This discussion paper has led to a publication in the <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292110000978">'European Economic Review'</A>, 55(5), 630-43.<p>Incentive instruments like asset ownership and performance pay often have to strike a balance between the productive incentives and the rent-seeking incentives they provide. Standard theory predicts...</p></a>

Theory predicts that default breach remedies are immaterial whenever contracting costs are negligible. Some experimental studies, however, suggest that in practice default rules do matter, as they may affect parties' preferences over contract terms. This paper presents results from an experiment...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in 'Games and Economic Behavior' (2013). Volume 77, issue 1, pages 41-60.<P> Numerous gift exchange experiments have found a positive relationship between employers' wage offers and workers' effort levels. In (almost) all these experiments the employer...</p>

This discussion paper resulted in an article in the 'Economic Journal (2007). Volume 117, issue 522, pages 1025-1050.<P> One of the main findings of a large body of gift exchange experiments is that in an incomplete contracts environment workers on average do not shirk and usually provide more than...</p>

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825611000571">'Games and Economic Behavior'</A>, 73(2), 573-94.<p>We consider repeated trust game experiments to study the interplay between explicit and relational incentives. After having gained experience with two payoff variations of the trust game, subjects in...</p></a>

Standard economic theory predicts that firms will not invest in general training and will underinvest in specific training. Empirical evidence, however, indicates that firms do invest in general training of their workers. Evidence from laboratory experiments points to less underinvestment in...

In an influential study, Mas and Moretti (2009) find that “worker effort is positively related to the productivity of workers who see him, but not workers who do not see him”. They interpret this as evidence that social pressure can reduce free riding. In this paper we report an attempt to...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in the 'Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization' (2014). Volume 108, pages 224-235.<P> In criminal cases judges evaluate and combine probabilistic evidence to reach verdicts. Unavoidably, errors are made, resulting in unwarranted conviction or...</p>

Economic behavior often takes place in groups of small numbers of peopleinteracting with each other (like work teams, neighborhoods, socialnetworks, etc.). Characteristic of such interaction is the development of(affective) interpersonal relationships, or social ties. According tosociologists,...

Theory predicts that entrepreneurs have distinct attitudes towards risk and uncertainty, but empirical evidence is mixed. To better understand the unique behavioral characteristics of entrepreneurs and the causes of these mixed results, we perform a large ‘lab-in-the-field’ experiment...