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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

How labour-market inequality arises without employer bias: Our new experiment shows that social anxiety leads qualified candidates to skip job interviews due to pessimism, even though they perform just as well as anyone else.

190researchblog.substack.com

How Social Anxiety Shapes Labor Market Inequality Before the Interview Begins

Horn, Schwardmann & Tripodi: “Social Anxiety and Evaluative Interviews” CRC Discussion Paper No. 574

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

How government wealth transfers can backfire on the politicians who enact them: Our new study of the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act shows that giving ranchers secure property rights on public land made them richer- prompting them to turn against the Democrats who enriched them.

190researchblog.substack.com

When a Government Transfer Makes Its Supporters Leave

Bühler & Schäfer “Wealth Transfers Erode the Coalition That Enacted Them: Evidence from the Taylor Grazing Act“ Journal of Historical Political Economy 2026

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Why more business districts don't equal stronger urban centers: Our new global analysis demonstrates that as the number of commercial hubs within a city increases, their collective share of total employment actually falls.

190researchblog.substack.com

Where the Services Are: Mapping the Ultra-Dense Core of the Modern City

Ahlfeldt, Albers & Behrens: “Prime Locations” Insights 2026, 8(3)

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Is China a "Paper Tiger" regarding scientific quality? Our investigation into citation home bias revealed China exhibits the largest bias globally, demonstrating that its seeming rise in citation rankings is overstated. Now published in "Journal of International Economics".

190researchblog.substack.com

Reassessing scientific dominance: How China’s citation home bias inflates its ranking

Qiu, Steinwender & Azoulay: "Paper tiger? Chinese science and home bias in citations" Journal of International Economics Volume 157

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Reposted by CRC Rationality & Competition

CESifo @cesifo.org · 16/09/2026

We are very much looking forward to hosting the 3rd International Seminar on Trade together with the ifo Institute and @lmu.de in Munich!

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

How do elite families maintain their status over multiple generations? Using data from prewar Japan, we showed that adoption expands the choice to a broader talent pool, increasing the probability of maintaining elite status. Now published in "Economic History Review".

190researchblog.substack.com

Why do elite families remain at the top generation after generation?

Kumanomido, Takayasu: "Elite Persistence in Family: The Role of Adoption in Prewar Japan" CRC Discussion Paper No. 537

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Unclear product details or mixed user reviews aren't always bad. Our study showed that ambiguous product information can prompt sellers to drop prices for cautious shoppers or boost revenue when buyers feel optimistic. Now published in "Theoretical Economics".

190researchblog.substack.com

Benefits and Challenges of Ambiguous Product Information

Lang & Wasser "Benefits and Challenges of Ambiguous Product Information" CRC Discussion Paper No. 564

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Why information campaigns fail: We showed that correcting consumers beliefs about which products cause high emissions does not have an effect on their consumption decisions. Now published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

190researchblog.substack.com

Correcting misunderstandings about CO2 emissions doesn’t help to fight climate change

Imai, Pace, Schwardmann & van der Weele "Correcting Consumer Misperceptions About CO2 Emissions" CRC Discussion Paper No. 529

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Last week marked 50 weeks of the CRC TRR 190 Coffee Break Blog! To celebrate, throughout next week, we will highlight some of our discussion papers, which have been published since we featured them on our blog. Thanks for reading everyone and to the next 50 weeks!

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Why central bank actions don’t always work as predicted: A new study shows that rising interest rates cause people to cut their spending and borrowing much more than an equal drop in inflation, even though both should technically affect our wallets the same way.

190researchblog.substack.com

Why Households Respond More to Nominal Interest Than Inflation

Bosch-Rosa, Heinemann, Massenot & Meissner: "Different Consumption Responses to Equivalent Changes in the Real Interest Rate" CRC Discussion Paper No. 578

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

How the shipping container made global trade more efficient but also more political: We show that while focusing trade in a few giant ports makes shipping cheaper for everyone, it also gives the governments who own those ports a powerful way to influence other countries.

