Recent empirical research has demonstrated that countries with higher levels of religiosity are characterized by greater income inequality. We argue that this is due to the lower level of government services demanded in more religious countries. Religion motivates individuals to engage in...

This paper deals with the effects of different modes of communication in a costless information transmission environment with multiple senders. To this aim, we present a theoretical and experimental study of three Cheap Talk games, each having two senders and one receiver. The communication of...

This paper explores the effect of personality traits on: (1) the willingness to make risk-taking decisions on behalf of a group, (2) the nature of "choice shifts", i.e. the difference between the amount of risk taken in the group context and individually. Openness and agreeableness emerge as...

We report results from a laboratory experiment that explores the effects of preference communication and leader selection mechanisms in group decision-making. In a setting where all members of a group get the same payoff based on the group leader's decision of how much risk to take, we study the...

Being the leader in a group often involves making risky decisions that affect the payoffs of all members, and the decision to take this responsibility in a group is endogenous in many contexts. In this paper, we experimentally study: (1) the willingness of men and women to make risky decisions...

This paper explores the effect of personality traits on: (1) the willingness to make risk-taking decisions on behalf of a group, (2) the nature of "choice shifts", i.e. the difference between the amount of risk taken in the group context and individually. Openness and agreeableness emerge as...

We report results from a laboratory experiment that explores the effects of preference communication and leader selection mechanisms in group decision-making. In a setting where all members of a group get the same payoff based on the group leader's decision of how much risk to take, we study the...

Conditional commitment devices such as price matching guarantees or legal contracts can be highly efficient and improve the outcomes for involved parties. In the context of public goods, however, empirical evidence on the cooperation-enhancing effect of conditional commitments is scarce. In this...

The interplay of culture and institutions is of high relevance for the economic well-being of societies. Identifying causality between culture and institutions, however, is difficult using field data. Trajectories based on country-specific histories can influence the adoption and the success of...