Gary Charne
Biographic Data
| ID | 946722 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gary Charne |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gary |
| FAMILY NAME | Charne |
| SIGNATURE | CHARNE G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2936-6287 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 50 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Exercise Improves Academic Performance
We report the results of a randomized controlled trial testing whether incentivizing physical exercise improves the academic performance of college students. As expected, the intervention increases physical activity. The main result is that it generates a strong and significant improvement in academic performance, particularly for students who struggled at the baseline in terms of lifestyle habits. We also provide evidence on the underlying mecha…
Vulnerability game
Dynamic effects of affirmative action: Experimental evidence
Experimental methods: Eliciting and measuring social norms
Coalitional support regulates resource divisions in men
The next generation of experimental research with LLMs
Creativity and Corporate Culture
We investigate which form of corporate culture is most effective in enhancing individual performance in creative tasks conducted in group settings. We combine a series of experiments with a questionnaire on corporate values to test whether performance ranking and incentives succeed in instantiating a creative corporate culture. Being ranked against competitors and setting incentives at the group level serves as a social cue that appears to induce…
An Experimental Study on the Effects of Communication, Credibility, and Clustering in Network Games
We examine how preplay communication and clustering affect play in a challenging hybrid experimental game on networks. Free-form chat is impressively effective in achieving the nonequilibrium efficient outcome, but restricted communication has little effect. We support this result with a model about the credibility of cheap-talk messages. We also offer a model of message diffusion that correctly predicts more rapid diffusion without clustering. W…
Behavioural economics: Preserving rank as a social norm
Choosing and Not Choosing with and without Communication: Experimental Results on Contract Design and Selection
This paper studies selection and procedural effects in experimental contracting when sellers choose unenforceable trade quality after a possible cost shock. Brandts, Charness, and Ellman (2016) investigate how communication affects behavior and outcomes in contracts with rigid prices, relative to contracts where buyers can raise prices after observing the shock. An important remaining question is how behavior is affected by whether contract type …
Experimental methods: Pay one or pay all
The Dark Side of Competition for Status
Unethical behavior within organizations is not rare. We investigate experimentally the role of status-seeking behavior in sabotage and cheating activities aiming at improving one's performance ranking in a flat-wage environment. We find that average effort is higher when individuals are informed about their relative performance. However, ranking feedback also favors disreputable behavior. Some individuals do not hesitate to incur a cost to improv…
Experimental methods: Eliciting risk preferences
Strong Evidence for Gender Differences in Risk Taking
Experimental methods: Between-subject and within-subject design
Groups Make Better Self-Interested Decisions
In this paper, we describe what economists have learned about differences between group and individual decision-making. This literature is still young, and in this paper, we will mostly draw on experimental work (mainly in the laboratory) that has compared individual decision-making to group decision-making, and to individual decision-making in situations with salient group membership. The bottom line emerging from economic research on group deci…
The strategy versus the direct-response method: A first survey of experimental comparisons
In this paper, we present a first survey of the literature regarding whether the strategy method, in which a responder makes conditional decisions for each possible information set, leads to different experimental results than does the more standard direct-response method, in which the responder learns the action of the first mover and then chooses a response. Of the twenty-nine existing comparisons, sixteen find no difference, while four do find…
Informal Risk Sharing in an Infinite‐Horizon Experiment
Our laboratory study of risk sharing without commitment captures the main features of a simple model of voluntary insurance. Participants are paired in matches with stochastic endings. Each period they receive fixed endowments and one of the pair (randomly-drawn) also receives an additional amount; they can then make voluntary transfers to each other. While smoothing consumption is attractive, only self-enforcing risk sharing is possible. We find…
What's in a name? Anonymity and social distance in dictator and ultimatum games
Individual Behavior and Group Membership
People who are members of a group and identify with it behave differently from people who perceive themselves as isolated individuals. This paper shows that group membership affects preferences over outcomes, and saliency of the group affects the perception of the environment. We manipulate the saliency of group membership by letting a player's own group watch as a passive audience as decisions are made, and/or by making part of the payoff common…
Intention and Stochastic Outcomes: An Experimental study
Do people care about intentions – even when good intentions do not produce good results? In our experiments we find that rates of punishment and reward react strongly to intentions (the wage a firm decides to pay) and more modestly to distributional outcomes (the higher or lower wage actually received including the stochastic component). For example, workers who end up receiving medium wages respond much more positively when this resulted from th…
Promises and Partnership
We examine experimentally the impact of communication on trust and cooperation. Our design admits observation of promises, lies, and beliefs. The evidence is consistent with people striving to live up to others' expectations so as to avoid guilt, as can be modeled using psychological game theory. When players exhibit such guilt aversion, communication may influence motivation and behavior by influencing beliefs about beliefs. Promises may enhance…
Do Labour Market Conditions Affect Gift Exchange? Some Experimental Evidence