190researchblog.substack.com

The New Gatekeepers: How Chinese State Ownership and Strategic Infrastructure Reshape Maritime Power

Réka Juhász et al.: "Ports, Technology and Inter-City Trade: The Economics and Geopolitics of Evolving Maritime Transport Networks" CRC Discussion Paper No. 579

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Why talking to political rivals is better for social cohesion than for information sharing: Our experiment shows that while face-to-face conversations durably reduce polarization, deep-seated distrust prevents us from learning, even when the other side has more to teach.

190researchblog.substack.com

Talking Across the Aisle: What a Conversation with the Other Side Can (and Cannot) Fix

Braghieri, Schwardmann & Tripodi:"Talking Across the Aisle" CRC Discussion Paper No. 575

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

How eco-friendly markets can accidentally increase pollution: Our research shows that without enough environmentally-conscious buyers, creating separate "green" markets can backfire by pushing regular consumers toward more harmful products.

190researchblog.substack.com

When Green Markets Backfire

Herweg, Köszegi & Schmidt "Some Simple Economics of Green Markets" CRC Discussion Paper No. 572

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Why are new homes being built in danger zones? Cheap insurance and strict building rules in safe neighbourhoods are forcing development toward the wildfire fringe, but allowing more housing in safe areas can help lower the financial burden on workers.

190researchblog.substack.com

Building in Harm’s Way: How Institutional Distortions Shape Wildfire Risk in San Diego

Ospital: "Housing Supply, Property Insurance, and Exposure to Wildfire Risk" CRC Discussion Paper No. 571

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

How transport subsidies fall short as climate policy: Germany’s 9-Euro Ticket boosted rail travel by 35% but cost €6,140/tCO2 due to minimal car-to-rail substitution. Though an efficient cost-of-living transfer, the passenger surge triggered a 30% surge in train delays.

190researchblog.substack.com

Welfare vs. Climate: Lessons from Germany’s 9-Euro Ticket

Wichert et al.: "Almost fare free: Impact of a cheap public transport ticket on mobility patterns and train delays" Journal of Public Economics 258 (2026)

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

How private interest drives the public good: Our study shows that the 1866 cholera epidemic induced a 35% increase in waterworks investments by industrial elites fearing labor scarcity, proving that economic incentives can catalyze transformative public health reforms.

190researchblog.substack.com

Private Interest in the Public Good: Cholera and the Origins of Sanitary Reform

Gallardo-Albarrán & Kappner: "Private Interest in the Public Good: Cholera and the Origins of Sanitary Reform" CRC Discussion Paper No. 573

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

This is not just another summer workshop in Berlin, but actually TWO conferences! The 2nd Berlin PhD Conference consists of an Applied Micro part and a part on micro theory and behavioral economics: sites.google.com/vie... Keynotes by Esmée Zwiers, Simon Jäger, Jeanne Hagenbach, and Botond Köszegi.

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

How a country can survive its currency value doubling overnight: Our study of the 1985 Plaza Accord shows that Japan avoided a jobs crisis by leaning on its "jobs-for-life" culture and moving production to Asia, even as it began a shift from manufacturing to services.

190researchblog.substack.com

How Rigid Labor Markets Shaped Japan’s Response to the Plaza Accord

Kumanomido: "Exchange Rate Appreciation and Structural Adjustment: Evidence from the Plaza Accord" CRC Discussion Paper No. 567

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Reposted by CRC Rationality & Competition

Vincent Meisner @vincentmeisner.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Great stuff happening in Berlin! Look at our market design workshop at @wzb.bsky.social ! @rationalitycrc.bsky.social

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Why newly enfranchised women voted against the parties that secured their rights: We reveal that religious "identity payoffs" outweighed material self-interest, proving that cultural identities can decouple political choice from economic incentives even when stakes are high.

190researchblog.substack.com

Female Enfranchisement and the Conservative Voting Gap

Bühler & Sabet "Female enfranchisement and the conservative voting gap: Evidence from gender-separated precinct returns" European Journal of Political Economy (2026)

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Why searching for a "better deal" yields diminishing returns: David Ronayne and David P. Myatt prove that sampling without replacement exhibits decreasing returns, where the expected benefit of each additional search systematically declines regardless of the population.

