In the spirit of the International Labour Organisation Code (2001) of decent work and respect for the human rights and dignity of persons infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, there should be no discrimination against applicants for work on the basis of real or perceived HIV status. Whilst, the...

Models of job tournaments and competitive workplaces more generally predict that while individual effort may increase as competition intensifies between workers, the incentive for workers to cooperate with each other diminishes. We report on a field experiment conducted with workers from a...

We test for gender discrimination by sending fake CVs to apply for entry-level jobs. Female candidates are more likely to receive a callback, with the difference being largest in occupations that are more female-dominated.

Little research has been done to examine discrimination against gays and lesbians in the labor market. Wage regressions have documented lower incomes for gays but repeatedly showed higher incomes for lesbians. The results concerning lesbian women are striking but can be reconciled with the...

Recent policy initiatives offer cash payments to children (and often their families) to induce better health and educational choices. These policies implicitly assume that children are especially impatient (i.e., have high discount rates); however, little is known about the nature of children's...

This paper presents new evidence on the distribution of risk attitudes in the population, using a novel set of survey questions and a representative sample of roughly 22,000 individuals living in Germany. Using a question that asks about willingness to take risks in general, on an 11-point...

This paper presents new evidence on the distribution of risk attitudes in the population, using a novel set of survey questions and a representative sample of roughly 22,000 individuals living in Germany. Using a question that asks about willingness to take risks in general, on an 11-point...

Economic analyses of asymmetric information typically start with the assumption that individuals know more about their own characteristics than outside observers. This assumption implies that individuals can accurately assess their own competence in a given domain. However, individuals can only...

The work of Friedrich Von Hayek contains several testable predictions about the nature of market processes. Vernon Smith termed the most important one the ‘Hayek hypothesis’: the gains from trade can be realized in the presence of diffuse, decentralized information, and in the...

This paper reports a surprising finding from an experiment on giving to welfare recipients. The experiment tests how offers of money in n-donor dictator games are affected by 1) donors? humanitarian and egalitarian values and 2) direct information about the recipients?work-preferences. People...