{"id":{"repo_id":"toronto-retro","oai_identifier":"oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/150019"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/toronto-retro/oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/150019","repository":{"repo_id":"toronto-retro","name":"University of Toronto","base_url":"https://utoronto.scholaris.ca/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Experimental Investigations of Strategic Interactions","abstract":"This dissertation explores whether and when people act strategically: that is, how people's actions are influenced by others' actions (Chapters 1 and 2) and preferences (Chapter 3). Chapter 1, titled \"Paternalistic Persuasion\", studies whether paternalistic experts (\"Advisors'') can make decision-makers (\"Choosers'') better off by persuading them to change their behaviour. In a setting where Choosers are wary of Advisors' incentives, I experimentally investigate whether Advisors send recommendations that account for this wariness, and why they may fail to do so. I find that nearly 80% of Advisors send sub-optimal recommendations, but prompting them to think about Choosers' likely response is an effective way to correct this mistake. This suggests that the mistake stems from a failure to focus on recommending actions that are both welfare-improving and appealing to Choosers. Chapter 2, titled \"Gender Differences in Job Application Strategies: An Experimental Investigation\", is co-authored with Annabel Thornton. We experimentally investigate how gender differences in beliefs about a job's \"competitiveness'' - the quantity and quality of its applicants - may make women less likely to apply for high-paying yet competitive jobs. We design a game where, without knowing one's rank, members of a group select one of three \"jobs'': lotteries that either yield a large payoff to the best-ranked person who selects them, or guarantee a small payoff. We find that willingness to apply to a job decreases in the believed competitiveness of its applicant pool, and that gender differences in these beliefs create gaps in willingness to apply to the highest-paying competitive job. Chapter 3, titled \"Preference Aggregation in Social Choice Under Risk\", studies decision-makers' willingness to accommodate others' preferences when making \"social choices\": choices that influence both one's own and others' welfare. I design an experimental task that can answer these questions in two-person social choice problems, and use it to study social choice under risk. I find that over one-third of decision-makers are willing to accommodate a recipient's risk preferences. These decision-makers accommodate wide ranges of preferences, but tend to favour preferences that are similar to their own. Recipients' preferences carry the greatest weight when the decision-maker's own preferences are incomplete.","abstract_html":"This dissertation explores whether and when people act strategically: that is, how people's actions are influenced by others' actions (Chapters 1 and 2) and preferences (Chapter 3). Chapter 1, titled "Paternalistic Persuasion", studies whether paternalistic experts ("Advisors'') can make decision-makers ("Choosers'') better off by persuading them to change their behaviour. In a setting where Choosers are wary of Advisors' incentives, I experimentally investigate whether Advisors send recommendations that account for this wariness, and why they may fail to do so. I find that nearly 80% of Advisors send sub-optimal recommendations, but prompting them to think about Choosers' likely response is an effective way to correct this mistake. This suggests that the mistake stems from a failure to focus on recommending actions that are both welfare-improving and appealing to Choosers. Chapter 2, titled "Gender Differences in Job Application Strategies: An Experimental Investigation", is co-authored with Annabel Thornton. We experimentally investigate how gender differences in beliefs about a job's "competitiveness'' - the quantity and quality of its applicants - may make women less likely to apply for high-paying yet competitive jobs. We design a game where, without knowing one's rank, members of a group select one of three "jobs'': lotteries that either yield a large payoff to the best-ranked person who selects them, or guarantee a small payoff. We find that willingness to apply to a job decreases in the believed competitiveness of its applicant pool, and that gender differences in these beliefs create gaps in willingness to apply to the highest-paying competitive job. Chapter 3, titled "Preference Aggregation in Social Choice Under Risk", studies decision-makers' willingness to accommodate others' preferences when making "social choices": choices that influence both one's own and others' welfare. I design an experimental task that can answer these questions in two-person social choice problems, and use it to study social choice under risk. I find that over one-third of decision-makers are willing to accommodate a recipient's risk preferences. These decision-makers accommodate wide ranges of preferences, but tend to favour preferences that are similar to their own. Recipients' preferences carry the greatest weight when the decision-maker's own preferences are incomplete.