"Paternalism in a World of Uncertainty: An Experimental Study", Prof. Jie ZHENG, Center for Economic Research, Shandong University
Title：Paternalism in a World of Uncertainty: An Experimental Study
Speaker：Prof. Jie ZHENG, Center for Economic Research, Shandong University
Date：December 16, 2025 (Tuesday)
Time：15:00 - 16:00
Venue：T7-106-R1
Abstract：
When are people more strongly motivated to intervene in others' decisions under risk? We consider two dimensions: the difficulty of the decision problems and the informational advantage of the Choice Architect (CA). An easier decision problem, proxied by a larger gap between the expected payoffs of the two options, led to significantly more intervention. In addition, having the opportunity to share private information lowers the intervention from the CA. We propose a theory of a benevolent CA who overestimates the decision errors of the decision maker to describe the CA's paternalistic behavior.
Speaker：
Jie Zheng is University Distinguished Professor at Shandong University, and he serves as the Director for the Center for Research on Experimental and Theoretical Economics (CREATE). He is recognized as Distinguished Expert of “Taishan Scholar” Project in Shandong Province, and Junior Scholar of “Changjiang Scholar Award” Project by Ministry of Education of the Chinese Government.
Dr. Zheng received his B.A and M.A. in Economics from Tsinghua University, and Ph.D. in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization and has been on a guest editor for many other SSCI/SCI journals.
His main research fields are information economics, industrial economics, experimental economics and behavioral economics. He has published over 60 research papers in journals including Nature Communications, American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings), Games and Economic Behavior, Management Science, Journal of Industrial Economics, Journal of Mathematical Economics, Experimental Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, as well as top Chinese journals.
