In an experimental setup we investigate the effect of defaults on charitable giving. In the treatment group, subjects can either specify a charity of their choice, or select one from a default list of five wellknown charities; in the control group we do not provide the list. In a sample of 869...

This study investigates the selection into lab experiments among university students based on data from two cohorts of a university's first-year students. The analysis combines two experiments: a classroom experiment in which we elicited measures for risk, time, social preferences, confidence,...

One lingering puzzle is why voluntary contributions to public goods decline over time in experimental and real-world settings. We show that the decline of cooperation is driven by individual preferences for imperfect conditional cooperation. Many people's desire to contribute less than others,...

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...

Previous studies have shown that individuals are less likely to help a person in need when there are "bystanders" present who can also offer help. We designed an experiment to re-examine this "bystander effect" using modified dictator games. We find lower giving rates in the presence of...

In a variety of individual decision contexts, people have been shown to exhibit presentbiased time preferences. Little is known, however, about discounting when there are trade-offs between own and others' consumption. In this paper, we provide a systematic analysis of present bias in individual...

This paper uses a novel experimental design to study the contagion of pro- and antisocial behavior and the role of social proximity among peers. Across systematic variations thereof, we find that anti-social behavior is generally more contagious than pro-social behavior. Surprisingly, we also...

Both theory and recent empirical evidence on nudging suggest that observability of behavior acts as an instrument for promoting (discouraging) pro-social (anti-social) behavior. Our study questions the universality of these claims. We employ a novel four-party setup to disentangle the roles that...

Little is known about the underlying mechanisms of behavioral contagion, in particular with respect to differences in contagion of pro- versus anti-social behavior. Our principal contribution is the use of a novel experimental approach that enables us to analyze the contagion of behavior under...

Psychological game theory can provide rational-choice-based framing effects; frames influence beliefs, beliefs influence motivations. We explain this theoretically and explore empirical relevance experimentally. In a 2×2 design of one-shot public good games we show that frames affect subject's...