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People’s tendency to overestimate their ability to control random events, known as illusion of control, can affect financial decisions under uncertainty. This study developed an artifactual field experiment on illusion of control for a farm machinery investment.

In an experiment with two treatments, the individual farmer was either given or not given a sense of control over a random outcome. After each decision, the authors elicited perceived control, and a questionnaire collected additional indirect measures of illusion of control from 78 German farmers and 10 farm advisors.

The results did not support preregistered hypotheses of the presence of illusion of control. This null result was robust over multiple outcomes and model specifications. The findings demonstrate that cognitive biases may be small and difficult to replicate.

The sample is not representative for the German farming population. The authors discuss why the estimated treatment effect may represent a lower bound of the true effect.

Illusion of control is well-studied in laboratory settings, but little is known about the extent to which farmers’ behavior is influenced by illusion of control.

WE end the library year in an atmosphere of anticipation. There are signs, not of the ending of the infernal conflict that engages the best of our lives, but of movement which brings the happy event into the range of probable things. Most men and women feel that in the past year a great deliverance has been wrought. Librarians Still labour under the greatest difficulties they have ever known, fewer books, reduced Staffs, crowded working days, but they have endured the worst it seems, and although there may yet be heavy air onslaught, and the great sacrifices that a second front must bring, there is the feeling that we are not as far from the day as we were twelve months ago. That is a happy reflection with which to look to Christmastide.

ISHM‐Benelux held its 1987 Autumn Conference on 29 October, at the Antwerp Crest Hotel. This one‐day meeting focused on applications of hybrid circuit technology in various fields of electronic and related industries.