Meeting with Charlie Sprenger
Brandon Williams
Caltech Behavioral/Experimental Workshop
June 19, 2025
Main Question
1st
3rd
2nd
4th
5th
JM
Mostly bad ideas
5th
Very productive
Fellowship year
Backwards induction
How do I spend the next year(s) developing my research portfolio strategically?
What I've Been Working On
-
- Ten rounds with an easy task or the hard task base pay plus $X (Oprea, 2020)
LHS:
Constant
Difficulty
RHS:
Varying
Difficulty
Always
Pays $.50
If Correct
$X
If Correct
Choose
$X
Incentives: time taken (effort)
★ ★ ★
-22%
★ ★ ★
+21%
Delegation treatment:
offer a range
Take it or leave it:
single offer
Results
- We should expect efficiency gains from the delegation mechanism
- Chat should generate more efficient outcomes for take-it-or-leave-it but not for delegation
Meaningful efficiency
gains through delegation
Meaningful efficiency
gains through chat
Limited efficiency
gains through chat
- Are redistributive preferences (partially) determined by who will benefit from redistribution?
- Preferences about implemented inequality
- Social in- and out-group, focusing on ethnicity
- Under-performing or unlucky in-group benefits from redistribution; advantaged in-group benefits from "libertarian" outcomes
-
- What is the function of in-group relationship that informs one's willingness to redistribute?
Pr(redistributing)
% share disadvantaged co-ethnic group