Differences In Willingness Research Articles

No Gender Difference in Willingness to Compete When Competing Against Self

We report on two experiments investigating whether there is a gender difference in the willingness to compete against oneself (self-competition), similar to what is found when competing against others (other-competition). In one laboratory and one online market experiment, involving a total of 1,200 participants, we replicate the gender-gap in willingness to other-compete but find no evidence of a gender difference in the willingness to self-compete. We explore the roles of risk and confidence and suggest that these factors can account for the different findings. Finally, we document that self-competition does no worse than other-competition in terms of performance boosting.

Gender Differences in Willingness to Compete: The Role of Public Observability

A recent literature emphasizes the importance of the gender gap in willingness to compete as a partial explanation for gender differences in labor market outcomes. However, whereas experiments investigating willingness to compete typically do so in anonymous environments, real world competitions often have a more public nature, which introduces potential social image concerns. If such image concerns are important, we should expect public observability to further exacerbate the gender gap. We test this prediction using a laboratory experiment that varies whether the decision to compete, and its outcome, is publicly observable. Across four different treatments, however, all treatment effects are close to zero. We conclude that the public observability of decisions and outcomes does not exert a significant impact on male or female willingness to compete, indicating that the role of social image concerns related to competitive decisions may be limited.

Earmarking conservation: Further inquiry on scope effects in stated preference methods applied to nature-based tourism

The way people assign value to nature conservation policies has important implications for management choices. Economic valuation surveys are affected by individual behavioural patterns that are not exhaustively explained by traditional sources of bias such as embedding, flagship species, fixed-budget, commodity misspecification and warm glows. Through a Contingent Valuation study of Alpine wildlife, we use an external scope test to evaluate the difference in willingness to pay among tourists for conservation policies targeted either to the ibex alone, or to the four ungulates populating the Gran Paradiso National Park in Northwest Italy (ibex, red deer, roe deer, chamois). We find that park users are willing to contribute significantly more to policies protecting one of the four ungulates than all four of them, a result that we argue should be ascribed to pure aversion to less specific policy objectives, i.e. to a preference for punctual earmarking of resources devoted to conservation.

Differences in willingness to pay for an extraction, a filling, and cleaning teeth at various levels of oral health-related quality of life, as measured by oral impacts on daily performance, among older adults in Singapore

ObjectiveTo examine the differences in Willingness to pay (WTP) for an extraction, a filling, and cleaning of teeth among older adults with varying levels of Oral Health-related Quality of Life (OHQoL). BackgroundOHQoL has been used extensively to measure utilities as reported by individuals of interest. Currently there are no reports that examine the WTP of individuals at various levels of OHQoL. MethodsA convenience sample of adults 60 years or older were recruited. Besides other domains, questionnaires were used to assess WTP (extraction, filling, and cleaning of teeth), OHQoL (using Oral Impacts on Daily Performance-OIDP), McArthur scale, and access to care. ResultsTamil ethnicity was related to higher WTP for an extraction (mean ratio, 1.63–3.98; 95% Confidence Interval [CI]), increase of age in years was related to lower WTP for extraction (mean ratio, 0.96–1.00 [95%CI]) and increasing OIDP score was related to lower WTP for extractions (mean ratio, 0.80–0.99 [95%CI]). Tamil ethnicity was associated with higher WTP for fillings (mean ratio, 2.69–6.44 [95%CI]); higher age in years was associated with lower WTP for fillings (mean ratio, 0.94–0.99 [95%CI]), and higher OIDP scores was trending to be associated to lower WTP for filling (mean ratio, 0.80–1.00 [95%CI]). Tamil Ethnicity was also associated with higher WTP for cleaning (mean ratio, 2.14–7.19 [95%CI]), higher age in years was also associated with cleaning (mean ratio, 0.94–0.99 [95%CI]). ConclusionIndividuals with higher OIDP scores tended to have lower WTP for extraction, filling and cleaning; with significant differences reported for extraction.

