Is culture an important variable to explain whether groups can successfully provide public goods? A wealth of empirical evidence on both industrialized and developing countries shows that cooperation levels decrease in the presence of ethnic divisions. Although several laboratory works deal with...

In real life, punishment is often implemented only insofar as punishers are entitled to punish and punishees deserve to be punished. We provide an experimental test for this principle of legitimacy in the framework of a public goods game, by comparing it with a classic (unrestricted) punishment...

We experimentally investigate cooperation within a finitely repeated public goods game framework where peer punishment is possible but, unlike previous work, in each round access to sanctioning power is exclusively awarded to the group’s top contributor. We compare this mechanism with a...

Social identity theory has become increasingly important for economists. I discuss the contribution of Van Bavel and Packer's "The Power of Us" in light of what economists (especially experimental ones) can learn from their research.

The way we collectively discuss migration shapes citizens' perceptions of migrants and their influence on our society. This paper investigates whether a narrative about the positive impact of immigrants on the hosting economy affects natives' behaviour towards migrants. To shed light on the...

In this paper we present a novel experimental procedure aimed at better understanding the interaction between confidence and ambiguity attitudes in individual decision making. Different ambiguity settings not only can be determined by the lack of information in possible scenarios completely...

Social identity theory has become increasingly important for economists. I discuss the contribution of Van Bavel and Packer's "The Power of Us" in light of what economists (especially experimental ones) can learn from their research.

The paper presents the results of a lab-in-the-field experiment in three South African townships located in the suburbs of Cape Town. The experimental design consists of a set of decisions on how the members of a naturally occurring group allocate an endowment to a private or to a public...

The paper presents the results of a lab-in-the-field experiment in three South African townships located in the suburbs of Cape Town. The experimental design consists of a set of decisions on how the members of a naturally occurring group allocate an endowment to a private or to a public...

We investigate which form of “culture” is most effective in enhancing individual performance in creative tasks conducted in group settings. We present a series of experiments that test whether performance ranking and incentives succeed in instantiating a creative corporate culture. Being...