Awards in the form of orders, medals, decorations and titles are ubiquitous in monarchies and republics, private organizations, not-for-profit and profit-oriented firms. Nevertheless, economists have disregarded this kind of non-material extrinsic incentive. The demand for awards relies on an...

One can be independent, or subject to decisions made by others. This paper empirically tests whether individuals attach an intrinsic value to the institutional difference between independence and hierarchy. Taking self-employment as an important case of independence, it is shown that the...

This paper discusses a novel approach to elicit people's preferences for public goods, namely the life satisfaction approach. Reported subjective well-being data are used to directly evaluate utility consequences of public goods. The strengths of this approach are compared to traditional...

Empirical evidence is provided for the importance of non-reciprocal pro-social behavior of individuals in an anonymous, n-person pure public good setting. A unique panel data set of 136,000 observations is matched with an extensive survey. Even under anonymous conditions, a large number of...

Most professional economists believe that economists in general are more selfish than other persons and that this greater selfishness is due to economics education. This paper offers empirical evidence against this widely held belief. Using a unique data set about giving behavior in connection...

We propose that outcome utility and process utility can be distinguished and empirically measured. People gain procedural utility from participating in the political decision-making process itself, irrespective of the outcome. Nationals enjoy both outcome and process utility, while foreigners...

Tax compliance has been studied in economics by analysing the individual decision of a representative person between paying and evading taxes. A neglected aspect of a tax compliance is the interaction of taxpayers and tax authorities. The relationship between the two actors can be understood as...

Historical events are reflected in asset prices. In this paper, we analyse government bond prices of Germany and Austria traded on the Swiss bourse during WWII. Some war events that are generally considered crucial are clearly reflected in government bond prices. This holds, in particular, for...

Corporate scandals, reflected in excessive management compensation and fraudulent accounts, cause considerable damage. Agency theory's insistence on linking the compensation of managers and directors as closely as possible to firm performance is a major reason for these scandals. They cannot be...