Household willingness to pay for green electricity in urban and peri-urban Tigray, northern Ethiopia: Determinants and welfare effects

This paper set out to estimate household willingness to pay for green electric services and welfare gains attributed to such schemes. For this purpose, contingent valuation survey was conducted on 300 urban and peri-urban households in northern Ethiopia. A bivariate probit model was used to elicit willingness to pay and analyze determinants of household willingness to pay. On the other hand, welfare gains were analyzed using consumer and producer surpluses. The mean willingness to pay was estimated to be Birr 12.5 (0.66 USD) per month per household for five years on top of monthly electricity bill. Among others, income played positive role on willingness to pay while difference in willingness to pay behavior was observed between male and female-headed households. In addition, distance to wood and charcoal (alternative energy) markets played encouraging role for willingness to pay. Results from the welfare analysis show that there is significant societal gain to be made both in terms of surplus for households and producers (government) if the previously ‘untapped’ green electricity service was implemented. The revenue (producer surplus) for the state would be instrumental in contributing to the state's endeavor to generate a much-needed capital for investment in and expansion of renewable energy.

The impact of stress on tournament entry

Individual willingness to enter competitive environments predicts career choices and labor market outcomes. Meanwhile, many people experience competitive contexts as stressful. We use two laboratory experiments to investigate whether factors related to stress can help explain individual differences in tournament entry. Experiment 1 studies whether stress responses (measured as salivary cortisol) to taking part in a mandatory tournament predict individual willingness to participate in a voluntary tournament. We find that competing increases stress levels. This cortisol response does not predict tournament entry for men but is positively and significantly correlated with choosing to enter the tournament for women. In Experiment 2, we exogenously induce physiological stress using the cold-pressor task. We find a positive causal effect of stress on tournament entry for women but no effect for men. Finally, we show that although the effect of stress on tournament entry differs between the genders, stress reactions cannot explain the well-documented gender difference in willingness to compete.

Effects of structured education program on organ donor designation of nursing students and their families: A randomized controlled trial.

Little is known about the effect of education programs on changing attitudes and behaviors of participants and their families toward deceased organ donation. The subjects of this randomized trial were Japanese nursing students who were not previously designated organ donors. They were randomly assigned to either the education program or information booklet group. The program comprised a lecture followed by group discussion and information booklet. The primary outcome was self-reported organ donor designation. Outcomes were assessed by questionnaire. Data of 203 (99.0%) students were analyzed. At study end, seven of 102 students (6.9%) of the program group and one of 101 students (1.0%) of the booklet group consented to donate organs (proportion ratio 6.93 [95% CI 0.87-55.32]). There were significant between-group differences in willingness to consent for donation (54.9% vs 39.6%; proportion ratio 1.39 [95% CI 1.03-1.87]), family discussion (31.4% vs 15.9%; 1.98 [1.16-3.38]), and organ donor designation of family members (11.8% vs 2.0%; 5.94 [1.36-25.88]). No group differences were found in willingness for organ donation by students and family members. Although there were no significant between-group differences in organ donor designation, the program seems to indirectly promote consent to organ donation by their families.

Visitor preferences and willingness to pay for coastal attributes in Barbados

Coastal and marine resources in Barbados supply a wide range of goods and services including seafood, numerous recreation opportunities, wildlife habitat, and coastal protection. These resources also serve as the foundation of the Barbados tourism product and provide indirect economic support via employment, income, and tax revenues. Despite their obvious importance to the economy and culture of Barbados, the economic value of many aspects of coastal and marine resources have not been directly studied. An understanding of preferences and willingness to pay for coastal and marine characteristics can be useful in terms of developing efficient, cost-effective natural resource policies, particularly with regard to tourism, the principle economic driver in Barbados. This research summarizes the results of an economic valuation study aimed at understanding visitor perceptions of environmental quality, preferences for coastal amenities and willingness to pay for changes in coastal lodging attributes. Results indicate that visitors to Barbados have strong preferences for beach-front lodging and a strong aversion to beach litter. Differences in willingness to pay to avoid litter at the lower end of the litter spectrum illustrate the potential for significant economic gains to be realized through beach cleanup efforts. Tourists also display an aversion to narrow beaches, but do not seem to place much value on additional width beyond a threshold width of 8–10 m.

