We examine peer effects in risk taking with complete information and compare explanations for peer effects based on relative payoff concerns to explanations that allow peer choices to matter. We vary experimentally whether individuals can condition a simple lottery choice on the lottery choice,...

In recent years, the banking industry has witnessed several cases of excessive risk-taking that frequently have been attributed to problematic professional norms. We conduct experiments with employees from several banks in which we manipulate the saliency of their professional identity and...

We propose a model of instrumental belief choice under loss aversion. When new information arrives, an agent is prompted to abandon her prior. However, potential posteriors may induce her to take actions that generate a lower utility in some states than actions induced by her prior. These losses...

Bubbles are omnipresent in lab experiments with asset markets. Most of these experiments were conducted in environments with only human traders. Today markets are substantially determined by algorithmic traders. Here we use a laboratory experiment to measure changes of human trading behavior if...

Multiplicative growth processes that are subject to random shocks often have a skewed distribution of outcomes. In a number of incentivized laboratory experiments we show that a large majority of participants either strongly underestimate skewness or ignore it completely. Participants...

One possible determinant of overpricing on asset markets is a lack of self-control abilities of traders. Self-control is the individual capacity to override or inhibit undesired behavioral tendencies such as impulses and to refrain from acting on them. We implement the first experiment that is...

Petroleum administration can be regarded as a principal-agent problem. The government allocates exploration and production rights to petroleum companies on behalf of the population. The government is the principal and the companies are agents. With the aim of capturing revenue for the state, the...

Petroleum administration can be regarded as a principal-agent problem. The government allocates exploration and production rights to petroleum companies on behalf of the population. The government is the principal and the companies are agents. With the aim of capturing revenue for the state, the...

We examine peer effects in risk taking with complete information and compare explanations for peer effects based on relative payoff concerns to explanations that allow peer choices to matter. We vary experimentally whether individuals can condition a simple lottery choice on the lottery choice,...

Multiplicative growth processes that are subject to random shocks often have a skewed distribution of outcomes. In a number of incentivized laboratory experiments we show that a large majority of participants either strongly underestimate skewness or ignore it completely. Participants...