190researchblog.substack.com

New Insights into Sampling Without Replacement

Myatt & Ronayne: "Decreasing returns to sampling without replacement" Economics Letters, Volume 264 (2026)

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Why specialists give proprietary data to big-tech rivals for free: David Ronayne and colleague's model shows that sharing data strategically induces "coopetition," softening competition but potentially harming consumers through lower innovation.

190researchblog.substack.com

Why Specialist Firms Willingly Give Their Data to Big-Tech Rivals

Bhargava, Dubus, Ronayne & Shekhar: "The Strategic Value of Data Sharing in Interdependent Markets" Management Science, Volume 72 (2025)

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Why identical products maintain persistent price differences: David Ronayne and David P. Myatt demonstrate how the threat of rapid "special deals" stabilizes price dispersion, with the most captive firms setting the highest prices.

190researchblog.substack.com

Stable Price Dispersion: A New Framework for Persistent Price Heterogeneity

Myatt & Ronayne: "Stable Price Dispersion under Heterogeneous Buyer Consideration" RAND Journal of Economics, Volume 57 (2026)

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

How the "law of one price" fails in asymmetric competition: David Ronayne and David P. Myatt show that vanishing customer loyalty induces a "law of monopoly pricing" where most firms charge the maximum price while one leader anchors the market at the second-lowest cost.

190researchblog.substack.com

Revisiting Bertrand Competition with Captive Customers

Myatt & Ronayne: "Bertrand competition and captive customers" Economics Letters, Volume 257 (December 2025)

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

When price competition is more than a simple "tango": David Ronayne and David P. Myatt show how cost differences create a "thrango" of multiple firms using randomized sales. Innovation drives even similar companies toward unique, unpredictable pricing strategies.

190researchblog.substack.com

Ronayne Week Day #1: How Cost Asymmetry Reshapes Competitive Sales

Myatt & Ronayne: "Asymmetric Models of Sales" American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Volume 18 (2026)

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Join us to learn why firms give away data to their big-tech rivals for free, how the "law of one price" fails in cases of asymmetric competition, or why price differences persist even between identical products. This and much more next week!

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

CRC Coffee Break Special Issue: To celebrate the recent publication of five papers by CRC member David Ronayne, we are announcing the "David Ronayne Week" on our blog! Next week, we will publish one blogpost a day, each exploring one of the new papers.

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

How ancient history shapes economic decision-making: Our 116-country study reveals that ancestral distance systematically drives preference heterogeneity, showing that modern risk and time preferences are rooted in cultural patterns transmitted over thousands of years.

190researchblog.substack.com

The Cultural Geography of Choice: Global Variation in Risk and Time Preferences

Becker et. al: "The Global Variation in Risk and Time Preferences" CRC Discussion Paper No. 568

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Why cash makes us more selfish: Our new experiment shows that knowing the real-world dollar value of earnings triggers more self-serving judgements than abstract points or tokens, even when the actual split remains exactly the same.

190researchblog.substack.com

How Monetary Stakes Reframe Fairness Perceptions

Chugunova & Luhan: "A matter of principle or a matter of money? How fairness evaluations change with experimental currencies" PLoS One 21(2) (2026)

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

How students leverage self-delusion to beat procrastination: Our new field study shows that university students strategically inflate their believed returns to effort by 20% as exams approach, proving that biased beliefs function as an instrumental tool for self-control.

190researchblog.substack.com

Strategic Self-Delusion: How Students Manage Beliefs to Overcome Present Bias

Bönisch, König, Schweighofer-Kodritsch & Weizsäcker "Beliefs as a means of self-control? Evidence from a dynamic student survey" Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control 184 (2026)

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Yesterday, we concluded our 18th CRC Retreat in Schwanenwerder. Three wonderful days of reseach collaboration and scientific exchange.

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Why labor markets underprovide benefits despite high worker demand: Our model shows that treating benefits as hidden "experience goods" systematically induces inefficiently low coverage and compressed wage gaps, masking the true extent of compensation inequality.

190researchblog.substack.com

Why Labor Markets May Underprovide Benefits

Sulka: "Providing Benefits to Uninformed Workers" CRC Discussion Paper No. 566

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

How competitive neutrality falls short: Our causal analysis reveals that state ownership systematically induces preferential treatment for public hospitals over private ones, a bias that becomes significantly more acute under the pressure of upcoming elections.

