We provide a direct test of the role of social preferences and beliefs in voluntary cooperation and its decline. We elicit individuals’ cooperation preference in one experiment and use them – as well as subjects’ elicited beliefs – to make predictions about contributions to a public good...

Psychological game theory can provide a rational choice explanation of framing effects; frames influence beliefs, and beliefs influence motivations. We explain this point theoretically, and explore its empirical relevance experimentally. In a 2×2-factorial framing design of one-shot public good...

We compare uniform price auctions with fixed price offerings in Initial Public Offerings (IPO) using laboratory experiments. The experimental environment is based on the Biais and Faugeron-Grouzet (2002) model. Standard predictions based on tacit collusion equilibria (TCE) suggest lower revenues...

One lingering puzzle is why voluntary contributions to public goods decline over time in experimental and real-world settings. We show that the decline of cooperation is driven by individual preferences for imperfect conditional cooperation. Many people’s desire to contribute less than others,...

We replicate the experiment introduced by Fischbacher, Gächter and Fehr (2001) measuring the level of conditional cooperation in a one-shot public goods game. We collected data of 160 students from four different locations in urban and rural Russia. Like Fischbacher et al. we can classify about...

Due to betrayal aversion, people take risks less willingly when the agent of uncertainty is another person rather than nature. Individuals in six countries (Brazil, China, Oman, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States) confronted a binary-choice trust game or a risky decision offering the...

We report evidence from public goods experiments with and without punishment which we conducted in Russia with 566 urban and rural participants of young and mature age cohorts. Russia is interesting for studying voluntary cooperation because of its long history of collectivism, and a huge...

We compare the performances of uniform price auctions with fixed price offerings using laboratory experiments. In the uniform treatment, there is no evidence that the tacit collusion equilibrium has been achieved. On the contrary, subjects with higher expected value bid more aggressively. Their...

We compare the behaviour of students and professional traders from an influential German bank in an experiment involving financial options. The arbitrage free option price is independent of the probability distribution of the underlying asset. The experimental data uncover a probability...

Experimental dictator games have been used to explore unselfish behaviour. Evidence is presented here, however, that subjects’ generosity can be reversed by allowing them to take money from a partner. Dictator game giving therefore does not stem from orthodox social preferences. It can be...