Papers by Ellen Garbarino
Replication data for: The Market for Blood
Donating blood, "the gift of life," is among the noblest activities and it is performed... more Donating blood, "the gift of life," is among the noblest activities and it is performed worldwide nearly 100 million times annually. The economic perspective presented here shows how the gift of life, albeit noble and often motivated by altruism, is heavily influenced by standard economic forces including supply and demand, economies of scale, and moral hazard. These forces, shaped by technological advances, have driven the evolution of blood donation markets from thin one-to-one "marriage markets" in which each recipient needed a personal blood donor, to thick, impersonalized, diffuse markets. Today, imbalances between aggregate supply and demand are a major challenge in blood markets, including excess supply after disasters and insufficient supply at other times. These imbalances are not unexpected given that the blood market operates without market prices and with limited storage length (about six weeks) for whole blood. Yet shifting to a system of paying bloo...
Loss aversion and lying
Présenté par Marie Claire VillevalInternational audienc
ACR North American Advances, 2008
We study the effects of self-perception on consumer creation of avatars (virtual models) for eval... more We study the effects of self-perception on consumer creation of avatars (virtual models) for evaluating digital representations of bodyinvolving products (apparel) to be used on their real body in the real world. In our experiments, consumers used online tools to create virtual models of themselves and virtually "try on" clothing before making purchase decisions. Results show that consumer use of interactive online tools and prompting heightened awareness of their actual physical appearance significantly influences online evaluation of body-involving products. Individual differences in body esteem and preference for visual style of processing also influence consumer evaluation and use of avatars.
ACR North American Advances, 2010
Many important consumption decisions involve risk. We explore the biological basis of risk taking... more Many important consumption decisions involve risk. We explore the biological basis of risk taking using an emerging measure of prenatal androgrens, the ratio between the length of the second and fourth digits (2D:4D). A smaller 2D:4D ratio has been linked to higher exposure to prenatal testosterone relative to estradoil. The 2D:4D ratio is a sexually dimorphic marker, with men having lower ratios than women on average. In a task with real financial stakes, both men and women with smaller 2D:4D ratios chose significantly riskier options. For those at the extreme ends of the digit-ratio distribution the gender difference in risk-taking disappears.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014
We estimate the effect of an increase in time cost on the return behavior of blood donors. Using ... more We estimate the effect of an increase in time cost on the return behavior of blood donors. Using data from the Australia Red Cross Blood Service, we ask what happens when prosocial behavior becomes more costly. Exploiting a natural variation in which donor wait times are random, we use the length of time a donor spends waiting to make his donation as our measure of cost. Our data allows us to go beyond measures of satisfaction and intention and estimate the effect of wait time on return behavior. We estimate that a 38% increase (20 minutes or one standard deviation) in the average wait would result in a 14% decrease in donations per year. Our results thus indicate that waiting is not merely frustrating, but has significant negative long-term social costs. Further, relying only on satisfaction and intention data masks not only the magnitude of the effects but also heterogeneous responses to increased wait time: the return behavior of males is more elastic than females and donors display diminishing sensitivity in the ___domain of losses. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for organizations that operate with a large and diffuse volunteer donor base.
Using attribution to foster public support for alternative policies to combat obesity
European Journal of Marketing, 2018
Purpose An increasing array of policies have been suggested to combat rising obesity. Regardless ... more Purpose An increasing array of policies have been suggested to combat rising obesity. Regardless of the policy intervention that is selected each comes with a cost in the form of imposition on the public purse, or regulative restrictions on business or individuals. Consequently, potential opposition makes it critical to garner sufficient public support for whichever policy is selected. The purpose of this paper is to explore the ability of attributional framing for the causes of obesity (framed around locus of control and controllability) to increase support for a range of policy interventions designed to reduce obesity. Design/methodology/approach Using an online panel, the authors manipulate the perceived cause of obesity along the internal/external locus and controllability/uncontrollability dimensions to assess whether attribution of causes of obesity can influence support for policy interventions that either encourage positive behaviour or discourage negative behaviour. Finding...
Journal of the Economic Science Association, 2018
economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our t... more economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.
