IN-EAST News
26.11.2014 - 00:00
5th ACCER Workshop on Cross-Cultural Experimental Economic Research at the IN-EAST on November 25-26, 2014
The 5th ACCER workshop on “Exploring Culture and Behavior by Economic and Psychological Experiments” was hosted by the Research Training Group "Risk and East Asia" and the IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen.
While experimental methods are well-established in the fields of social and cultural psychology for several decades already, experimental economic research only recently integrated as a distinguished discipline. As only few behavioral economists engage in cross-cultural comparisons of decision making processes so far, the ACCER workshop series represents a unique platform for an interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and cooperation.
The workshop consisted of two keynote lectures, nine contributed paper presentations and eight poster presentations. The first keynote lecture was given by Professor Toshio Yamagishi (Hitotsubashi University, Japan) under the title “Cultural Differences in Beliefs and Preferences”. He introduced the concept of so-called behavioral default strategies that are automatically used in order to adapt to rules and norms that exist in our social environment. During his lecture, Professor Yamagishi presented the results from a number of his publications that impressively demonstrate the importance of cultural differences not only in behavior, but especially in the beliefs and preferences that are responsible for our actions. The second keynote lecture was given by Professor Simon Gächter (University of Nottingham, UK) on “The Rule of Law and Efficient Cooperation across Cultures”. As one of the most renowned experimental economists Professor Gächter plays an important role in popularizing the young discipline of cross-cultural economics. In the workshop he presented the results from a large-scale international experiment on cooperation behavior. Thereby he encouraged the audience to always keep the big picture in mind also while engaging in what he calls “close-up” cross-country research.
The nine contributed papers covered a wide range of topics. Experiments were conducted in a variety of countries like India, China, Indonesia and Japan, investigating research questions about (amongst others) leadership behavior, overconfidence, trust and cooperation. All talks motivated lively discussions which also extended to the coffee breaks and collective dinner. Participants in the poster sessions had a chance to introduce their work in progress in short 5-minutes presentations on the first day of the workshop, while an extended poster session was scheduled for the second day.
Overall this 5th ACCER workshop provided an up-to-date overview on state of the art cross-cultural experimental research in economics and social psychology. The invited keynote lectures by two of the most distinguished researchers in the field particularly contributed to a great value added for all participating scientists.
Report written by Kai Duttle, Doctoral Fellow at the Graduate Research Training Group 1613 “Risk and East Asia”.
About ACCER
The Association for Cross-Cultural Experimental Economic Research (ACCER) was founded by a group of researchers who are engaged in cross-cultural and inter-cultural empirical research in economics primarily by applying experimental methodology. By establishing a network of scholars working in this field, ACCER aims at encouraging and supporting a lively academic exchange to enhance intercultural understanding and deal with intercultural differences.
Source: http://www.accer.org/