CRC Rationality & Competition

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

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.

The Cost of Captured Attention: Experimental Evidence on App Design, User Agency and Developer Responsibility Timko, Adena: "The Impact of Behavioral Design and Users’ Choice on Smartphone App Usage and Willingness to Pay: A Framed Field Experiment" European Economic Review, Volume 183

How behavioral design can undermine user value despite maximizing engagement: Our experiment shows it doubles app usage time but systematically induces a significantly lower willingness to pay than designs prioritizing transparency and user choice.

The Market Prices Disasters as 1‑in‑8 (Even If History Says 1‑in‑60) Meyerheim: "Rare Disasters, Tail Aversion, and Asset Pricing Puzzles" CRC Discussion Paper No. 549

How to explain why stocks pay so well while interest rates stay low: Our paper shows that combining rare disasters with tail aversion explains these puzzles without assuming extreme risk aversion, matching real-world data while staying consistent with microeconomic evidence.

Who Uses Artificial Intelligence in Research – And for What? Chugunova et. al: "Who uses AI in research, and for what? Large-scale survey evidence from Germany" Research Policy, Volume 55 (2026)

How AI integration in research can fall short despite rapid adoption: Our large-scale survey of 6215 researchers shows that a widespread prompting skill gap and persistent gender disparities in familiarity systematically hinder the technology's transformative potential.

The Earnings Gap Isn’t a Skill Gap: Labor Market Skills Don’t Explain the “Child Penalty” Jessen, Kinne & Battisti: "Child penalties in labour market skills" European Economic Review, Volume 184 (2026)

Why the motherhood penalty persists: Our analysis shows that declines in general competencies like numeracy account for at most 10% of the long-term child penalty in earnings, suggesting that gender norms, not skill depreciation, remain the primary driver of inequality.

Call for Papers Behavioral Economics

📢 The Call for Papers for the 𝗖𝗘𝗦𝗶𝗳𝗼 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀, organized by @klaus-m-schmidt.bsky.social & Ernst Fehr is now open!
Keynotes: Supreet Kaur & @philippstrack.bsky.social
📆 𝟮𝟯 - 𝟮𝟰 𝗢𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲
ℹ️https://www.ifo.de/cesifo/f9G

In cooperation with @rationalitycrc.bsky.social

Luck or Effort: Information on Educational Inequality shifts Perceptions, but not Policy Demand Grewenig, Wedel & Werner: "Luck Or Effort: Perceptions of the Role of Circumstances in Education and Demand for Targeted Spending" CRC Discussion Paper No. 543

How do adults react to data on educational inequality? We show that data on the wealth gap in German schools causes people to agree that circumstances impact educational success and increases private donations. Yet, it doesn't change support for government spending.

@benjaminarold.bsky.social @woessmann.bsky.social

📣 Call for Papers - EXTENSION OF DEADLINE
Join us for the 2nd Berlin PhD Conference in Economics in July.

🗓 July 6-8, 2026
⏰ Application deadline: 30 January 2026

🔗 Learn more & apply: berlinschoolofeconomics.de/event-detail...

#phdconference #callforpapers @rationalitycrc.bsky.social

📢 Call for papers:

CESifo Area Conference on Economics of Education
co-organized w/ Eric Hanushek (Stanford)

🏛️ 11-12 Sept 2026, Munich

🧑‍🏫 Keynote: John List (Chicago) @johnlist.bsky.social

👉 www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/ev...

⏰ Deadline: 11 May 2026

🖼️ Past programs:
sites.google.com/view/woessma...

The Long Reach of Religious Education: New Evidence on Compulsion, Beliefs, and Economic Life Arold, Woessmann & Zierow: "Can Schools Change Religious Attitudes? Evidence from German State Reforms of Compulsory Religious Education" Journal of Human Resources

Does religious education in school create life-long believers? We exploit staggered German state reforms to show that abolishing compulsory religious education significantly reduced students' religiosity as adults and led to higher labor-market participation and earnings.

#BehavioralEconomics #AppliedMicroeconomics #PoliticalEconomy #PolicyEvaluation

LMU Munich (@lmumuenchen.bsky.social) , Berlin School of Economics (@bsoeberlin.bsky.social), FU-Berlin (@freieuniversitaet.bsky.social), HU-Berlin (@humboldtuni.bsky.social), WZB Berlin Social Science Center (@wzb.bsky.social), DIW Berlin (@diw.de), Georgia State University

We’d be grateful if you could also share with colleagues and PhD students who work in related areas.

