Remote work arrangements and increased virtual communication are commonplace. Particularly in organizations, virtual communication has become an essential tool for collaboration and exchanging information. Virtual communication channels, such as text or video messages, provide different levels...

This paper provides a new picture of how countries have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by examining the effects of the pandemic in terms of normative foundations for societal wellbeing. Social prosperity depends primarily on the functioning of four domains: the economy, the state, civil...

Are investors willing to give up a higher return if the investment generates positive environmental impact? We investigate this question with a decision experiment among crowdfunders, where they choose between a higher return or environmental impact. Overall, 65% of investors choose...

Culture has attributes of a global public good that needs to be preserved for mankind as a whole. World Culture Certificates are proposed to efficiently preserve World Heritage. The community of nations has to agree on the Global Heritage List and how much each nation is to contribute to that...

This paper uses panel data on over 200 regions of Europe to study the spatial distribution of UNESCO sites and the capacity of regional governments to conserve heritage, using new designations in the World Heritage List as a proxy. We test whether the location of a region matters by controlling...

This paper studies the impact of UNESCO World Heritage List (WHL) inscription on income and property values in the Italian municipalities that had their sites inscribed during the past two decades. To address the selection bias and identify the causal impact of inscription, we focus on sites...

This paper explores a unique new source of social valuation: a market for bodies. The internet hosts a number of large synthetic worlds which users can visit by piloting a computer-generated body, known as an avatar. Avatars can have an asset value, in that users can spend time to increase their...

We report results of an experiment on prices and demand in a fantasy-based virtual world. A virtual world is a persistent, synthetic, online environment that can be accessed by many users at the same time. Because most virtual worlds are built around a fantasy theme, complete with magic,...

In March 1999, a small number of Californians discovered a new world called "Norrath", populated by an exotic but industrious people. About 12,000 people call this place their permanent home, although some 60,000 are present there at any given time. The nominal hourly wage is about USD 3.42 per...

Several million people currently have accounts in massively multi-player online games, places in cyberspace that are effectively large-scale shared virtual reality environments. The population of these virtual worlds has grown rapidly since their inception in 1996; significantly, each world also...