We compare social preference and social norm based explanations for peer effects in a three-person gift-exchange game experiment. In the experiment a principal pays a wage to each of two agents, who then make effort choices sequentially. In our baseline treatment we observe that the second...

Economists have traditionally treated preferences as exogenously given. Preferences are assumed to be influenced by neither beliefs nor the constraints people face. As a consequence, changes in behaviour are explained exclusively in terms of changes in the set of feasible alternatives. Here we...

This paper contributes to the recent literature exploring the determinants of individual environmental behaviors. Contrary to many previous studies, which consider single items as proxies of individuals' overall environmental responsibility, we adopt a multidimensional perspective and derive...

Recent economic literature emphasizes the importance of moral considerations to explain compliance behavior with respect to underground activities such as tax evasion. A considerable amount of research aims to identify factors that affect the intrinsic motivation to comply. However, the causal...

A substantial body of research suggests that economists are less generous than other professionals and that economics students are less generous than other students. We address this question using administrative data on donations to social programs by students at the University of Washington....

It has been claimed that the market fosters selfishness and thereby undermines the moral basis of society. This thesis has been developed with an emphasis on market exchange. Everyday life is, however, predominantly shaped by interactions in the workplace rather than by shopping behaviour. This...

There is a danger that the CDM will fail to live up to its goals, namely reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and enhanced sustainable development. Sustainability labeling is a promising strategy to hedge against such failures. Labels could also serve as a business risk-hedging tool. The...

Macroeconomic fluctuations affect corporations’ performance through demand and cost conditions. Incentive effects of performance-based compensation schemes for management may be weakened or biased by macroeconomic influences if management is unable to forecast macroeconomic fluctuations or...

Using detailed data on seven environmental, social and governance (ESG) attributes for a long panel of large publicly traded U.S. rms during July 1992-June 2008, this study nds that only the community indicator has a positive impact on stock returns and furthermore this eect is due to...

We investigate the intrinsic motivation of individuals to report, and thereby sanction, fellow group members who lie for personal gain. We further explore the changes in lying and reporting behavior that result from giving individuals a say in who joins their group. We find that enough...