International Journal of Market Research, 2006
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2016
We theoretically show that agents with loss-averse preferences facing a decision to receive a bad... more We theoretically show that agents with loss-averse preferences facing a decision to receive a bad financial payoff if they report honestly or to receive a better financial payoff if they report dishonestly are more likely to lie to avoid receiving the low payoff the lower the ex-ante probability of the bad outcome. This occurs due to the ex-ante expected payoff increasing as the bad outcome becomes less likely, and hence the greater the loss that can be avoided by lying. We demonstrate robust support for this role of loss aversion on lying by reanalyzing the results from the extant literature covering 74 studies and 363 treatments, and from two new experiments that vary the outcome probabilities and examine lying for personal gain and for gains to causes one supports or opposes. To measure and compare lying behavior across treatments and studies, we develop an empirical method that estimates the full distribution of dishonesty when agents privately observe the outcome of a random process and can misreport what they observed.
Management Science, 2016
We estimate and compare the effect of increased time costs on consumer satisfaction and behavior.... more We estimate and compare the effect of increased time costs on consumer satisfaction and behavior. We are able to move beyond the existing literature, which focuses on satisfaction and intention, and estimate the effect of waiting time on return behavior. Further, we do so in a prosocial context and our measure of cost is the length of time a blood donor spends waiting. We find that relying on satisfaction data masks important time cost sensitivities; namely, it is not how the donor feels about the wait time that matters for return behavior, but rather the actual duration of the wait. Consistent with theory we develop, our results indicate that waiting has a significant longer-term social cost: we estimate that a 38% increase (equivalent to one standard deviation) in the average wait would result in a 10% decrease in donations per year. This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.
Journal of Consumer Research, 2017
Political ideology plays a pivotal role in shaping individuals’ attitudes, opinions, and behavior... more Political ideology plays a pivotal role in shaping individuals’ attitudes, opinions, and behaviors. However, apart from a handful of studies, little is known about how consumers’ political ideology affects their marketplace behavior. The authors used three large consumer complaint databases from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Federal Communications Commission in conjunction with a county-level indicator of political ideology (the 2012 US presidential election results) to demonstrate that conservative consumers are not only less likely than liberal consumers to report complaints but also less likely to dispute complaint resolutions. A survey also sheds light on the relationship between political ideology and complaint/dispute behavior. Due to stronger motivations to engage in “system justification,” conservative (as opposed to liberal) consumers are less likely to complain or dispute. The present research offers a useful ...
Body boundary aberration and body esteem as influencers of consumer attitudes and intentions
PsycEXTRA Dataset
Body Beliefs and Virtual Models
The success of Internet retailing highlights the need to understand how our perceptions of the ph... more The success of Internet retailing highlights the need to understand how our perceptions of the physical world, such as our beliefs about our bodies influence our interpretation of the virtual world. Toward this end, we explore how two distinct beliefs about one’s body, body image discrepancy and body boundary aberration, influence consumers’ perceptions and usage intentions for digital representations of consumer’s wearing apparel (virtual models). We show that beliefs about ones body influence how accurately one sees a virtual model and that the influence of body beliefs on intention to use virtual models is fully mediated by their influence on the perceived accuracy of the model.
Effects of consumer goals on attribute weighting, overall satisfaction, and product usage
Psychology & Marketing, 2001
With the use of field data from a live theater company, this article demonstrates that customers&... more With the use of field data from a live theater company, this article demonstrates that customers' goal orientation affects not only what information is used in assessing overall satisfaction, but also downstream measures of level of satisfaction and product usage. The study segmented the customers into four groups based on their goal orientations for the established arts goals of cultural enrichment and relaxation, finding that the different groups weigh the attributes of the service differentially in determining overall satisfaction based on each attribute's ability to fulfill their goals. Furthermore, customers whose goals match the organization's orientation give the product a higher evaluation and utilize it more often. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Psychology & Marketing, 2002
Despite the common recommendation that brand names be memorable, little is known about the effect... more Despite the common recommendation that brand names be memorable, little is known about the effect of brand name type on various forms of memory processing such as recall and recognition. As such, this article extends prior research by comparing recall and recognition for three sets of brand names: words versus nonwords, relevant (i.e., related to a product attribute) words versus irrelevant (i.e., unrelated to a product attribute) words, and relevant words cuing an advertised attribute versus relevant words cuing an unadvertised attribute. The results of an experimental study indicate that memory for these brand name types depends on whether it is accessed via recall or recognition. Based on these results, implications for naming new products are discussed. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 2010
Many important consumption decisions involve risk. We explore the biological basis of risk taking... more Many important consumption decisions involve risk. We explore the biological basis of risk taking using an emerging measure of prenatal androgrens, the ratio between the length of the second and fourth digits (2D:4D). A smaller 2D:4D ratio has been linked to higher exposure to prenatal testosterone relative to estradoil. The 2D:4D ratio is a sexually dimorphic marker, with men having lower ratios than women on average. In a task with real financial stakes, both men and women with smaller 2D:4D ratios chose significantly riskier options. For those at the extreme ends of the digit-ratio distribution the gender difference in risk-taking disappears.