Optimizing expenditures for agricultural land conservation: Spatially-explicit estimation of benefits, budgets, costs and targets

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the optimal use of financial resources for agricultural land conservation in the Alberta Capital Region, Canada. All elements of the analysis are spatially explicit, including estimation of benefits and budgets from a choice experiment with Capital Region residents, assessed farmland value and list price data on conservation costs, and priority targets for conservation. The performance and efficiency of four targeting criteria are evaluated and compared for alternative budgets that are derived from the benefit study, applied to two sets of data on costs. The results show considerable interest in farmland conservation in the Alberta Capital Region: we estimate that a one-time increase in property taxes or rent that would generate $CAD 17.6 million would be acceptable to 75% of the population. Willingness to pay for conservation was highest for land used for commercial vegetable production, located near to primary highways and outside of city limits. However, the difference in willingness to pay to conserve such land generally does not offset the higher costs of that type of land, and efficient use of limited conservation funds would result in the targeting of lower-cost grazing lands located further from the main population centres. As expected, the branch-and-bound optimization (OPT) and benefit-cost ratio targeting (BCRT) provide more efficient use of conservation funds than either benefit targeting (BT) or cost targeting (CT).

Silver Spoons and Platinum Plans: How Childhood Environment Affects Adult Health Care Decisions

Can socioeconomic status in childhood influence desire for health coverage in adulthood? We develop and test a model that yielded two sets of findings across five experiments. First, people who grew up poor were generally less interested in health coverage compared to those who grew up wealthy. This effect was independent of people’s current level of socioeconomic status, emerged most strongly when adults were experiencing financial threat, and was mediated by differences in willingness to take risks between people from poor versus wealthy childhoods. Second, we show that this effect reverses when people are provided with base-rate information about disease. When information about the average likelihood of getting sick is made available, people who grew up poor were consistently more likely to seek health coverage than people who grew up wealthy. This effect was again strongest when people felt a sense of financial threat, and it was driven by people from poor versus wealthy childhoods differing in their perceptions of the likelihood of becoming sick. Overall, we show how, why, and when childhood socioeconomic status influences desire for health coverage.

Willingness to Compete: Family Matters

This paper studies the role of family background in explaining differences in the willingness to compete in a cognitive task. By combining data from a lab experiment conducted with a fairly representative sample of adolescents in Norway and high-quality register data on family background, we show that family background is fundamental in two important ways. First, boys from low socioeconomic status families are less willing to compete than boys from better-off families, even when controlling for confidence, performance, risk preferences, time preferences, social preferences, and psychological traits. Second, family background is crucial for understanding the large gender difference in the willingness to compete. Girls are much less willing to compete than boys among children from better-off families, whereas we do not find any gender difference in willingness to compete among children from low socioeconomic status families. Our data suggest that the main explanation of the role of family background is that the father’s socioeconomic status is strongly associated with boys’ willingness to compete. We do not find any association between the willingness to compete for boys or girls and the mother’s socioeconomic status or other family characteristic that may potentially shape competition preferences, including parental equality and sibling rivalry. This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.

RACIAL DIFFERENCES IN WILLINGNESS TO ENROLL IN PRECLINICAL ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE CLINICAL TRIALS

RACIAL DIFFERENCES IN WILLINGNESS TO ENROLL IN PRECLINICAL ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE CLINICAL TRIALS

Preferences for shared autonomous vehicles

Shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) could provide inexpensive mobility on-demand services. In addition, the autonomous vehicle technology could facilitate the implementation of dynamic ride-sharing (DRS). The widespread adoption of SAVs could provide benefits to society, but also entail risks. For the design of effective policies aiming to realize the advantages of SAVs, a better understanding of how SAVs may be adopted is necessary. This article intends to advance future research about the travel behavior impacts of SAVs, by identifying the characteristics of users who are likely to adopt SAV services and by eliciting willingness to pay measures for service attributes. For this purpose, a stated choice survey was conducted and analyzed, using a mixed logit model. The results show that service attributes including travel cost, travel time and waiting time may be critical determinants of the use of SAVs and the acceptance of DRS. Differences in willingness to pay for service attributes indicate that SAVs with DRS and SAVs without DRS are perceived as two distinct mobility options. The results imply that the adoption of SAVs may differ across cohorts, whereby young individuals and individuals with multimodal travel patterns may be more likely to adopt SAVs. The methodological limitations of the study are also acknowledged. Despite a potential hypothetical bias, the results capture the directionality and relative importance of the attributes of interest.

