Zhongwen Chen

Abstract: Managing screen time appears to be a pressing issue in our digital age. Previous studies suggest that sophistication about present bias is associated with commitment take-up. In a field experiment, we provide participants with information feedback about their over- and underestimation of screen time usage, with the aim of improving sophistication. We investigate the causal effect of this feedback on the adoption of popular soft commitment apps designed to control screen time usage. We observe no evidence that feedback influences commitment adoption. Our data suggest that, instead, feedback has a direct effect on screen time usage for individuals with self-control problems who had underestimated their usage. On the other hand, those who overestimated their usage show no compensatory increase. We also provide a procrastination model with diversely naive individuals, largely accounting for our experimental observations.

Abstract: This paper uses virtual reality (VR) technology to conduct a fully controlled economic experiment of human decisions such as risk-taking behaviours associated with life and death that could be difficult to achieve in both the standard fields and laboratories. In our experiment, participants virtually stand on the roof of a hundred-storey building. They need to build a plank bridge to reach a monetary reward suspended from a drone on the other side, and then walk through the plank to grab the reward, facing a probability of falling virtually. The planks vary in width and price, with wider planks offering greater security at a higher cost. We compare risk attitudes in VR to those revealed through existing methods such as (context-free) multiple price list, hypothetical questions, etc, and point out limitations of traditional risk preference elicitation methodologies used in economic experiments.