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 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...

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...

This paper examines the effect of peers on individual risk taking. In the absence of informational motives, we investigate why social utility concerns may drive peer effects. We test for two main channels: utility from payoff differences and from conforming to the peer. We show experimentally...

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...

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...

This paper studies the design of the optimal non linear taxation in an economy where longevity varies across agents, and depends on three factors: longevity genes, health investment and farsightedness. Provided earnings, farsightedness and genes are correlated, governmental intervention can be...

Vitamin D is vital in all vertebrates because it allows them to absorb more calcium from their diets, contributing to stronger skeletal systems and stature growth. Using a new source of 19th century US state prison records, this study contrasts the statures of comparable African-Americans and...

We employ panel data from three waves of a large representative population survey carried out between June and November 2020 to assess in what regards and to what extent different groups of the German population are affected by the COVID- 19 crisis. Using common factor analysis, we demonstrate...

To limit the dramatic growth of U.S. health care expenditures, some states have mandated that medical providers publicly report their charge prices. Our study evaluates the heterogeneous effects of this price transparency policy. We use a comprehensive database that covers more than 2,000...