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