Papers by Andreas Glöckner
Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn 2013/10, 2013
Are decisions by political parties more or less accepted than direct-democratic decisions? The li... more Are decisions by political parties more or less accepted than direct-democratic decisions? The literature on parties as brand names or labels suggests that the existence of political parties lowers information and transaction costs of voters by providing ideological packages. Building on this important argument, we posit that this informational rationale for parties is not universally applicable and is contingent on the context of the decision that is made. Intermediary political decision-making institutions may impose additional costs on voters in situations where the decision is perceived to be personally important to the individual voter. We conduct an experimental online vignette study to substantiate these claims. The results imply that a combination of representative democracy and direct democracy, conditional on the distribution of issue importance among the electorate, is optimal with regard to acceptance of a decision.
Charleston Law Review (Charleston L. Rev.) 147, Mar 1, 2013
Introduction: The activities of gambling and sports betting have received special attention in re... more Introduction: The activities of gambling and sports betting have received special attention in recent years, especially within the areas of criminal and regulatory law. The discourse over gaming has flourished within both the debate over public policy and the application of legal analysis. At least partially responsible for this surge in interest is a series of developments in the gaming and betting markets; notably, fostered by the advent of the internet, the 1990’s saw the emergence of what would become a substantial and thriving market for those providing platforms facilitating sports bets. A number of commercial internet-based businesses followed, such as sports bets and online poker tournaments, gaining market share quickly as the internet became more widespread. Legal developments followed the growth of this market. State and federal courts have had to decide on the regulatory nature of these activities, as well as reinterpret applicable legislation in light of the new activities. In most states, betting, within the context of a game of chance, as well as bookmaking, is an illegal activity. However, there has been pressure from the gaming industry and within academic literature to reinterpret what constitutes a game of chance, and whether games of chance are harmful to the public, as opposed to games of skill.
Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, Jan 1, 2009
Legal regulations concerning unfair competition and antitrust policy often still rely on the assu... more Legal regulations concerning unfair competition and antitrust policy often still rely on the assumption of a rational consumer, although other models may better account for people’s decision behavior. We investigate the influence of target rebates on consumers based on the alternative Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT), both theoretically and experimentally. CPT predicts that target rebates could harm consumers by impeding rational switching from an incumbent to an outside option (e.g., a market entrant). In a repeated trading task, participants decided whether or not to enter a target rebate scheme and to continue buying within that scheme. Reaching the target was uncertain. Target rebates considerably reduced the likelihood that participants switched to a higher-payoff outside option later. We conclude that target rebates may inflict substantial harm on consumers and might even have an underestimated potential to foreclose consumer markets.
Psychology, Public Policy and Law, Jan 1, 2011
In many countries, betting in sports is highly regulated but both in the U.S. and in Europe there... more In many countries, betting in sports is highly regulated but both in the U.S. and in Europe there are current debates whether regulation should be loosened. We empirically investigate core arguments of these debates with a special focus on Germany. A crucial part of the argument in German Law is that sport bets could be qualified as ‚games of skill‘ that are considered to be less dangerous than ‚games of chance,‘ and are thus assumed to need less regulation. We explore this hypothesis in three incentivized online studies on soccer betting (N = 214) and provide evidence against two crucial parts of this argument. First, we show that there are no overall effects of skill on accuracy in soccer bets and monetary earnings do not increase with skill. Hence, soccer betting cannot be considered a game of skill. Second, we show that soccer betting induces strong overconfidence and illusion of control, particularly for people who assume they have high skill, and that these biases lead to increased betting. Cognitive biases that might cause financial harm for bettors or even lead to problematic or pathological gambling behavior are even stronger for soccer bets compared to bets on the outcome of lotteries. Concerning the main aims of legal regulation for gambling in German law, our results strongly speak for regulation of soccer bets. We discuss that similar arguments can be made under U.S. law.
Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, 2009
Competition policy often relies on the assumption of a rational consumer, although other models m... more Competition policy often relies on the assumption of a rational consumer, although other models may better account for people’s decision behavior. In three experiments, we investigate the influence of loyalty rebates on consumers based on the alternative Cumulative Pro-spect Theory (CPT), both theoretically and experimentally. CPT predicts that loyalty rebates could harm consumers by impeding rational switching from an incumbent to an outside option (e.g., a market entrant). In a repeated trading task, participants decided whether or not to enter a loyalty rebate scheme and to continue buying within that scheme. Meeting the condition triggering the rebate was uncertain. Loyalty rebates considerably reduced the likelihood that participants switched to a higher-payoff outside option later. We conclude that loyalty rebates may inflict substantial harm on consumers and may have an underestimated potential to fore-close consumer markets.
Instructional Science (Instr. Sci.), 2013
In a comprehensive empirical investigation (N = 71,405) we analyzed the development of legal expe... more In a comprehensive empirical investigation (N = 71,405) we analyzed the development of legal expertise in a critical 1-year period of academic legal training in which advanced law students start practicing to solve complex cases. We were particularly interested in the functional form of the learning curve and inter-individual differences in learning. Performance increases monotonically with the number of practice exams following a slightly concave learning curve without any considerable kinks. Considering the performance development over time, however, the curve is not monotonic and shows intermediate drops in performance. We provide evidence which suggests that these drops are due to cyclic drops in motivation. There are about equally sized marginal effects of practicing law exams in general and practicing exams in the specific area of law. However, students with high (vs. low) initial performance profit more from practicing exams within a specific area of law whereas students with low initial performance profit more from practicing exams in general. The concave increase in performance with the number of practicing exams is mainly driven by individuals with low initial performance. Those with high initial performance mainly display a linear learning trend. We discuss the practical implications of these findings for academic legal training.
Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, Jan 1, 2009
Broken Windows: the metaphor has changed New York and Los Angeles. Yet it is far from undisputed ... more Broken Windows: the metaphor has changed New York and Los Angeles. Yet it is far from undisputed whether the broken windows policy was causal for reducing crime. In a series of lab experiments we show that first impressions are indeed causal for cooperativeness in three different institutional environments: absent targeted sanctions; with decentralised punishment; with decentralised punishment qualified by the risk of counter punishment. In all environments, the effect of first impressions cannot be explained with, but adds to, participants’ initial level of benevolence. Mere impression management is not strong enough to stabilise cooperation though. It must be combined with some risk of sanctions.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
In an experimental study we investigated effects of information amount and legal training on the ... more In an experimental study we investigated effects of information amount and legal training on the judgment accuracy in legal cases. In a two (legal training: yes vs. no) x two (information amount: high vs. low) between-subjects design, 90 participants judged the premeditation of a perpetrator in eight real-world cases decided by the German Federal Court of Justice. Judgment accuracy was assessed in comparison with the Court's ruling. Legal training increased judgment accuracy, but did not depend on the amount of information given. Furthermore, legal training corresponded with higher confidence. Interestingly, emotional reactions to the legal cases were stronger when more information was given for individuals without legal training but decreased for individuals with training. This interaction seems to be caused by fundamental differences in the way people construct their mental representations of the cases. We advance an information processing perspective to explain the observed differences in legal judgments and conclude with a discussion on the merits and problems of offering more information to lay people participating in legal decision making.
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Papers by Andreas Glöckner