We conduct a randomized field experiment with a Yale service club and find that the promise of public recognition increases giving. Some may claim that they give when offered public recognition in order to motivate others to give too, rather than for the more obvious expected private gain from...

Many of the most significant risks that people face in their lives are left-skewed, i.e., imply large losses with only small probability. I characterize skewness in binary risks, which are widely applied in both economic models and experiments. Moreover, I provide an explicit re-parametrization...

We compare the ability of two common compensation structures, efficiency wages (EW) and deferred compensation (DC), at inducing effort from workers. We test predictions on effort provision and elicit preferences between the two wage structures. The theoretical predictions on effort are generally...

Many auctions are followed by a resale market which occurs when the winner of the auction resells the item won to one of the participants from the original auction. The existence of such transactions may initially appear counter intuitive. However, this paper will show that active inter-bidder...

This paper reports on an experiment designed to examine individual and market outcomes with a mixture of rational and non-rational traders. Using values elicited via auctions, we measure a specific form of irrationality: the tendency to overweight high payoff, low probability events, or...

Although the theory of optimal contracts and the principal agent model are now well established in the literature, empirical support for this theory has been mixed at best. We use economic experiments to test contract theory and assess the empirical relevance of two possible confounding factors...

Being the leader in a group often involves making risky decisions that affect the payoffs of all members, and the decision to take this responsibility in a group is endogenous in many contexts. In this paper, we experimentally study: (1) the willingness of men and women to make risky decisions...

We present a distinctiveness, relevance and plausibility (DRP) method for systematically evaluating potential experimental confounds. A claim is a statement being inferred on the basis of experimental data analysis. A potential confound is a statement providing a prima facie reason why the claim...

We study the individual behavior of students and workers in an experiment where they repeatedly face the same cooperative task. The data show that clerical workers differ from college students in overall cooperation rates, strategy adoption and use of punishment opportunities. Students cooperate...

Kahneman and Tversky (1979) argued that risky decisions in high stakes environments can be informed using questionnaires with hypothetical choices. Yet results by Holt and Laury (2002) suggest that questionnaire responses and decisions in hypothetical and low monetary payoff environments do not...