We seek to estimate the prestige value of winning beyond monetary prizes in Cutthroat Kitchen, a cooking show in which dishes are judged in a series of elimination rounds, with the twist that action is periodically paused to auction sabotages against rivals. We estimate the distribution of contestants’ prestige values using a structural model of bidding by a contestant with rational expectations about sabotage effectiveness taken from the data. Our most conservative specification—allowing for risk aversion and bias in the beliefs about sabotage effectiveness—yields mean prestige values of nearly $10,000 for typical episodes and over $35,000 for tournaments. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Star Wars is one of the most popular movie franchises of all time. Its nine core movies have grossed over $15.5 billion (Richter 2020) at the box office (adjusted to 2020 prices), and it has spawned TV series, theme park attractions, popular video games, and more. Economists have created several Web sites with organized movie, TV, and music clips educators can use to teach economic concepts (e.g., Ghent, Grant, and Lesica 2011; Kuester, Mateer, and Youderian 2014; Melichar 2018; Muchiri, Paraschiv, and Wooten 2020; Rousu 2016; Patel et al. 2014; Tierney et al. 2016; Wooten 2017; Wooten and Staub 2017; Wooten, Staub, and Reilly 2020). These sites are public goods and, as with most public goods, we think there are too few of these resources available. It was with that in mind, along with the popularity of Star Wars and economic applications found within, that we created EconomicsofStarWars.com. Economics of Star Wars contains over 40 clips from the saga. Each clip is accompanied by a brief description and has study questions that educators can use to help teach their students. There is a range of microand macroeconomic topics presented, including clips illustrating demand and supply, issues with money and the money supply, bargaining, and more. Additionally, there are lesson plans educators can use to teach topics such as the prisoner’s dilemma and discrimination. New clips will be added as discovered. The site’s goals are threefold. First, we want students to see economic concepts in Star Wars. This will enhance economic learning. Second, the site helps educators by providing easy-to-use clips on economic topics and instructional content that can be used in assignments or exams. Finally, we hope some Star Wars fans find the site and learn that their favorite movie series can also teach them about economic concepts.

Study abroad is recognized as a high impact practice. There can be some issues with conventional study abroad that reduce a student's learning, however. Having an internship while abroad can help increase the value of study abroad and provide the student with valuable experience that will help post-graduation. In this article, we discuss the value of international internships, discuss the program at Susquehanna University for providing them, and provide recommendations for those interested in offering these experiences to their students.

There is significant resistance to vaccinations. Fewer than half of adults get a flu shot in the United States in a typical year, and a large minority of Americans say they will not get vaccinated against COVID-19. This resistance to vaccines creates challenges for both public health and the economy. The academic literature needs to consider potential policy solutions that might increase vaccination rates. In this study, we use experimental auctions to estimate how much university students need to be paid in exchange for agreeing to get a flu shot. These were real auctions where winners received compensation to get the flu shot. As found in prior research, the perceived stakes of such auctions incentivize participants to estimate the price at which they would engage in the auctioned behavior – in this instance, receiving a flu shot. We find that 50% require less than $1, and an additional 30% would get vaccinated for a payment of $20 or less. We also use a tobit regression to estimate bids as a function of participants' demographic characteristics. If low levels of compensation increase vaccination rates, this has significant public health implications. The government may be able to achieve higher vaccination rates at a relatively low cost, particularly in comparison with the economic harms caused by illness. This study demonstrates that experimental auctions may be useful for estimating how much a larger, more representative sample would need to be paid in exchange for agreeing to receive flu or COVID-19 vaccinations.

BACKGROUND:The widespread popularity of e-cigarettes, particularly JUUL, has led to an alarming increase in teen nicotine use, reversing a 40-year trend. One key question is how sensitive teens' demand for JUUL is to changes in price. METHODS:We estimate the price elasticity of demand using results from an experimental auction where teen nicotine users and nonusers bid on a JUUL kit. RESULTS:We find that a 10 % increase in price leads to as much as a 24 % reduction in JUUL demand among teens using nicotine, and as much as a 45 % reduction among teens not currently using nicotine. The teens in our study were more price sensitive than older adults who took part in a similar earlier study. CONCLUSIONS:From a public health standpoint, these are promising results. High e-cigarette taxes may dissuade relatively few older adult cigarette smokers from switching to e-cigarettes, but at the same time be highly effective at preventing teens from becoming e-cigarette users in the first place.

E-cigarette use has surged in recent years. Many of these new users are cigarette smokers. It is unclear whether e-cigarette adoption by smokers will lead to improved public health due to uncertainty about whether e-cigarettes help smokers quit using cigarettes and about whether ongoing dual use reduces exposure to toxins. A third source of uncertainty is whether providing cigarette smokers with sample e-cigarettes increases e-cigarette adoption. To provide insight into this final issue, we follow up with cigarette smokers who left an experimental auction with an e-cigarette, contacting them after two weeks, six weeks, and six months to determine which demographic and smoking-related characteristics predict continued e-cigarette use. We find that smokers who have made a serious quit attempt, have been advised to quit smoking, or have previously tried e-cigarettes are significantly more likely to report continued e-cigarette use. Women and smokers from racial and ethnic minority groups are significantly less likely to use e-cigarettes at follow up, as are those who said they would rather quit than switch to e-cigarettes. We also use experimental auction bids to estimate the price elasticity of demand for e-cigarettes, finding that a 10% increase in price results in a 5.6% reduction in quantity demanded. This suggests e-cigarette demand is less price sensitive than some earlier studies have found. While a tax on e-cigarettes can still be an effective tool for reducing e-cigarette demand, the reduction in demand may be smaller than some earlier studies would suggest.

