In this Paper we show that a simple model of fairness preferences explains major experimental regularities of common pool resource (CPR) experiments. The evidence indicates that in standard CPR games without communication and without sanctioning possibilities inefficient excess appropriation is...

This Paper presents a formal theory of reciprocity. Reciprocity means that people reward kind actions and punish unkind ones. The theory takes into account that people evaluate the kindness of an action not only by its consequences but also by the intention underlying this action. The theory...

This Paper shows that identical offers in an ultimatum game generate systematically different rejection rates depending on the other offers that are available to the proposer. This result casts doubt on the consequentialist practice in economics of defining the utility of an action solely in...

This paper discusses recent neuroeconomic evidence related to other-regarding behaviours and the decision to trust in other people’s other-regarding behaviour. This evidence supports the view that people derive non-pecuniary utility (i) from mutual cooperation in social dilemma (SD) games and...

Typically, laboratory experiments suffer from homogeneous subject pools and self-selection biases. The usefulness of survey data is limited by measurement error and by the questionability of their behavioural relevance. Here we present a method integrating interactive experiments and...

This paper studies how a preference for consistency can affect economic decisionmaking. We propose a two-period model where people have a preference for consistency because consistent behavior allows them to signal personal and intellectual strength. We then present three experiments that study...

Laboratory experiments are a widely used methodology for advancing causal knowledge in the physical and life sciences. With the exception of psychology, the adoption of laboratory experiments has been much slower in the social sciences, although during the last two decades, the use of lab...

It is frequently argued that unemployment plays a crucial role for the occurrence of right-wing extremist crimes. We empirically test this hypothesis using data from Germany. We find that right-wing criminal activities occur more frequently when unemployment is high. The big difference in...

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...

While confounding factors typically jeopardise the possibility of using observational data to measure peer effects, field experiments offer the possibility of obtaining clean evidence. In this Paper we measure the output of four randomly selected groups of individuals who were asked to fill...