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Title: Authentic Assessment in Economics: the Challenge of AI

Abstract: The presentation looks at authentic assessment in economics, its rationale and the challenges it faces from widespread use of generative AI. We focus on an example of assessment from an Environmental Economics course at a UK University and examine the abilities of ChatGPT to answer it. The presentation will discuss ChatGPT in relation to the quality of student input and specific elements of assessment design. We hope to stimulate a discussion around the prospects for authentic assessments in applied economics subjects.

Title: Tailoring Data for Profit

Abstract: This paper develops a framework to analyze the optimal sale of information. A data buyer, facing a decision problem under uncertainty, initially has access to an information structure that is private to him and determines his willingness to pay for any additional information. A monopolistic data seller, capable of designing tailored information structures, seeks to maximize revenue. Compared to Bergemann, Bonatti, and Smolin (2018), the novelty of this paper lies in two key features: (i) the type space consists of various information structures, and (ii) correlations are allowed between the data buyer鈥檚 initial information and the additional information offered by the data seller. The main result demonstrates that, in a large class of cases, the data seller can design and price information within a mechanism to fully extract the first-best surplus. Specifically, full surplus extraction is achievable when each lower-type buyer鈥檚 willingness to pay for information that fully supplements their initial information is weakly higher than that of all higher types.

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Title: Rooting for the same team: Shared social identities in a polarized context

Abstract: Does sharing affective identities build social cohesion in a politically polarized setting? We experimentally answer this during the Brazilian presidential elections of 2022. We use Twitter follow-backs and blocks as measures of social ties among congruent or incongruent individuals along political (supporting the same candidate) and affective (rooting for the same football team) dimensions of identity. Congruence in either dimension fosters tie formation, but the positive effect of sharing an affective identity becomes substantially less relevant when information about political identity is available. This suggests that, although affective congruence fosters ties among politically opposite individuals, political polarization limits such effect. Consistent with these results, we also show that a shared national identity might not help build cohesion in a polarized setting. Through text analysis of live-streamed tweets of Brazilian soccer fans during the 2022 World Cup, we document significant differences in the fans' reactions to positive (e.g., goals) and negative (elimination) events depending on their political alignment with the specific players that triggered the events. Taken together, our results indicate that, in a polarized setting, political identities can hinder the potential of other shared identities to increase social cohesion.