3rd CeDEx China Workshop on Behavioral and Experimental Economics

Description

We study how revealing peers’ past learning behaviors in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) affects individuals’ subsequent online job training attendance and performance in a large online teacher training program. We use a 2x2 between-subject experiment design where participants receive text messages varying 1) whether participants are informed about their peers’ average attendance rate only or additionally about their peers’ maximum attendance duration and 2) whether the referent peers are tenured or non-tenured. We find significant treatment effects on the participants’ attendance duration, mainly driven by knowing non-tenured peers’ pre-treatment attendance duration rather than their attendance rate. More importantly, we utilize the unique weak competitive relationship between tenured and non-tenured teachers in the Chinese education system to largely exclude the competitiveness channel of peer effects and empirically verify the social conformity channel. Additionally, teaching loads, school types, and familiarity with work location also impact the responsiveness to peers’ nudge information. Disentangling such social conformity sources of peer effects will have essential practical implications in a low competitive and sparsely interactive environment.

Period	8 Jun 2024 → 9 Jun 2024
Event title	3rd CeDEx China Workshop on Behavioral and Experimental Economics
Event type	Workshop
Location	Ningbo, ChinaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International