Supported by LMU Munich (@lmumuenchen.bsky.social), CRC TRR “Rationality and Competition” (@rationalitycrc.bsky.social), and DFG RU “Labor market transformation” (FU Berlin) (@diw.de).

➡️ More information and submission form: econexperiments.eu/RiederauWork...

Organizers: Stefano Carattini, Peter Haan (@phaan.bsky.social), Davide Pace (@ddpace.bsky.social), Renke Schmacker (@schmacker.bsky.social), Georg Weizsäcker (@georgweizsaecker.bsky.social)

✈️ Logistics & support: The workshop will be held at Seminarzentrum Riederau; accommodation for two nights will be covered, and limited travel support is available upon request (details in the call).

Keynote speakers:
• Marcella Alsan (@stanford.edu)
• Dmitry Taubinsky (@ucberkeleylaw.bsky.social)

📅 Submission deadline: 28 February 2026 (full papers; pre-analysis plans, pre-registered reports, and extended abstracts also welcome).

What determines a policy’s popularity, including the role of experiences and beliefs, and how does one make socially desirable economic policies politically acceptable?

The workshop will discuss papers that explore the general public’s understanding of the economy, economic and societal problems, and of economic policies aimed at addressing them.

📣 Call for Papers | Riederau Workshop on People’s Understanding of and Support for Economic Policies

We are pleased to announce the Riederau Workshop on People’s Understanding of and Support for Economic Policies, taking place 8–10 September 2026 in Riederau am Ammersee (Germany).

Portfolio Competition: Why Conventional Antitrust Fails in Oligopolistic Information Markets Achim & Strausz: "Oligopolistic Information Markets" CRC Discussion Paper No. 554

How does competitive pressure fail to protect buyers in information markets? Our new model of "portfolio competition" shows that when signals are complements, sellers leverage the buyer's desire for the joint portfolio to extract the full social surplus.

When Better Products Hurt Profits: The Hidden Costs of Quality in Retail Shin & Strausz: "Demand-Investment in Distribution Channels" CRC Discussion Paper No. 553

Why can boosting product quality actually reduce a manufacturer's profits? Our findings show that when retailers control pricing, increasing demand strengthens the retailer's power, compelling manufacturers to give up more profit and optimally limit product quality.

🎉 Congratulations to 𝗗𝗼𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗲 𝗛𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵𝘀 on winning funding for a @leibniz-gemeinschaft.de Junior Research Group for the period 2026–2030! The group will study the behavior of firms and consumers in the transition from efficiency-driven to resilience-driven globalization👏👏

Social Mobility in Germany: New Study Reveals a Steep Decline in Opportunity Baarck, Bode & Peichl: "Rising Inequality, Declining Mobility: The Evolution of Intergenerational Mobility in Germany" CRC Discussion Paper No. 550

How Germany’s historical high mobility fell short of its reputation: Our data reveals that intergenerational income persistence sharply increased for recent cohorts, reaching levels comparable to the US and coinciding with increasingly class-dependent educational attainment.

Training or Retiring? How Labor Markets Adjust to Trade and Technology Shocks Bertermann, Dauth, Suedekum & Woessmann: "Training or Retiring? How Labor Markets Adjust to Trade and Technology Shocks" CRC Discussion Paper No. 551

How labor market resilience can fall short despite new skill demands: Our analysis shows that robot automation systematically increases training for new skills in service sectors but also speeds up the retirement of manufacturing workers.

The Costly Path to Personalized Pricing: Why Private Data Production Is Wasteful Lefez: "The Production of Information to Price Discriminate" CRC Discussion Paper No. 535

How costly data production can thwart price discrimination profits: We show that socially optimal market segmentation forces the seller into "indecisive segments", ensuring zero profit gain and showing that the private incentive to produce information is inefficient.

@ddpace.bsky.social

Join us for the 2nd Berlin PhD Conference in Economics on July 6-8, 2026.

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

How information campaigns can fall short even if they successfully correct beliefs: Our experiments show that correcting consumers' large underestimations of which products cause high emissions does not have an effect on their actual consumption decisions.