Empirical research suggests that - rather than improving incentives - exerting controlcan reduce workers' performance by eroding motivation. The present paper shows thatintention-based reciprocity can cause such motivational crowding-out if individuals differin their propensity for reciprocity...

We experimentally study the relationship between other-regarding preferences, group identity and political participation. In doing so, we propose a novel group identity induction procedure that succeeds in creating environments where in-group bias is either high or low. At the individual level,...

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,...

We study the effects of competition in a context in which people's actions can not be contractually fixed. We find that in such an environment the very presence of competition does neither increase efficiency nor does it yield any payoff gains for the short side of the market. We also find that...

The formation of social ties is examined in an experimental study of voluntary public good provision. The experiment consists of three parts. In the first part the value orientation (attitude to a generalized other) ismeasured. In the second part couples play 25 periods of a public good game. In...

Interest groups are introduced in a spatial model of electoral competition between two political parties. We show that the presence of these interest groups increases the winning set, which is the set of policy platforms for the challenger that will defeat the incumbent. Therefore interest...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <I>Social Networks</I> (2012). Vol. 34(4), pages 161-179.<P> This paper proposes a new measure for a group's ability to lead society to adopt their standard of behavior, which in particular takes account of the time the group takes to convince the whole...</p></i>

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in 'Public Choice', 151, 757-787. <P> Power is a core concept in the analysis and design of organizations. One of the problems with the extant literature on positional power in hierarchies is that it is mainly restricted to the analysis of power in...</p>

A well-known model in sociology and marketing is that of opinion leadership. Opinion leaders are actors who are able to affect the behavior of their followers. Hence, opinion leaders have some power over their followers, and they can exercise this power by influencing their followers choice of...

A committee makes a decision on a project on behalf of "the public." Members of the committee agree on the a priori value of the project, and hold additional private information about its consequences. They are experts who care about the value of the project and about being considered well...