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Ballyk, Alexandra Aline DeMarco"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":"Economics","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Halevy, Yoram"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-10","date_published":"2025-10","updated_at":"2026-07-27T21:28:22Z","subjects":["Behavioural Economics","Experimental Economics","Microeconomic Theory"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/1807/150019","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Halevy, Yoram"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.department","label":"Department","values":["Economics"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Ballyk, Alexandra Aline DeMarco"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2025-10"]},{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2025-11-28T16:45:34Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2025-10"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Behavioural Economics","Experimental Economics","Microeconomic Theory"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/1807/150019"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This dissertation explores whether and when people act strategically: that is, how people's actions are influenced by others' actions (Chapters 1 and 2) and preferences (Chapter 3). Chapter 1, titled \"Paternalistic Persuasion\", studies whether paternalistic experts (\"Advisors'') can make decision-makers (\"Choosers'') better off by persuading them to change their behaviour. In a setting where Choosers are wary of Advisors' incentives, I experimentally investigate whether Advisors send recommendations that account for this wariness, and why they may fail to do so. I find that nearly 80% of Advisors send sub-optimal recommendations, but prompting them to think about Choosers' likely response is an effective way to correct this mistake. This suggests that the mistake stems from a failure to focus on recommending actions that are both welfare-improving and appealing to Choosers. Chapter 2, titled \"Gender Differences in Job Application Strategies: An Experimental Investigation\", is co-authored with Annabel Thornton. We experimentally investigate how gender differences in beliefs about a job's \"competitiveness'' - the quantity and quality of its applicants - may make women less likely to apply for high-paying yet competitive jobs. We design a game where, without knowing one's rank, members of a group select one of three \"jobs'': lotteries that either yield a large payoff to the best-ranked person who selects them, or guarantee a small payoff. We find that willingness to apply to a job decreases in the believed competitiveness of its applicant pool, and that gender differences in these beliefs create gaps in willingness to apply to the highest-paying competitive job. Chapter 3, titled \"Preference Aggregation in Social Choice Under Risk\", studies decision-makers' willingness to accommodate others' preferences when making \"social choices\": choices that influence both one's own and others' welfare. I design an experimental task that can answer these questions in two-person social choice problems, and use it to study social choice under risk. I find that over one-third of decision-makers are willing to accommodate a recipient's risk preferences. These decision-makers accommodate wide ranges of preferences, but tend to favour preferences that are similar to their own. Recipients' preferences carry the greatest weight when the decision-maker's own preferences are incomplete."]},{"key":"dc:description.degree","label":"Dc Description Degree","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Experimental Investigations of Strategic Interactions"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Halevy, Yoram"],"dc:contributor.department":["Economics"],"dc:creator":["Ballyk, Alexandra Aline DeMarco"],"dc:date":["2025-10"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2025-11-28T16:45:34Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2025-10"],"dc:description.abstract":["This dissertation explores whether and when people act strategically: that is, how people's actions are influenced by others' actions (Chapters 1 and 2) and preferences (Chapter 3). Chapter 1, titled \"Paternalistic Persuasion\", studies whether paternalistic experts (\"Advisors'') can make decision-makers (\"Choosers'') better off by persuading them to change their behaviour. In a setting where Choosers are wary of Advisors' incentives, I experimentally investigate whether Advisors send recommendations that account for this wariness, and why they may fail to do so. I find that nearly 80% of Advisors send sub-optimal recommendations, but prompting them to think about Choosers' likely response is an effective way to correct this mistake. This suggests that the mistake stems from a failure to focus on recommending actions that are both welfare-improving and appealing to Choosers. Chapter 2, titled \"Gender Differences in Job Application Strategies: An Experimental Investigation\", is co-authored with Annabel Thornton. We experimentally investigate how gender differences in beliefs about a job's \"competitiveness'' - the quantity and quality of its applicants - may make women less likely to apply for high-paying yet competitive jobs. We design a game where, without knowing one's rank, members of a group select one of three \"jobs'': lotteries that either yield a large payoff to the best-ranked person who selects them, or guarantee a small payoff. We find that willingness to apply to a job decreases in the believed competitiveness of its applicant pool, and that gender differences in these beliefs create gaps in willingness to apply to the highest-paying competitive job. Chapter 3, titled \"Preference Aggregation in Social Choice Under Risk\", studies decision-makers' willingness to accommodate others' preferences when making \"social choices\": choices that influence both one's own and others' welfare. I design an experimental task that can answer these questions in two-person social choice problems, and use it to study social choice under risk. I find that over one-third of decision-makers are willing to accommodate a recipient's risk preferences. These decision-makers accommodate wide ranges of preferences, but tend to favour preferences that are similar to their own. Recipients' preferences carry the greatest weight when the decision-maker's own preferences are incomplete."],"dc:description.degree":["Ph.D."],"dc:identifier.uri":["https://hdl.handle.net/1807/150019"],"dc:subject":["Behavioural Economics","Experimental Economics","Microeconomic Theory"],"dc:title":["Experimental Investigations of Strategic Interactions"],"dc:type":["Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T21:28:22Z"}