 pages now.
- 2024-07-30
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- Worked on Chapter 1. Seems finished, actually. I might have to adjust my plan.
- Worked on Chapter 4.
- Thesis has 149 pages now.
- And Duke Fakir died. Flippin' heck, that's sad. One of the greatest of all time. RIP.
- 2024-07-31
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- Worked on Chapter 4. Went through it utterly. Added some descriptives. Editing is so, so important.
- New plan: will continue working on Chapter 4 until August 3. On August 4, start work on Chapter 2. On August 16, complete Chapter 1.
- Thesis has 152 pages now. However, I changed the TOC so that subsections etc. in the appendices are hidden from the TOC. This took away one page. So it should actually be 153 pages (+4 from yesterday).
- 2024-08-01
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- Made small changes to Chapter 1. Commented out some stuff.
- Worked on Chapter 4: Introduction.
- Thesis has 151 pages now.
- 2024-08-02
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- Worked on Chapter 4. Pretty much finished it, I guess. Some quant grinding still necessary in the appendix.
- Thesis has 157 pages now.
- 2024-08-03
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- Finished Chapter 4.
- Did some preparations for Chapter 2.
- Thesis has 161 pages now.
- 2024-08-04
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- Did some more preparations for Chapter 2. Reorganized data in a systematic way. Worked on abstract. This Chapter appears almost done, but in reality, it has to be rewritten completely. The same is true for the analysis code, which looks really bad (i.e., overly complicated).
- Tomorrow, I will create a new outline for the paper. This used to be called “Gang der Untersuchung.” 😂
- Thesis has 161 pages now.
- 2024-08-05
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- Worked on Chapter 3: Worked on theory (in a separate document), if you can believe it. Looks super good right now. Until my very basic math is inevitably proven wrong, I will take a victory lap. ECCE, PRÆCEPTOR ŒCONOMIÆ!
- Did exactly nothing otherwise.
- Thesis has 161 pages now.
- 2024-08-06
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- Worked on Chapter 3: Worked on theory. I like theory now.
- Thesis has 166 pages now.
- 2024-08-07
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- Worked on Chapter 3: Worked on theory, and on connecting theory with empirics. By itself, a worthwhile thing to spend some time on. For example, did you know that all of political economy can be neatly summarized by: $$W'_{x}\left(\left\{x,y\right\}\right) = 1 - \phi \left[ 1 - q - 2\epsilon_y \right] - \epsilon_x - \epsilon_y \text{ ?}$$ Sent theory to some theoreticians. I'm pretty happy with the theory. Very simple but meaningful. By the way, one of the nice things about theory is that it can often be directly connected with data. In my case, that is true of binary choice models (search for “Fechner model”). You have a $U_1$ and a $U_2$, then you do $U_1 - U_2$, add an error term, think about when this is more or less than zero, and BAZINGA! you get your likelihood function. BAZINGA!
- But Chapter 2 is not going well. I really may have to extend the thesis period until like August 23 or so. The core problem is that the addition of real theory to Chapter 3 necessitates a rewrite of large chunks of that Chapter. I have thus reset the progress bar above.
- Let's try this (for now): Continue work on Chapter 3 until August 11. On August 12, seriously start work on Chapter 2. Preferably get done sooner.
- Thesis has 167 pages now.
- 2024-08-08
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- Worked on Chapter 3, all parts. Phew.
- Thesis has 166 pages now.
- 2024-08-09
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- Worked on Chapter 3, all parts.
- Thesis has 166 pages now.
- 2024-08-10
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- Worked on Chapter 3, all parts, and added some new results.
- Thesis has 169 pages now.
- 2024-08-11
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- Worked on Chapter 3: Completely deleted the introduction, rewrote it. Went through the whole thing again (but for the last time for now). Added some final results.
- Thesis has 169 pages now.
- 2024-08-12
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- Worked on Chapter 2: Moved all old stuff to separate file. This will allow me to put stuff into the new structure. I noted that one challenge is that I will have to recreate all figures and tables.
- Thesis has 139 pages now.
- 2024-08-13
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- Worked on Chapter 2: Prepared results to be reported. Did work on plots.
- I have reserved the next week for miscellaneous tasks. This will give me some extra time. Ha!
- Thesis has 139 pages now.
- 2024-08-14
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- Worked on Chapter 2.
- Thesis has 146 pages now.
- 2024-08-15
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- Worked on Chapter 3 (introduction and model) based on the thoughtful feedback of a very kind person.
