We examine how multitasking affects performance and check whether women are indeed better at multitasking. Subjects in our experiment perform two different tasks according to three treatments: one where they perform the tasks sequentially, one where they are forced to multitask, and one where...

We study the impact of advice or observation on the depth of reasoning in an experimental beauty-contest game. Both sources of information trigger faster convergence to the equilibrium. Yet, we find that subjects who receive naïve advice outperform uninformed subjects permanently, whereas...

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 paper reports the results of an individual real effort laboratory experiment where subjects are paid for measured performance. Measured performance equals actual performance plus noise. We compare a stable environment where the noise is small with a volatile environment where the noise is...

This discussion paper led to an article in <I>Applied Economics</I> (2012). Vol. 44(32), pages 4211-4219.<P> We examine how self-selection of workers into firms depends on the power of the firms' incentive schemes and how it affects the performance of firms that increase the power of the incentive...</p></i>

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>

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>

This discussion paper has led to a publication in the <I>Journal of Labor Economics</I>, 2013, 32(2), 305-326.<P> We ran a field experiment in a Dutch retail chain consisting of 128 stores. In a random sample of these stores, we introduced short-term sales competitions among subsets of stores. We find...</p></i>

A worker's utility may increase with his income, but envy can make his utility decline with his employer's income. This article uses a principal-agent model to study profit-maximizing contracts when a worker envies his employer. Envy tightens the worker's participation constraint and so calls...

Inspired by a recent observation about an online retail company, this paper explains why a firm may find it optimal to offer an exit bonus to recent hires so as to induce self-selection. We study a double adverse selection problem, in which the principal can neither observe agents’ commitment...