Songs from musicals tell stories, and many of these stories relate to economic concepts. I describe how instructors can use nineteen show tunes to teach students about the benefits of free markets and the costs when governments attempt to restrict markets.

Experimental auctions allow researchers to estimate demand for products like e-cigarettes in a non-hypothetical environment where participants face real and immediate consequences for their bids. However, because auction winners actually purchase the product they bid on, participants may be introduced to a product they otherwise would not have discovered. Based on an experimental auction where 432 participants bid to buy e-cigarettes, we found that auction winners are significantly more likely to be using e-cigarettes two weeks, six weeks, and six months after the study but are no less likely to be daily cigarette smokers. This result holds even after controlling for prior e-cigarette use, strength of participants' initial demand for e-cigarettes, and demographic characteristics.

Facebook, the online social network, has more than 2 billion global users. Because those users do not pay for the service, its benefits are hard to measure. We report the results of a series of three non-hypothetical auction experiments where winners are paid to deactivate their Facebook accounts for up to one year. Though the populations sampled and the auction design differ across the experiments, we consistently find the average Facebook user would require more than $1000 to deactivate their account for one year. While the measurable impact Facebook and other free online services have on the economy may be small, our results show that the benefits these services provide for their users are large.

We surveyed 431 daily smokers between November 2014 and March 2015 to examine the impact of the order of questions on the response to a self-reported health question as part of a larger experimental study. We randomized the question order, with some respondents providing their weight prior to self-reporting their health, while others did the opposite. We found that self-reported health outcomes are worse when smokers are first asked to report their weight. However, the order of questions only seems to impact those who are overweight as we did not find evidence that the order of questions affected responses for those with a BMI below 25. These findings suggest that the order of asking self-rated health and weight questions appears to matter, at least for overweight current smokers.

The musical Hamilton is the most popular musical in recent history and might be the best single album one could use to teach economic concepts. We...

Print and television advertisements for e-cigarettes are currently legal in the United States. Given that e-cigarettes are a lower-risk alternative to cigarettes, these ads could have a positive public health impact if they motivate smokers to switch to e-cigarettes. However, the public health impact of e-cigarette ads could be negative if ads increase demand for both e-cigarettes and cigarettes. We use experimental auctions –in which participants bid in real auctions and winners pay for the items they purchase – to study the effect of print and TV e-cigarettes ads on demand for the brand from the ad, for another e-cigarettes brand, and for cigarettes. We ran experiments with 288 Pennsylvania smokers in November 2014–March 2015 and we found that in cases where an ad affects demand for e-cigarettes, the ad moves demand for cigarettes in the same direction. For example, the Blu print ad increases demand for Blu e-cigarettes and cigarettes among non-white participants. The Vuse TV ad reduces demand for both types of e-cigarettes and for cigarettes. We also find that non-white participants are willing to pay more for e-cigarettes in the absence of advertising, and that smokers who worry most about their health are willing to pay more for e-cigarettes. The results of this study point to the need for greater scrutiny of advertising for e-cigarette products such that they do not also induce demand for tobacco cigarettes.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to attempt to ascertain how people who are experiencing the process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract gas, define it. A case study is done on the town of Canton in Central Pennsylvania. Design/methodology/approach – A combination of in-depth interviews and content analysis of town hall meetings in the area, and content analysis of articles in the local newspaper (Canton Sentinel) were used to get a sense of how the people who live in this area are experiencing the increase in natural gas extraction. The study attempts to use the notion of framing and interpretive methodology to make sense of how some people in a small town experience the process. Findings – The major finding is that those that benefit directly from the industry tend to have more positive evaluation than those that do not benefit directly. Even those that benefited directly had concerns about the environmental impact of fracking, however have not as yet developed an appropriate narrative with which to articulate their concerns in a coherent manner. Originality/value – Few studies have been done that attempt to take into consideration the point of view of those who are directly experiencing the operation of the gas companies. How local residents are interpreting the impact of the gas industry is only just emerging however understanding that process would be paramount for public policy creation after the gas industry has matured and begins to decline.

Economists study how incentives motivate human behavior. However, besides grades, professors do not frequently employ incentives to motivate students in the classroom. Possibly because expenses associated with classroom incentives often remain unreimbursed or because other implementation costs are high. In this paper, we demonstrate methods educators can use to motivate student behavior while minimizing costs. We identify a range of options that include: incentives appropriate for large sections, an effective monetary incentive system suitable for smaller classes, tips for using an assortment of non-monetary incentives, and methods for leveraging social capital to motivate student learning and engagement.

Background: E-cigarettes are the latest in a line of potentially reduced exposure products that have garnered interest among smokers.Methods: In this paper, we use experimental auctions to estimate smokers' demand for e-cigarettes and to assess the impact of advertisements on willingness to pay. These are actual auctions, with winners and losers, which means hypothetical biases often seen in surveys are minimized.Results: We find smokers have positive demand for e-cigarettes, and that the print advertisements used in our study had greater effectiveness than video ads (b = 2.00, p <.05) in terms of increasing demand for disposable e-cigarettes. Demand was greater for reusable versus disposable e-cigarettes. In multivariate models, demand for e-cigarettes was higher among non-white participants and among smokers willing to pay more for cigarettes.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that cigarette smokers are interested in e-cigarettes as alternatives to traditional products, particularly for reusable forms, and that this demand can be influenced by messaging/advertising.Implications: Given these reduced harm products are appealing, if smokers are able to switch completely to e-cigarettes, there is a good chance for accrual of significant harm reduction.