This paper studies the construction of social preferences in the lab. Experimental subjects have the opportunity to donate to a charity and to allocate money in a conventional dictator game. The results show that charitable donations and dictator game allocations are positively correlated. The...

This paper studies the construction of social preferences in the lab. Experimental subjects have the opportunity to donate to a charity and to allocate money in a conventional dictator game. The results show that charitable donations and dictator game allocations are positively correlated. The...

While it is well established that individuals and groups make different economic decisions, the reasons for the behavioral differences are still not fully understood. We experimentally compare individual and group behavior in a competitive setting where cheating can be used to outperform the...

Revealing the identities of contributors has been shown to increase cooperation in public goods games. In this paper we experimentally investigate whether this finding holds true when decisions are made by groups rather than individuals. We distinguish between groups in which members can discuss...

We use an experiment to test the hypothesis that groups consisting of like-minded cooperators are able to cooperate irrespective of punishment and therefore have a lower demand for a costly punishment institution than groups of like-minded free riders, who are unable to cooperate without...

Ostracism is practiced by virtually all societies around the world as a means of enforcing cooperation and excluding members who show anti-social behaviors or attitudes. In this paper, we use a public goods experiment to study whether groups choose to implement an institution that allows for the...

We present a simple two-steps procedure for a within-subject test of the inequity aversion model of Fehr and Schmidt (1999). In the first step, subjects played modified ultimatum and dictator games and were classified according to their preferences. In the second step, subjects with specific...

We present a simple two-steps procedure for a within-subject test of the inequity aversion model of Fehr and Schmidt (1999). In the first step, subjects played modified ultimatum and dictator games and were classified according to their preferences. In the second step, subjects with specific...

This paper investigates in how far equity preferences may matter for climate negotiations. For this purposes we conducted a simple experiment with people who have been involved in international climate policy. The experiment, which was run via the Internet, consisted of two simple non-strategic...

Opponents of the voluntary labeling scheme for genetically modified (GM) food products often argue that consumers have the ?right to know? and therefore advocate mandatory labeling. In this paper we argue against this line of reasoning. Using experimental auctions conducted with a sample of the...