In this paper, we revisit the association between happiness and inequality. We argue that the interaction between the perceived and the actual fairness of the income generation process affects this association. Building on a simple model of individual labor-market participation under...

Rising income inequalities are widely debated in public and academic discourse. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by proposing a new family of measures of unfair inequality. To do so, we acknowledge that inequality is not bad per se, but that its underlying sources need to be taken...

We formulate a simple quantum decision model of the Ellsberg paradox. We report the results of an experiment we performed to test the matching probabilities predicted by this model using an incentive compatible method. We find that the theoretical predictions of the model are in conformity with...

We study the influence of reason and intuition on decision making over time. Facing a sequence of similar problems, agents can either decide rationally according to expected utility theory or intuitively according to case-based decision theory. Rational decisions are more precise but create...

We experimentally study the influence of local information conditions on elite capture and social exclusion in community-based development schemes with heterogeneous groups. Not only information on the distribution of aid resources through community-based schemes, but also information on who...

We examine preferences for redistribution inherent in Swedish tax policy 1971–2012 using the inverse optimal tax approach. The income distribution is carefully characterized with the help of administrative register data and we employ behavioral elasticities reflecting the perceived...

We study how the optimal degree of conservatism relates to decision-making procedures in a Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). In our framework, central bank conservatism is required to attenuate the volatility of monetary decisions generated by the presence of uncertainty about the committee...

This paper studies how organizational design affects moral outcomes. Subjects face the decision to either kill mice for money or to save mice. We compare a Baseline treatment where subjects are fully pivotal to a Diffused-Pivotality treatment where subjects simultaneously choose in groups of...

We characterize the Pareto-frontier in a simple Mirrleesian model of income taxation. We show how the second-best frontier which incorporates incentive constraints due to private information on productive abilities relates to the first-best frontier which takes only resource constraints into...

This paper examines optimal redistribution in a model with high- and low-skilled individuals with heterogeneous tastes for labor. We compare the extent to which optimal policies based on different normative criteria obey the principles of compensation (for differential skills) and responsibility...