Measuring and Bounding Experimenter Demand

Jonathan de Quidt, Johannes Haushofer and Christopher Roth

No 6516, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We propose a technique for assessing robustness of behavioral measures and treatment effects to experimenter demand effects. The premise is that by deliberately inducing demand in a structured way we can measure its influence and construct plausible bounds on demand-free behavior. We provide formal restrictions on choice that validate our method, and a Bayesian model that microfounds them. Seven pre-registered experiments with eleven canonical laboratory games and around 19,000 participants demonstrate the technique. We also illustrate how demand sensitivity varies by task, participant pool, gender, real versus hypothetical incentives, and participant attentiveness, and provide both reduced-form and structural analyses of demand effects.

Keywords: experimenter demand; beliefs; bounding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 C91 C92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (45)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp6516.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Measuring and Bounding Experimenter Demand (2018)
Working Paper: Measuring and Bounding Experimenter Demand (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6516

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().