José-Alberto Guerra 

Critical mass in collective action, August 2023 (R&R Journal of the Economic Science Association), with Ginzburg Boris and Lekfuangfu Warn 

Using a laboratory experiment, we study the incentives of individuals to contribute to a public good that is provided if and only if the fraction of contributors reaches a certain threshold. We jointly vary the size of the group, the cost of contributing, the required threshold, and the framing of contributions (giving to the common pool, or not taking from the common pool). We find that a higher threshold makes individuals more likely to contribute. The effect is strong enough that in a small group, raising the required threshold increases the probability that the public good is provided. In larger groups, however, the effect disappears. At the same time, we do not find a consistent effect of framing on the probability of contributing or on the likelihood of success.

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Train to opportunity: The effect of infrastructure on intergenerational mobility, February 2024 (submitted), with Costas-Fernandez Julián and Mohnen Myra

Can transport infrastructure promote long-term labor opportunities and break the occupation tie between parents and their children? We estimate the causal effect of access to the railroad network on intergenerational mobility in nineteenth-century England and Wales. We determine how proximity to the nearest station affected occupational mobility and leverage the as-good-as-random opening of built and planned train stations to address endogeneity in proximity. Sons residing 5 km closer to a station were 2% more likely to pursue a different occupation than their fathers and 6% more likely to experience upward mobility, primarily driven by improved local labor opportunities.

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Guns, pets, and strikes: An experiment on political action and social interactions, March 2024 (submitted), with Ginzburg Boris

We study the role of political collective action in shaping subsequent social interactions. In an experiment, subjects choose whether to sign a petition, or report whether they participated in recent street protests. Before and after, subjects are put in pairs to interact in games that measure prosocial preferences. Following participation choices, we observe increased prosociality between participants, but not within other pairs. Our structural estimation recovers individual prosocial preferences, showing that they are more intense as a result of joint participation. We then show that participating individuals receive private payoffs in subsequent interactions with fellow participants. Because of this, expecting higher participation by peers makes an individual more likely to participate. This mechanism suggests a reason why citizens participate in political collective action, and helps explain the role of coordination and signalling.

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The role of information in collective decisions, December 2023 (submitted), with Figueroa Nicolás and Silva Francisco 

We study how agents who are part of a group that makes decisions using majority rule vote on whether the group should obtain information. We argue, both theoretically and experimentally, that voters are more likely to vote for information to be acquired relative to their own individual willingness to pay for information when ex-ante disagreement is higher and ex-post disagreement is lower. Ex-ante and ex-post disagreement refer to the disagreement among group members over the best policy for the group to follow before and after information is acquired respectively. We discuss the implications on welfare and progress in democratic societies.

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Anti-social norms with Fergusson Leopoldo and Robinson James, (draft coming soon)

Since formal rules can only partially reduce opportunistic behavior, social norms fortified by third-party sanctioning are often valuable to achieving desirable social outcomes. However, social norms may also undermine pro-social behavior. We study one such norm —the “don’t be a toad” norm, as it is referred to in Colombia— that tells people to mind their own business and not snitch on others. We implement a set of fairness games where a third party can punish unfair behavior, but players can invoke the “don’t be a toad” norm. We find that the mere possibility of invoking this norm increases the deviation from fair social outcomes and completely reverses the benefits of third-party sanctioning. We establish this is an anti-social norm in a well-defined sense: most players believe it is normatively inappropriate yet expect a majority to invoke the norm. We find that the sensitivity to this norm was increased by exposure to political violence from the mid-twentieth century when ostracizing snitches became prevalent.

 

To segregate, or to discriminate - that is the question: Experiment on identity and social preferences, with Blanco Mariana (new version coming soon)

How do various sources of social identity affect segregation and discrimination decisions? In our laboratory experiment, social identity originates either from similar preferences, income, ability, shared socioeconomic status, or randomly. We exploit Colombia’s unique stratification system (public information) which assigns households to socioeconomic strata based on their residential block amenities. Subjects decide with whom to interact in a Dictator and Trust Game. We find high socioeconomic status senders segregate against out-group receivers in the Dictator Game, while low socioeconomic senders do so in the Trust Game. This segregation pattern is partly explained by payoff-maximizing behavior. In the Trust Game, we gather evidence for statistical discrimination. In the Dictator Game, evidence points to a taste for redistribution when identity originates from socioeconomic status or income level. No matter the source of identity, our subjects expect to be segregated but not discriminated against.

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Reference points formation and investment decisions, (new version coming soon)

We implement an artefactual field experiment on a sample of Colombian informal small entrepreneurs. Subjects receive an initial amount of money

to be allocated across different investment alternatives. The amount of money could be high or low (Income Variation). Some of the subjects are informed about the possibility of getting either income level and then face a coin toss that determines the actual amount they own, while the rest are not informed and receive randomly an income level (Reference Point Variation). The experimental results suggest that agents who start with a low income are more prone to invest if they face the lottery on possible initial incomes compared to all other treatments. A model of reference-dependent preferences with multiple reference points fits most of the experimental results.

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Selected Work in progress

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What drives collective action? Evidence from a field experiment, with Ginzburg Boris

 

Group-based stereotypes origins and political implications for social inclusion, with Ginzburg Boris and Lekfuangfu Warn

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Social mobility and women's emancipation in the nineteenth century, with Costas-Fernandez Julián, Mohnen Myra, and Torres-Higuera Paula