We investigate experimentally whether social learners appreciate the redundancy of information conveyed by their observed predecessors' actions. Each participant observes a private signal and enters an estimate of the sum of all earlier-moving participants' signals plus her own. In a first...

We study spatially differentiated competition between charities by partnering with two foodbanks in two neighboring cities to conduct a field experiment with roughly 350 donation appeals. We induce spatial differentiation by varying the observability of charities' location such that each donor...

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...

A number of studies show that there is a link between social comparison and high levels of household debt. However, the exact mechanisms behind this link are not yet well understood. In this paper, we perform a lab experiment designed to study the eff ects of social image concerns and peer...

Does social recognition motivate prosocial individuals? We run large-scale experiments at Italy's main blood donors association, testing social recognition in social media and peer groups. We experimentally disentangle visibility concerns and peer comparisons, and study how exposure to different...

In this article we examine how model selection in neural networks can be guided by statistical procedures such as hypotheses tests, information criteria and cross validation. The application of these methods in neural network models is discussed, paying attention especially to the identification...

Die Klimaschutzdiskussion wird von der Frage dominiert, welche gesamtwirtschaftlichen Kosten mit der Umgestaltung des Energiesystems zu klimaverträglichen Strukturen verbunden sind. Höhe und Verteilung dieser Kosten entscheiden darüber, ob sich umweltpolitische Strategien zum nachhaltigen...