Louis Strang
Welcome!
I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Management, Economics, and Social Science at the University of Cologne. I am also an Associated Member of the EconTribute: Markets & Public Policy Research Cluster of the Universities of Bonn and Cologne. My research covers the area of behavioral and experimental economics, especially intertemporal decision making, social preferences & fairness perceptions, and moral behavior.
You can download my CV here.
Contact Information
Seminar of Corporate Development and Business Ethics
Albertus-Magnus-Platz
50923 Cologne
Germany
Email: strang[at]wiso.uni-koeln.de
Research
Concentration Bias in Intertemporal Choice
with Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt, Holger Gerhardt, Gerhard Riener and Frederik Schwerter
Revision requested at The Review of Economic Studies
In many intertemporal decisions, the benefit of an action is concentrated in a few time periods, while the associated cost is dispersed over numerous periods. According to the “focusing model” by Kőszegi and Szeidl (2013), the more a utility outcome is concentrated in time, the more a decision maker focuses on and, hence, overweights it. Such concentration bias provides a micro-foundation for present-biased and future-biased behavior. In a novel experimental setup involving dated consumption events, we show that concentration bias causes subjects to increase dispersed effort provision to redeem a restaurant voucher that is concentrated in time by 25% beyond what exponential and (quasi-)hyperbolic discounting models can account for. In additional between-subject conditions and a complementary experiment involving monetary payments, we demonstrate the robustness of our findings and study the mechanisms behind concentration bias.
(Not) Everyone Can Be a Winner – The Role of Payoff Interdependence for Redistribution
with Sebastian Schaube
How does payoff interdependence affect preferences for redistribution? We experimentally implement a zero-sum setting and one in which everyone can be simultaneously successful. Across these, we compare redistribution given an identical level of inequality. First, two subjects’ performances in a real-effort task translate into chances of winning a prize. Across treatments, we vary the interdependence of payoffs: either there is only a single prize or both subjects can potentially win a prize at the same time. Afterwards, a spectator can redistribute the prize money. If payoffs are not directly interdependent, the average amount redistributed decreases by 14-22%. In additional treatments, solely performance determines the prize allocation. Nevertheless, the impact of payoff interdependence remains unchanged. Comparing the settings with and without randomness, we find that its mere presence increases redistribution, even though there is no uncertainty about the (relative) performance of the two subjects.
[pdf] CRC Discussion Paper 097
Moral Capital and Dynamic Image Concerns
with Jana Hofmeier (work in progress)