It is argued that the concept of well-being inequality cannot be properly defined without taking the reference process into account. The reference effect depends on how frequently individuals compare with others and on the degree of social transparency in society. In this paper we employ the...

Theoretical and empirical studies of consumer scheduling behavior in commuting, and the associated valuation of time and schedule delays usually ignore that consumers have more exibility to adjust their schedule in the longer run than in the shorter run, implying that also these valuations may...

When agents have present bias, they discount more between now and the next period than between period t ( 1) and t 1. How fast the future discount rate (evaluated today) decays is an empirical question. We show that the discount function can be non-parametrically identified with contracts that...

Growing interest in using personality variables in economic research leads to the question whether personality as measured by psychology is useful to predict economic behavior. Is it reasonable to expect values on personality scales to be predictive of behavior in economic games? It is undoubted...

Comparative payment schemes and tournament-style promotion mechanisms are pervasive in the work place. We test experimentally whether they have a negative impact on people’s willingness to cooperate. Participants first perform in a simple task and then participate in a public goods game. The...

In a punishment experiment, we separate the demand for punishment in general from the demand to conduct punishment personally. Subjects experience an unfair split of their earnings from a real effort task and have to decide on the punishment of the person who determines the distribution. First,...

We consider the possibility that cooperation in a prisoner's dilemma is fostered by people's voluntarily enhancement of their own vulnerability. The vulnerability of a player determines the effectiveness of possible punishment by the other. In the 'Gradual' mechanism, players may condition their...

Women are often less willing than men to compete, even in tasks where there is no gender gap in performance. Also, many people experience competitive contexts as stressful and previous research has documented that men and women sometimes react differently to acute stressors. We use two...

This study examines if couples time their work hours and how this work timing influences child care demand and the time that spouses jointly spend on leisure, household chores and child care. By using a innovative matching strategy, this studies identifies the timing of work hours that cannot be...

Can online social contacts replace the importance of real-life social connections in our pursuit of happiness? With the growing use of social network sites (SNSs), attention has been increasingly drawn to this topic. Our study empirically examines the effect of SNS use on happiness for different...