We study how two dimensions of market conditions affect behaviour in experimental gift-exchange markets with repeated interaction. First, we consider the impact of competitive imbalance, by varying whether there is an excess supply of firms or an excess supply of workers in the market. Second, we impose a minimum wage in the market with an excess supply of workers, and study the overall effect on wages and productivity. Perhaps surprisingly, the …
"How New Is the "New Employment Contract
1994).The final synthesis chapter would probablyhave benefited from more extensive integra-tion of the extant literature on the factors un-derlying the decline in American private sectorunionism with the results derived from the stud-ies in the volume. This would have broadenedits scope and relevance as a review piece.Finally, in their reflections in the summarychapter, the editors suggest that unions as a“social institution [have] to pass the ‘m…
Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests
Departures from self-interest in economic experiments have recently inspired models of “social preferences.” We design a range of simple experimental games that test these theories more directly than existing experiments. Our experiments show that subjects are more concerned with increasing social welfare—sacrificing to increase the payoffs for all recipients, especially low-payoff recipients—than with reducing differences in payoffs (as supposed…
Groups Make Better Self-Interested Decisions
In this paper, we describe what economists have learned about differences between group and individual decision-making. This literature is still young, and in this paper, we will mostly draw on experimental work (mainly in the laboratory) that has compared individual decision-making to group decision-making, and to individual decision-making in situations with salient group membership. The bottom line emerging from economic research on group deci…
Informal Risk Sharing in an Infinite‐Horizon Experiment
Our laboratory study of risk sharing without commitment captures the main features of a simple model of voluntary insurance. Participants are paired in matches with stochastic endings. Each period they receive fixed endowments and one of the pair (randomly-drawn) also receives an additional amount; they can then make voluntary transfers to each other. While smoothing consumption is attractive, only self-enforcing risk sharing is possible. We find…
Do Labour Market Conditions Affect Gift Exchange? Some Experimental Evidence
We study how two dimensions of market conditions affect behaviour in experimental gift-exchange markets with repeated interaction. First, we consider the impact of competitive imbalance, by varying whether there is an excess supply of firms or an excess supply of workers in the market. Second, we impose a minimum wage in the market with an excess supply of workers, and study the overall effect on wages and productivity. Perhaps surprisingly, the …
When Are Layoffs Acceptable? Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment
If, as has been widely suggested, internal labor markets are declining and a new employment contract with reduced employer-employee commitment is emerging, the criteria by which employees judge layoffs as fair or unfair may be changing. This paper presents findings relevant to that question, based on quasi-experimental surveys in Canada and the United States. Respondents rated layoffs stemming from reduced product demand as more fair than those r…
Intention and Stochastic Outcomes: An Experimental study
Do people care about intentions – even when good intentions do not produce good results? In our experiments we find that rates of punishment and reward react strongly to intentions (the wage a firm decides to pay) and more modestly to distributional outcomes (the higher or lower wage actually received including the stochastic component). For example, workers who end up receiving medium wages respond much more positively when this resulted from th…
Creativity and Corporate Culture
We investigate which form of corporate culture is most effective in enhancing individual performance in creative tasks conducted in group settings. We combine a series of experiments with a questionnaire on corporate values to test whether performance ranking and incentives succeed in instantiating a creative corporate culture. Being ranked against competitors and setting incentives at the group level serves as a social cue that appears to induce…
Behavioural economics: Preserving rank as a social norm
Experimental methods: Eliciting and measuring social norms
An Experimental Study on the Effects of Communication, Credibility, and Clustering in Network Games
We examine how preplay communication and clustering affect play in a challenging hybrid experimental game on networks. Free-form chat is impressively effective in achieving the nonequilibrium efficient outcome, but restricted communication has little effect. We support this result with a model about the credibility of cheap-talk messages. We also offer a model of message diffusion that correctly predicts more rapid diffusion without clustering. W…
When Are Layoffs Acceptable? Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment
If, as has been widely suggested, internal labor markets are declining and a new employment contract with reduced employer-employee commitment is emerging, the criteria by which employees judge layoffs as fair or unfair may be changing. This paper presents findings relevant to that question, based on quasi-experimental surveys in Canada and the United States. Respondents rated layoffs stemming from reduced product demand as more fair than those r…
Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests
Departures from self-interest in economic experiments have recently inspired models of “social preferences.” We design a range of simple experimental games that test these theories more directly than existing experiments. Our experiments show that subjects are more concerned with increasing social welfare—sacrificing to increase the payoffs for all recipients, especially low-payoff recipients—than with reducing differences in payoffs (as supposed…
"How New Is the "New Employment Contract
1994).The final synthesis chapter would probablyhave benefited from more extensive integra-tion of the extant literature on the factors un-derlying the decline in American private sectorunionism with the results derived from the stud-ies in the volume. This would have broadenedits scope and relevance as a review piece.Finally, in their reflections in the summarychapter, the editors suggest that unions as a“social institution [have] to pass the ‘m…
Do Labour Market Conditions Affect Gift Exchange? Some Experimental Evidence
