Empirical evidence has shown that people are unwilling to insure rare losses at subsidized premiums and at the same time take-up insurance for moderate risks at highly loaded premiums. This paper explores whether prospect theory, in particular diminishing sensitivity and loss aversion, can...

We provide an experimental test of theories to explain differences in redistribution preferences across countries. We involved participants in standardized situations of redistribution in four Western countries, varying the relevance of self-interest and uncertainty over initial earnings. Demand...

We test for different theories purporting to explain cross-country differences in income redistribution through standardized experimental choices. US Americans and Italians demand less redistribution than Norwegians and Germans, regardless of whether self-interest is relevant. Those earning (or...

Reducing criminal acts in society is a crucial duty of governments. Establishing punishment structures to attain this goal involves high costs. Typically, both theorists and practitioners resort to the adjustment of severity and/or certainty of punishment as effective deterrents of criminal...

In the context of eliciting preferences for decision making under risk, we ask the question: which might be the 'best' method for eliciting such preferences?ʺ. It is well known that different methods differ in terms of the bias in the elicitation; it is rather less well-known that different...

Um die Arbeitsanreize und die Verteilungsgerechtigkeit des Arbeitslosengeldes II (ALG II) zu analysieren, ist eine Quantifizierung des Arbeitsleides und des Wertes der Haushaltsproduktion in verschiedenen Haushaltstypen notwendig. Da diese Größen nicht direkt beobachtbar sind, verwendet die...

Several models of choice under uncertainty imply systematic violations of transitivity of preference. Our experiments explored whether people show patterns of intransitivity predicted by these models. To distinguish "true" violations from those produced by "error," a model was fit in which each...

Several experimental studies observed substantial violations of transitivity in decisions between risky lotteries over monetary outcomes. The goal of our experiment is to test whether these violations also affect the evaluation of health states. A particular feature of our experimental design is...

In the recent literature, several hypotheses have been put forward in order to explain the decline of contributions in repeated public good games. We present results of an experiment which allows to evaluate these hypotheses. The main characteristics of our experimental design are a variation of...

This paper presents an experimental study analyzing common consequence effects with binary choice, willingness-to-pay (WTP), and willingness-to-accept (WTA). Consistent with previous research we do not find clearcut evidence of fanning out in the absence of certainty effects. Violation rates of...