We examine the characteristics of effective leaders in a simple leader-follower voluntary contributions game. We focus on two factors: the individual's cooperativeness and the individual's beliefs about the cooperativeness of others. We find that groups perform best when led by those who are...

We report an experiment comparing sequential and simultaneous contributions to a public good in a quasi-linear two-person setting. In one parameterization we find that overall provision is lower under sequential than simultaneous contributions, as predicted, but the distribution of contributions...

A burgeoning literature in economics has started examining the role of social norms in explaining economic behavior. Surprisingly, the vast majority of this literature has studied social norms in asocial decision settings, where individuals are observed to act in isolation from each other. In...

We study the interplay between leading-by-example and group identity in a public goods game experiment. A common identity between the leader and her followers is beneficial for cooperation: average contributions are more than 30% higher than in a treatment where no identity was induced. In two...

Policymakers are increasingly interested these days in how they can achieve desired outcomes using 'nudges' - low-cost and non-obtrusive interventions which rely on psychological mechanisms, rather than high-powered economic incentives, to influence people's behaviour. This paper applies the...

We report two studies investigating whether, and if so how, different interventions affect voter registration rates. In a natural field experiment conducted before the 2015 UK General Election, we varied messages on a postcard sent by Oxford City Council to unregistered student voters...

We examine the effects of social preferences and beliefs about the social preferences of others in a simple leader-follower voluntary contributions game. We find that groups perform best when led by those who are reciprocally oriented. Part of the effect can be explained by a false consensus...

Understanding what motivates discrimination is of importance to economists and social scientists in general. In this paper, the authors address whether the taste to discriminate against outsiders is related to social norms. Recent studies have shown various different types of economic behaviour...

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...

We experimentally investigate the relationship between discriminatory behaviour and the perceived social inappropriateness of discrimination. We test the framework of Akerlof and Kranton (2000, 2005), which suggests discrimination will be stronger when social norms favour it. Our results support...