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,...

In an experimental setup we investigate the effect of two different choice architectures on donation decisions. In the treatment group, subjects can either specify a charity of their choice, or select one from a list of five well-known charities; in the control group we do not provide a list. In...

This paper explores whether the experience of a severe recession during early adulthood shapes individuals' prosocial attitudes. The analysis uses survey responses to experimentally validated questions that measure prosocial attitudes for approximately 65,000 respondents in 75 countries. The...

This paper demonstrates that short-term peer exposure can generate achievement effects which persist for several months and years. I study a mandatory freshmen week for first-year undergraduates and exploit the random assignment of students to freshmen teams. I find that the freshmen week...

We examine the role of cooperative preferences, beliefs, and punishments to uncover potential cross-societal differences in voluntary cooperation. Using one-shot public goods experiments in four comparable subject pools from the US and the UK (two similar Western societies) and Morocco and...

Disability insurance (DI) beneficiaries lose part of their benefits if their earnings exceed certain thresholds ("cash-cliffs"). This implicit taxation is considered the prime reason for low DI outflow. We analyse a conditional cash program that incentivises work related reductions of disability...

Does after-school care provision promote mothers' employment and balance the allocation of paid work among parents of schoolchildren? We address this question by exploiting variation in cantonal (state) regulations of after-school care provision in Switzerland. To establish exogeneity of...

University students have been particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We present results from the first wave of the Global COVID-19 Student Survey, which was administered at 28 universities in the United States, Spain, Australia, Sweden, Austria, Italy, and Mexico between April and...

We investigate the impact of wage comparisons for worker productivity. We present three studies which all use three-person gift-exchange experiments. Consistent with Akerlof and Yellen's (1990) fair wage-effort hypothesis we find that disadvantageous wage discrimination leads to lower efforts...

Substantial evidence suggests the behavioral relevance of social preferences and also the importance of social influence effects ("peer effects"). Yet, little is known about how peer effects and social preferences are related. In a three-person gift-exchange experiment we find causal evidence...