Willingness to Take, Use of, and Indications for Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Among Men Who Have Sex With Men-20 US Cities, 2014.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is an effective prevention tool for people at substantial risk of acquiring human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). To monitor the current state of PrEP use among men who have sex with men (MSM), we report on willingness to use PrEP and PrEP utilization. To assess whether the MSM subpopulations at highest risk for infection have indications for PrEP according to the 2014 clinical guidelines, we estimated indications for PrEP for MSM by demographics. We analyzed data from the 2014 cycle of the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance (NHBS) system among MSM who tested HIV negative in NHBS and were currently sexually active. Adjusted prevalence ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated from log-linked Poisson regression with generalized estimating equations to explore differences in willingness to take PrEP, PrEP use, and indications for PrEP. Whereas over half of MSM said they were willing to take PrEP, only about 4% reported using PrEP. There was no difference in willingness to take PrEP between black and white MSM. PrEP use was higher among white compared with black MSM and among those with greater education and income levels. Young, black MSM were less likely to have indications for PrEP compared with young MSM of other races/ethnicities. Young, black MSM, despite being at high risk of HIV acquisition, may not have indications for PrEP under the current guidelines. Clinicians may need to consider other factors besides risk behaviors such as HIV incidence and prevalence in subgroups of their communities when considering prescribing PrEP.

The code of silence and female police officers in Slovenia

Purpose – For some time now, research conducted in the field of human behavior and criminology has pertained to the contemporary question as to whether there are any relevant differences between the genders regarding their integrity and opinions held and, if so, which of these lead to different behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there are any gender differences in willingness to report police misconduct and if so, what is the nature of these differences. Design/methodology/approach – In spring 2011, the study was conducted on a representative sample of 408 frontline Slovenian police officers (87.3 percent were male and 12.7 percent were female). The assessment of the code of silence was conducted using the method developed by Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković (2004), and consisted of 14 hypothetical scenarios describing a range of various forms of police misconduct, from those that merely give the appearance of a conflict of interest, to incidents of bribery and theft. One of the questions explored in relation to the police code of silence was the police officer’s willingness to report misconduct. Findings – Authors discovered significant differences in 11 of the 14 analyzed cases on the willingness to report police misconduct. Interestingly, female police officers were less willing than their male colleagues to report different forms of police misconduct. Female police officers are less willing to report police corruption in seven cases e.g. shooting runaway suspect, supervisor abusing his/her power, excessive force – punching a suspect, falsification of evidence, supervisor not prevent beating a suspect, police officer take bribes, and doing nothing when juveniles paint graffiti. The results were further analyzed from the group dynamic in Slovenian police point of view. The survey findings could be useful for police chiefs, leaders, and managers who want to achieve the main objective of every modern police organization: to prevent corruption and increase social responsibility. Originality/value – The study analyzes, comprehensively and originally, whether the female police officers differ from their male colleagues in the level of police integrity and willingness to report the cases of police corruption and/or other forms of police misbehavior.

Play It Again, Sam? Versioning in the Market for Second‐hand Video Game Software

Information goods are characterised by high fixed costs and low marginal costs of production. A potentially effective strategy that can be adopted by firms operating in such markets is versioning, whereby various features are added or subtracted from a number of distinct versions of the good. This effectively serves as a means of second‐degree price discrimination designed to extract prices closer to the maximum willingness to pay from different groups of consumers. This study tests the effectiveness of versioning as a means of exploiting differences in willingness to pay in second‐hand markets for information goods by undertaking the first hedonic price analysis of video gaming software. The empirical evidence presented in this paper is based on the analysis of an extensive cross‐sectional dataset consisting of over 5000 observations of pre‐owned video game prices in the USA. Controls are introduced for a variety of other observable characteristics, including the quality of the game‐play experience, the publisher, genre and theme of the game. The results are consistent with theoretical expectations and demonstrate that significant variations in willingness to pay can be exploited through the strategic use of versioning. The practice is therefore argued to represent an effective means by which firms in these markets can enhance revenues. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How Does the Gender Difference in Willingness to Compete Evolve with Experience?

