Matthew Chao

Matthew Chao

Associate Professor of Economics

[email protected]
413-597-3339
CV
Schapiro Hall Rm 306
At Williams since 2015

Education

B.A. Dartmouth College (2006)
Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, Economics (2015)

Areas of Expertise

  • Behavioral economics
  • Applied microeconomics
  • Experimental economics
  • Judgment and decision-making

Courses

ECON 110(F) LEC

Principles of Microeconomics

ECON 233 LEC

Behavioral Economics and Public Policy (not offered 2025/26)

ECON 476 SEM

Behavioral Economics: Theory and Methods (not offered 2025/26)

Publications

1. Chao M, Larkin I. Regulating conflicts of interest through public disclosure and social image incentives: Evidence from a physician payments sunshine law. Management Science 2022; 68(2): 1078-1094.

2. Chao M, Fisher G. Self-interested giving: The relationship between conditional gifts, donor self-interestedness, and charitable donations. Management Science 2022; 68(6): 3975-4753.

3. Chao M, Chapman J. Saving face through preference signaling and obligation avoidance. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 2020; 176: 569-581.

4. Chao M. Intentions-based reciprocity to monetary and non-monetary gifts. Games 2018; 9, 74 (Special issue on dictator games).

5. Chao M. Demotivating incentives and motivation crowding out in charitable giving. PNAS 2017; 114(28):7301-7306.

The online experiment from this paper was successfully replicated by others in Holzmeister et al. 2024; they did not attempt to replicate the field experiment.

6. Larkin I, Ang D, Steinhart J, Chao M, Patterson M, Sah S, Wu T, Schoenbaum M, Hutchins D, Brennan T, Loewenstein G. Association between academic medical center pharmaceutical detailing policies and physician prescribing. JAMA 2017; 3017(17):1785-95.

Selected press coverage: NPR, Slate, Newsweek, USNews, Boston Globe, Williams Magazine

Experimental datasets for published papers.

Working Papers

1. Chao M, Fisher G. How decision conflict and attribute timing influence charitable giving.

2. Chao M, Shin E. Cultural variation in focal points for coordination and cooperation.

3. Chao M, Larkin I. Why do goal-based incentives cause cheating? Unpacking the confounding effects of goals, social comparisons, and pay.

On Campus Experiments

Williams students can click here to register as a participant in (paid) economics experiments held either on campus or online.