Title: An Experimental Study of the Competitive Saving Motive

Guest speaker: Dr. Binglin Gong, Faculty of Economics and Management, East China Normal University

Time: 9:30AM-10:30AM, October 20 (Thursday) CST.

Zoom information:

Zoom ID: 951 5003 5248

Passcode: DKUECON

Abstract

We use a series of laboratory experiments to study the hypothesis of the competitive saving motive proposed by Wei and Zhang (2011) and Du and Wei (2013). In a laboratory setting, we verify non-trivial predictions of the theory, fill in important gaps between the theory and existing empirics, relax restrictive assumptions in the theory, and investigate topics that are hard to study analytically. We confirm the basic prediction of the hypothesis that a rise in the sex ratio leads to a rise in the aggregate savings rate but find some interesting asymmetries between men and women. We also separately identify the competitive saving motive and a pure hedging motive and find that the hedging induced savings is negligible. Finally, we investigate the effect of heterogeneous incomes on competitive savings and find that people in the middle of the income distribution display the strongest savings response to a change in the sex ratio.

Biography

Dr. Binglin Gong is a Zijiang Young Scholar (research professor) and Ph.D. supervisor at Faculty of Economics and Management, East China Normal University. She taught at Fudan University and Shanghai JiaoTong University. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from University of Maryland at College Park and her bachelor degrees in Probability & Statistics and Economics from Peking University. Her fields of specialization include Experimental Economics, Behavioral Economics, Industrial Organization, Behavioral Finance, and Microeconomics. She uses theoretical modeling, economic experiments and empirical methods in her studies. Her research covers a broad range from information disclosure, search behavior, financial bubbles, car license auction design, college admission to gender differences and the impact of gender ratio imbalance on saving decision. She has recently published on Management Science, Games and Economic Behavior, Experimental Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Economic Psychology and The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development. She won the humanities and social sciences second grade award from Ministry of Education in 2020 and the Shanghai philosophy and social science excellent paper first grade award in 2018. In 2020, she was selected as a Shanghai Leading Scholar. She has also received many research grants at the international, national and provincial levels.