- Worked on Chapter 2. Wow, so this took me nigh-on three years, but I think I'm getting closer to the finishing line. This appears to be a simple project, but because of relatively low sample sizes and somewhat strange aspects of our design (especially regarding belief elicitation), some stuff in the results section is just really difficult. One table (that relates beliefs to true data) took me like 30 hours to create. And of these 30 hours, 29 hours were just spent thinking. Surprisingly hard stuff!
- Will probably work on Chapter 2 until Tuesday. From Wednesday, I will start doing “odd jobs” regarding my thesis: completing Chapter 1 and going through each paper again, polishing up details. And then I'll be done for now.
- Thesis has 151 pages now.
- 2024-08-16
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- Pretty much took the day off. Did almost nothing, except for small changes to Chapter 1.
- Thesis has 152 pages now.
- 2024-08-17
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- Worked on Chapter 2. The introduction and the hypotheses sections still need much attention. Maybe can finish the draft tomorrow? Anyways, my plan from 2024-08-15 seems good… let's hope it continues working.
- Thesis has 159 pages now.
- 2024-08-18
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- Worked on Chapter 2. This is actually coming together nicely. Will focus tomorrow and Tuesday on writing the introduction to this Chapter; then, on Wednesday, go through this whole paper once again. On Thursday, do odd jobs on all parts of the thesis. On Friday, conclude Chapter 1.
- Thesis has 161 pages now.
- 2024-08-19
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- Worked on Chapter 2.
- Thesis has 162 pages now.
- 2024-08-20
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- Worked on Chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 1 seems done now, actually?
- Slight change of plans: Continue on Chapter 2 until Thursday noon, then go through the whole thesis until the end of August 23.
- Added a new appendix on sources for software and some materials.
- Thesis had 167 pages. However, I decided to decrease the font size to 10pt. So, I will start from tomorrow by reporting from the new baseline of 151 pages.
- 2024-08-21
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- Finished the main text of Chapter 2. The only thing missing is a bunch of screenshots of the experiment. I will catch up on that tomorrow. Then, go through Chapter 2 once more, and then start going through the remainder of the thesis.
- I can't believe I'm almost at the finish line!
- Thesis has 152 pages now.
- 2024-08-22
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- Finished Chapter 2. Tomorrow will be spent on nuances in all chapters. I'll report.
- Thesis has 162 pages now.
- 2024-08-23
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- Fixed some small issues. I highly recommend showframe.
- I did it! 😮💨
- I'm now at commit e04eabf4. The entire current thesis.pdf has 327,014 characters. In the beginning, it had 176,040 characters. Note: these counts include everything, even the numbers in tables.
- Thesis has 163 pages now.
- I will stop recording my progress at this point. Thanks, everyone, for reading this and to the many people who wished me well!
How I work
A couple of people who have looked at this page have asked me how I can be so highly productive. Turns out, I'm really not. It's just that I finally have the time to do important work that was delayed by less important work, sometimes for years. I'm not proud of that. But it does tell me that you have to fight for your research time as if it was a fight for your life. Nobody will give this time to you. You must actively block out days (not just hours) from your schedule and unashamedly use them for research.
I want to mention two other things. It took me a long time to figure out how my mind and body interact. It just happens to be the case that I cannot write or think much between about 10 A.M. and 6 P.M. That's a long time! Hence, I spend these hours doing customizations to plots, editing, deleting stuff from the day before, and similar menial tasks. Between 10 and 6 I consume very large amounts of caffeine and podcasts. Podcasts help me get the English language going. At around 6 P.M., the caffeine finally kicks in and I get creative. I then spend about 3 to 6 highly productive hours in which I am going really, really fast, far exceeding the speed of light. This period is combined with repeats of old concerts or interviews with old-timey American comedians on my second screen. The resulting stream of consciousness compiles into sentences on the paper. Of course, much of that stuff will get deleted on the next day. But it's good to get it out there. Often I can use the work from the previous hours for the discussion of results or new investigations. Before I get to sleep, I quickly consider my plans for the next day.
Secondly, I strictly separate editing and writing. I do oscillate between the two, but I do strictly separate them. I have made the experience that if I do not do that, I will mostly make very minor changes because I do not want to obliterate what I just wrote! Now big parts get written solely in the evening. And then, on the next day, I ruthlessly go through my papers, moving parts around, deleting other parts and not being sorry about that. I will put in a TODO and potentially write more in the evening when I can concentrate, or delete the TODO entirely. On the next day, the whole process starts over again. Fundamentally speaking, to edit something you need to have something. Oh, and forget about your ego. Be ruthless.