I study how gender differences in willingness to compete evolve over time in response to experience. Participants in a lab experiment perform the same real-effort task over several rounds. In each round, they have to choose between piece-rate remuneration and a winner-takes-all competition. At the end of each round, those who compete get feedback on the competition outcome. The main result is that women are much more likely than men to stop competing after a loss, which leads to the appearance of a significant gender gap in competitiveness even among those who are initially willing to compete. This gender effect is also present for high performers. In an additional experiment, I show that giving feedback to non-competers might further increase the gender gap in willingness to compete as men who initially choose not to compete react more strongly to positive feedback compared to women.

Typical Vine or International Taste: Wine Consumers' Dilemma Between Beliefs and Preferences.

The wine-growing sector is probably one of the agricultural areas where the ties between product quality and territory are most evident. Geographical indication is a key element in this context, and previous literature has focused on demonstrating how certification of origin influences the wine purchaser's behavior. However, less attention has been devoted to understanding how the value of a given name of origin may or may not be determined by the various elements that characterize the typicality of the wine product on that territory: vines, production techniques, etc. It thus seems interesting, in this framework, to evaluate the impacts of several characteristic attributes on the preferences of consumers. This paper will analyze, in particular, the role of the presence of autochthonous vines in consumers' choices. The connection between name of origin and autochthonous vines appears to be particularly important in achieving product "recognisability", while introducing "international" vines in considerable measure into blends might result in the loss of the peculiarity of certain characteristic and typical local productions. A standardization of taste could thus risk compromising the reputation of traditional production areas. The objective of this study is to estimate, through an experimental auction on the case study of Chianti, the differences in willingness to pay for wines produced with different shares of typical vines. The results show that consumers have a willingness to pay for wine produced with typical blends 34% greater than for wines with international blends. However, this difference is not confirmed by blind tasting, raising the issue of the relationship between exante expectations about vine typicality and real wine sensorial characteristics. Finally, some recent patents related to wine testing and wine packaging are reviewed.

Gender differences in preferences for taking risk in college applications

College admissions in Turkey are based entirely on nationwide standardized test scores and standardized high school GPAs. Using detailed administrative data from the centralized system, I study the impact of gender differences in preferences on the allocation of students to colleges. Controlling for test score, high school GPA, and high school attended, I find that females are more likely to apply to lower-ranking universities, whereas males set a higher bar, revealing a higher option value for retaking the test and applying again next year. These differences in willingness to be unassigned are also found to have implications for major choices.

Random Regret Minimization and Random Utility Maximization in the Presence of Preference Heterogeneity: An Empirical Contrast

Random regret minimization (RRM) interpretations of discrete choices are growing in popularity as a complementary modeling paradigm to random utility maximization (RUM). While behaviorally very appealing in the sense of accommodating the regret of not choosing the best alternative, studies to date suggest that the differences in willingness to pay estimates, choice elasticities, and choice probabilities compared to RUM are small. However, the evidence is largely based on a simple multinomial logit (MNL) form of the RRM model. This paper revisits this behavioral contrast and moves beyond the multinomial logit model to incorporate random parameters, revealing the presence of preference heterogeneity. The important contribution of this paper is to see if the extension of RRM-MNL to RRM-mixed logit in passenger mode choice widens the behavioral differences between RUM and RRM. The current paper has identified a statistically richer improvement in fit of mixed logit compared to multinomial logit under RRM (and RUM) but found small differences overall between the empirical outputs of RUM and RRM, with no basis of an improved model fit between these two nonnested model forms. The inclusion of both model forms should continue to inform the likely range of behavioral outputs during investigation of a broader range of process heuristics designed to capture real world behavioral response.