190researchblog.substack.com

How state ownership biases government support

Schmidt, Tafti & Mang: "State ownership biases government support—evidence from the financial crisis" The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 2026, Vol. 00

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

How "Amazon’s Choice" badges steer choice: We show that they drive engagement despite competing signals, yet disproportionately favors platform-sold products. Crucially, this boost persists after the badge is removed, potentially reinforcing long-term market advantages.

190researchblog.substack.com

The Power of the Badge: Platform Endorsement in Online Retail

Lill, Gallitz, Stich & Spann: "How Platform Endorsement Shapes Consumer Search and Choice in Online Retail" CRC Discussion Paper No. 569

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Why incentive-compatibility isn't enough for data quality: Our new online experiment shows that popular belief elicitation methods like BSR and BDM fail to outperform simple, unincentivized introspection.

190researchblog.substack.com

Do We Need Complex Incentives for Belief Elicitation Online?

Banko-Ferran, Burdea & Woon: "A Horserace of Methods for Eliciting Induced Beliefs Online" CRC Discussion Paper No. 562

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

How does ambiguity affect trade between a price-setting seller and an ambiguity-sensitive buyer? We find that the right kind of ambiguous information makes both the buyer and seller better off than any possible unambiguous information.

190researchblog.substack.com

Benefits and Challenges of Ambiguous Product Information

Lang & Wasser "Benefits and Challenges of Ambiguous Product Information" CRC Discussion Paper No. 564

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

How structured management falls short in a crisis: Our study of Spanish firms shows that formal practices, while driving long-run productivity, paradoxically lead to lower performance during downturns because of higher short-run adjustment costs.

190researchblog.substack.com

Why Intangibles Matter for the Effectiveness of Structured Management

Englmaier et. al: "Management Practices and Firm Performance During the Great Recession" CRC Discussion Paper No. 548

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Why we’ve been underestimating the economic engine of big cities: Our new analysis of office rents reveals that productivity gains are hidden in high property prices, meaning the true economic advantage of large cities is actually 33% to 50% higher than previously measured.

190researchblog.substack.com

Why Urban Productivity Premiums Are Up to 50% Larger Than Previously Estimated

Ahlfeldt, Heblich, Seidel & Yin: "The Price of Productivity" CRC Discussion Paper No. 563

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

How mystery products fail to captivate consumers despite the thrill of the unknown: We show that the mix of potential items is the main driver of value, with hidden odds inducing a steeper price discount when the outcomes vary significantly in quality or brand prestige.

190researchblog.substack.com

How to Design Mystery Products That Work

Elgayar, Guhl, Stich & Spann: "Designed Uncertainty in Mystery Products" CRC Discussion Paper No. 565

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

How selection bias masks the true size of the gender pay gap: Our new approach reveals that positive selection into employment systematically widens the gap for less educated workers at lower quantiles while narrowing it among top earners.

190researchblog.substack.com

Why the Gender Pay Gap Is Wider Than It Looks for Low-Earners

Batbayar et. al: "Quantile Selection in the Gender Pay Gap" CRC Discussion Paper No. 560

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Why is there less beautiful architecture than we'd like? Our research shows that because neighbours get the benefits for free while builders pay extra, the market systematically undersupplies the architecture we prefer, making a construction subsidy the most efficient fix.

190researchblog.substack.com

Why Market Forces Alone Undersupply Distinctive Architecture

Ahlfeldt, Pietrostefani & Zhang: "The Economics of Architecture" CRC Discussion Paper No. 561

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CRC Rationality & Competition @rationalitycrc.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

How AI restrictions can backfire in higher education: Our new experiment shows that unrestricted access to AI tutors fosters significantly better learning outcomes than restricted sessions by enabling gradual scaffolding rather than disruptive, intensive bursts of usage.

190researchblog.substack.com

How Unrestricted AI Tutoring Enhances Student Learning

Fischer, Rau & Rilke: "AI Tutoring Enhances Student Learning Without Crowding Out Reading Effort" CRC Discussion Paper No. 557

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