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 2007
The winner's curse is one of the most well documented empirical deviations from rational behavior... more The winner's curse is one of the most well documented empirical deviations from rational behavior. The primary explanation for the winner's curse is decision error: bidders do not realize that their bids result in lotteries with negative expected value. Given many unsuccessful attempts to reduce winner's curse behavior, this paper hypothesizes that, in addition to decision error, some people prefer these lotteries. We test this hypothesis with two experiments. Study 1 shows that half the subjects accept a significant number of lotteries that are objectively identical to positive bids in the Takeover game but that cannot be explained by the decision error used to explain bids in the Takeover game. Study 1 also finds that half the subjects make decision errors. These results offer a positive interpretation on past efforts to reduce decision error; whereas past studies implicitly assume that eliminating 100 percent of winner's curse behavior reflects the highest possible success, the current results suggest that no more than half the subjects prefer avoiding the winner's curse even with no decision error. Study 2 shows that preferences consistent with winner's curse behavior can only partially be attributed to risk-seeking, and can mostly be attributed to contextual factors beyond the monetary distribution. These results reinforce substantial evidence that preferences over lotteries are not independent of the context in which the lotteries are presented.
Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2014
Donating blood, “the gift of life,” is among the noblest activities and it is performed worldwide... more Donating blood, “the gift of life,” is among the noblest activities and it is performed worldwide nearly 100 million times annually. The economic perspective presented here shows how the gift of life, albeit noble and often motivated by altruism, is heavily influenced by standard economic forces including supply and demand, economies of scale, and moral hazard. These forces, shaped by technological advances, have driven the evolution of blood donation markets from thin one-to-one “marriage markets,” in which each recipient needed a personal blood donor, to thick, impersonalized, diffuse markets. Today, imbalances between aggregate supply and demand are a major challenge in blood markets, including excess supply after disasters and insufficient supply at other times. These imbalances are not unexpected given that the blood market operates without market prices and with limited storage length (about six weeks) for whole blood. Yet shifting to a system of paying blood donors seems a pr...
The robustness of trust and reciprocity across a heterogeneous U.S. population
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2009
Experimental evidence on gender differences demonstrates that women are generally less trusting a... more Experimental evidence on gender differences demonstrates that women are generally less trusting and more reciprocating than men in Investment Games. However, existing studies typically use a narrow population consisting of college students. To test the robustness of these findings, we report on an experiment using 18–84-year old participants recruited from an online panel. While trusting gender differences are robust across age, with women less trusting than men, reciprocating behavior is not robust across age; gender differences in ...
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2013
Assuming individuals rationally decide whether to participate or not to participate in lab experi... more Assuming individuals rationally decide whether to participate or not to participate in lab experiments, we hypothesize several non-representative biases in the characteristics of lab participants. We test the hypotheses by first collecting survey and experimental data from a typical recruitment population and then inviting them to participate in a lab experiment. The results indicate that lab participants are not representative of the target population on almost all the hypothesized characteristics, including having lower income, working fewer hours, volunteering more often, and exhibiting behaviors correlated with interest in experiments and economics. The results reinforce the commonly understood limits of laboratory research to make quantitative inferences. We also discuss several methods for addressing non-representative biases to advance laboratory methods for improving quantitative inferences and consequently increasing confidence in qualitative conclusions.
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Papers by Ellen Garbarino