We provide a direct test of the role of social preferences in voluntary cooperation. We elicit individuals' cooperation preference in one experiment and make a point prediction about the contribution to a repeated public good. This allows for a novel test as to whether there are types of players...

This study presents descriptive and causal evidence on the role of social environment for the formation of prosociality. In a first step, we show that socioeconomic status (SES) as well as the intensity of mother-child interaction and mothers' prosocial attitudes are systematically related to...

This paper studies how a preference for consistency can affect economic decision-making. 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...

Other-regarding preferences are central for the ability to solve collective action problems and thus for society's welfare. We study how the formation of other-regarding preferences during childhood is related to parental background. Using binary-choice dictator games to classify subjects into...

This paper studies how a preference for consistency can affect economic decision-making. 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...

This paper asks whether the gap in subjective happiness between spouses matters per se, i.e. whether it predicts divorce. We use three panel databases to explore this question. Controlling for the level of life satisfaction of spouses, we find that a higher satisfaction gap, even in the first...

While previous research has shown that social preferences develop in childhood, we study whether this development is accompanied by reduced use of deception when lies would harm others, and increased use of deception to benefit others. In a sample of children aged between 7 and 14, we find...

We provide experimental evidence on the emergence of redistributive societies. Individuals first vote on redistribution by feet and then learn their productivity and invest. We vary the individuals ́information about their productivities at the time when they choose a distribution rule and find...

This study investigates the influence of gender composition on allocation decisions involving a rank-inequality tradeoff. In a laboratory experiment, participants chose to either alleviate inequality by relinquishing their current relative rank or exacerbate inequality by maintaining their...

An influential subset of the literature on distributional preferences studies how preferences condition on information about workers’ characteristics, such as their relative productivity. In this study we confirm that there are default effects when such conditional fair-ness preferences are...