We study how two dimensions of market conditions affect behaviour in experimental gift-exchange markets with repeated interaction. First, we consider the impact of competitive imbalance, by varying whether there is an excess supply of firms or an excess supply of workers in the market. Second, we impose a minimum wage in the market with an excess supply of workers, and study the overall effect on wages and productivity. Perhaps surprisingly, the …
Promises and Partnership
We examine experimentally the impact of communication on trust and cooperation. Our design admits observation of promises, lies, and beliefs. The evidence is consistent with people striving to live up to others' expectations so as to avoid guilt, as can be modeled using psychological game theory. When players exhibit such guilt aversion, communication may influence motivation and behavior by influencing beliefs about beliefs. Promises may enhance…
Individual Behavior and Group Membership
People who are members of a group and identify with it behave differently from people who perceive themselves as isolated individuals. This paper shows that group membership affects preferences over outcomes, and saliency of the group affects the perception of the environment. We manipulate the saliency of group membership by letting a player's own group watch as a passive audience as decisions are made, and/or by making part of the payoff common…
Intention and Stochastic Outcomes: An Experimental study
Do people care about intentions – even when good intentions do not produce good results? In our experiments we find that rates of punishment and reward react strongly to intentions (the wage a firm decides to pay) and more modestly to distributional outcomes (the higher or lower wage actually received including the stochastic component). For example, workers who end up receiving medium wages respond much more positively when this resulted from th…
What's in a name? Anonymity and social distance in dictator and ultimatum games
Informal Risk Sharing in an Infinite‐Horizon Experiment
Our laboratory study of risk sharing without commitment captures the main features of a simple model of voluntary insurance. Participants are paired in matches with stochastic endings. Each period they receive fixed endowments and one of the pair (randomly-drawn) also receives an additional amount; they can then make voluntary transfers to each other. While smoothing consumption is attractive, only self-enforcing risk sharing is possible. We find…
The strategy versus the direct-response method: A first survey of experimental comparisons
In this paper, we present a first survey of the literature regarding whether the strategy method, in which a responder makes conditional decisions for each possible information set, leads to different experimental results than does the more standard direct-response method, in which the responder learns the action of the first mover and then chooses a response. Of the twenty-nine existing comparisons, sixteen find no difference, while four do find…
Strong Evidence for Gender Differences in Risk Taking
Experimental methods: Between-subject and within-subject design
Groups Make Better Self-Interested Decisions
In this paper, we describe what economists have learned about differences between group and individual decision-making. This literature is still young, and in this paper, we will mostly draw on experimental work (mainly in the laboratory) that has compared individual decision-making to group decision-making, and to individual decision-making in situations with salient group membership. The bottom line emerging from economic research on group deci…
Experimental methods: Eliciting risk preferences
The Dark Side of Competition for Status
Unethical behavior within organizations is not rare. We investigate experimentally the role of status-seeking behavior in sabotage and cheating activities aiming at improving one's performance ranking in a flat-wage environment. We find that average effort is higher when individuals are informed about their relative performance. However, ranking feedback also favors disreputable behavior. Some individuals do not hesitate to incur a cost to improv…
Choosing and Not Choosing with and without Communication: Experimental Results on Contract Design and Selection
This paper studies selection and procedural effects in experimental contracting when sellers choose unenforceable trade quality after a possible cost shock. Brandts, Charness, and Ellman (2016) investigate how communication affects behavior and outcomes in contracts with rigid prices, relative to contracts where buyers can raise prices after observing the shock. An important remaining question is how behavior is affected by whether contract type …
Experimental methods: Pay one or pay all
Behavioural economics: Preserving rank as a social norm
An Experimental Study on the Effects of Communication, Credibility, and Clustering in Network Games
We examine how preplay communication and clustering affect play in a challenging hybrid experimental game on networks. Free-form chat is impressively effective in achieving the nonequilibrium efficient outcome, but restricted communication has little effect. We support this result with a model about the credibility of cheap-talk messages. We also offer a model of message diffusion that correctly predicts more rapid diffusion without clustering. W…
Creativity and Corporate Culture
We investigate which form of corporate culture is most effective in enhancing individual performance in creative tasks conducted in group settings. We combine a series of experiments with a questionnaire on corporate values to test whether performance ranking and incentives succeed in instantiating a creative corporate culture. Being ranked against competitors and setting incentives at the group level serves as a social cue that appears to induce…
Exercise Improves Academic Performance
We report the results of a randomized controlled trial testing whether incentivizing physical exercise improves the academic performance of college students. As expected, the intervention increases physical activity. The main result is that it generates a strong and significant improvement in academic performance, particularly for students who struggled at the baseline in terms of lifestyle habits. We also provide evidence on the underlying mecha…
Vulnerability game
Dynamic effects of affirmative action: Experimental evidence
Experimental methods: Eliciting and measuring social norms
Coalitional support regulates resource divisions in men
Computer Science (16 works) · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (16 works) · Economics (15 works) · Psychology (15 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Microeconomics (10 works) · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies (6 works) · Mathematics (6 works)