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Jason Ralston, PhD

Assistant Professor of Economics

    Welcome to my website. I am Jason Ralston, Assistant Professor of Economics at Whitman College. My fields of research are in experimental economics, behavioral economics, game theory, and microeconomic theory. My research touches on the criminal justice system, heuristics, beliefs, risk preferences, and social networks.

    Publications

    Hudja, Stanton; Ralston, Jason; Aimone, Jason; Rentschler, Lucas; North, Charles

    June 2023 - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization​

     

    An Experimental Exploration of Reasonable Doubt

    The “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard is a constitutional requirement in U.S. criminal cases, but jury instructions on “reasonable doubt” vary across jurisdictions. We use a controlled experiment to analyze the relationship between the definition of reasonable doubt and juror decisions. In our novel (pre-registered) experiment, we vary the definition of reasonable doubt between subjects and elicit the level of evidence required for subjects to convict a defendant. We analyze juror decisions under two state definitions that are markedly different (Wisconsin and West Virginia) and analyze juror decisions when reasonable doubt is not explicitly defined. We find similar behavior in each treatment. We ran three additional treatments to determine why behavior does not seem to vary across definitions. Our data is consistent with subjects having pre-conceived notions of reasonable doubt that are not affected by jury instructions.

    Ralston, Jason; Aimone, Jason; Rentschler, Lucas; North, Charles

    June 2023 - Public Choice 

     

    Prosecutor Plea Bargaining and Conviction Rate Structure: Evidence from an Experiment

    We present a model of plea bargaining and vary the value a prosecutor places on a conviction obtained via plea bargain relative to a conviction obtained at trial. We show that increasing the relative value of a plea bargain increases the trial penalty and decreases the severity of the equilibrium plea bargain. We report the results of an exploratory experiment which assesses this prediction in a more realistic setting, in which subjects are incentivized by conviction rates. Our treatment variable is whether convictions obtained via plea bargain are included in conviction rate calculations. Including plea bargains in conviction rates increases the number of plea offers made and increases the trial penalty, which is qualitatively in line with our predictions.

    Duffy, John and Ralston, Jason

    September 2020 - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization​

     

    Innovate versus imitate: Theory and experimental evidence

    We model and experimentally evaluate the trade-off between innovation and imitation commonly faced by firms. Innovation involves searching for a high payoff opportunity, but paying a cost in order to do so. Imitation involves avoiding that search cost and copying the most successful payoff opportunity uncovered thus far. We formulate a novel model of sequential innovation versus imitation decisions made by a group of n regret minimizing agents. We analyze the consequences of complete versus incomplete information about the distribution of payoffs from innovation on agents’ decisions. We then study these predictions in a laboratory experiment where we find evidence in support of our theoretical predictions.

    Working Papers

    Gender Differences in Preferences For Criminal Justice Error Types: An Experiment

    Hudja, Stanton; Ralston, Jason; Wang, Siyu; Aimone, Jason; Rentschler, Lucas; North, Charles

    Bias, Trust, and Trustworthiness: An Experimental Study of Post Justice System Outcomes

    Ralston, Jason; Aimone, Jason; Rentschler, Lucas; North, Charles

    Poverty, Habit, and Their Consequences

    Ralston, Jason; Aimone, Jason; Ball, Sheryl; Smith, Alec

    Prosecutorial Discretion: A Theoretical and Experimental Investigation

    Hudja, Stanton; Ralston, Jason; Aimone, Jason; Rentschler, Lucas; North, Charles

    Auditing in the Criminal Justice System: Theory and Evidence

    Ralston, Jason; Hudja, Stanton; Aimone, Jason; Rentschler, Lucas; North, Charles

    Leadership in an Indefinitely Repeated Public Goods Game

    Ralston, Jason; Pilgrim, Alexa

    Cognitive Load and Plea Bargaining: An Experimental Investigation

    Ralston, Jason; Hudja, Stanton; Aimone, Jason; Rentschler, Lucas; North, Charles

    Teaching

    Principles of Microeconomics

    2020, 2021, 2022

    Intermediate Microeconomics

    2022

    Behavioral Economics

    2021, 2022

    Game Theory

    2022, 2023

    Introductory Econometrics

    2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

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