We designed four observational learning experiments to identify the key channels that, along with Bayes-rational inferences, drive herd behavior. In Experiment 1, unobserved, whose actions remain private, learn from the public actions made in turn by subjects endowed with private signals of...

We develop a theoretical analysis of two widely used regulations of genetic tests, disclosure duty and consent law, and we run several experiments in order to shed light on both the take-up rate of genetic testing and on the comparison of policyholders’ welfare under the two regulations....

We conduct experimental games with police applicants in Germany to investigate whether intrinsically motivated agents self-select into public service. Our focus is on trustworthiness and the willingness to enforce norms as key dimensions of intrinsic motivation in the police context. We find...

Discrimination in access to public services can act as a major obstacle towards addressing racial inequality. We examine whether racial discrimination exists in access to a wide spectrum of public services in the US. We carry out an email correspondence study in which we pose simple queries to...

Altruistic punishment is a fundamental driver for cooperation in human interactions. In this paper, we expand our understanding of this form of costly punishment to help explain a puzzle of voting behavior: why do people who are indifferent between two potential policy outcomes of an election...

In many cultures and industries gifts are given in order to influence the recipient, often at the expense of a third party. Examples include business gifts of firms and lobbyists. In a series of experiments, we show that, even without incentive or informational effects, small gifts strongly...

We compare two genetic testing regulations, Disclosure Duty (DD) and Consent Law (CL), in an environment where individuals choose to take a genetic test or not. DD forces agents to reveal the test results to their insurers, resulting in a discrimination risk. CL allows agents to withhold that...

Optimal voting rules have to be tailored to the underlying distribution of preferences. This paper shows that the introduction of a stage at which agents may themselves choose voting rules according to which they decide in a second stage may increase the sum of individuals' payoffs if players...

We study equilibrium reporting behavior in Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi (2013)-type cheating games when agents have a fixed cost of lying and image concerns not to be perceived as a liar. We show that equilibria naturally arise in which agents with low costs of lying randomize among a set of...