PhD Thesis Success: Li-Hsin Lin

Li-Hsin Lin successfully defended his thesis this past month!

Li-Hsin’s work is focused on experimental economics and experimental finance. Following the completion of his thesis, he is beginning a role as Assistant Professor in the Department of Finance at National Central University in Taiwan. Join us in congratulating him in all his accomplishments and his hard work!

Three Essays on Experimental Economics

Abstract

This thesis studies three settings in which behavioral responses have policy-relevant implications: voluntary public-good provision, insurance markets with asymmetric information, and labor supply under taxation.

The first paper introduces an effort-giving public-goods experiment designed to mimic volunteer work. Comparing environments in which participants can contribute via effort, via money, or via a choice of both, I found effort- and money-giving raise contributions through distinct channels. Aggregate provision was highest when participants can use their preferred contribution form.

The second paper develops a laboratory insurance environment that recovers a panel of willingness to pay alongside incentivized opportunities to misreport losses. A novel “License” manipulation—explicit permission to misreport—shifts willingness to pay and reporting behavior, allowing me to separate selection from ex post moral hazard. Only a subset of participants was willing to pay more for the License, and those who did were not more likely to inflate their claims.

In the third paper, we recreated a multi-shift work environment to study labour supply responses to changes in marginal and average tax rates when tax schedules shift between linear and nonlinear forms. On average, participants responded to changes in tax schedules when those changes altered the marginal tax rate, but not when they altered the average tax rate. We also document heterogeneity in labour supply responses: participants who were less sensitive to marginal incentives appeared to be more responsive to changes in the average tax rate.

If you’d like to stay in the loop with Li-Hsin’s research, you can see his professional website here.