In this paper, I study markets where consumers are heterogeneous with respect to both their concerns for the quality of goods and the image associated with them. Consumers with a taste for quality lend a positive image to the product of their choice and thereby increase the product's value to...

During the Great Recession mass demonstrations indicated weakened political support in Europe. We show that growing dissatisfaction often reflects poor economic conditions and unemployment is particularly important. Using individual level data for 16 Western European countries for 1976-2010, we...

Whether pro-social preferences identified in economic laboratories survive in natural market contexts is an important and contested issue. We find that the willingness to buy at a higher price when higher wages are paid to the worker in a laboratory experiment framed as a market exchange...

Using a laboratory experiment, we present first evidence that social image concerns causally reduce the take-up of an individually beneficial transfer. Our design manipulates the informativeness of the take-up decision by varying whether transfer eligibility is based on ability or luck, and how...

One important function of consumption is for consumers to show off their taste, virtue or wealth. While empirical observations suggest that producers take this into account, existing research has concentrated on analyzing the demand side. This paper investigates how a monopolist optimally...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the introduction of mandatory face mask usage was accompanied by a heated debate. It was argued that community use of masks creates a false sense of security that could decrease social distancing, thus making matters worse. We conducted a randomized field experiment...