Midlands Regional Doctoral Colloquium - our winners

First place: Hamideh Mohtashami Borzadaran

Previous research has demonstrated that individuals are willing to delegate tasks to shift the blame and avoid taking direct responsibility for selfish behaviour. Our main framework is a principal-agent game in which principals can either decide themselves how much money to share with a recipient or can hire agents who make sharing decisions on their behalf. In our recent study, we offer evidence that the likelihood of delegation decreases as social ties between individuals increase. In a new series of experiments, we examine experimentally potential motives explaining why people delegate less as social distance decreases. Our focus is on two motives: altruistic behaviour and expected reciprocation from future interactions. To study these effects, we implement a within subject design where we vary the social distance and the anonymity of the decisions made between the principal and the recipient. Our results suggest that altruistic motives explain most of the variation in principals’ delegation decisions.

Second place: Jorge Soguero Escuer

Jorge's paper examines the indirect effect of free trade and investment agreements between the US and Latin American countries, which have signed a free trade agreement with the United States of America, on the rising costs of obesity-related diseases through the imports of unhealthy foods and drinks.

Third place: Jing Liu

This study aims to examine how accounting affects medical staff and medical practice in Chinese public hospitals. By analysing the relationship between accounting and medicine, the study hopes to further explore the impact of different professions within a single system.