The effect of session size has largely been ignored in experimental studies, despite the possibility that it may play a role by changing people’s perception of the potential chance of encountering a certain type of people and by affecting the strength of the potential link between people. This...

We examine whether and to what extent joint choices are more or less patient and time-consistent than individual choices in households. We use data from an artefactual field experiment where both individual and joint time preferences were elicited. We find a substantial shift from individual to...

In this paper, we conduct a high stake experiment in rural China to investigate the determinants of individual and joint decisions regarding intertemporal choices, and estimate the relative influence of spouses on the joint decisions. We use the Convex Time Budget experimental method to elicit...

In an experiment, we study risk-taking of cohabitating student couples, finding that couples’ decisions are closer to risk-neutrality than single partners’ decisions. This finding is similar to earlier experiments with randomly assigned groups, corroborating external validity of earlier results.

Many economic decisions are made jointly within households. This raises the question about spouses’ relative influence on joint decisions and the determinants of relative influence. Using a controlled experiment (on inter-temporal choice), we let each spouse first make individual decisions and...

We present an experiment on strategic thinking and behavior of individuals and teams in oneshot normal-form games. Besides making choices, decision makers have to state their firstand second-order beliefs. We find that teams play the Nash strategy significantly more often, and their choices are...

We study household decision making in a high-stakes experiment with a random sample of households in rural China. Spouses have to choose between risky lotteries, first separately and then jointly. We find that spouses’ individual risk preferences are more similar the richer the household and...

We study behavior in a search experiment where sellers receive randomized bids from a computer. At any time, sellers can accept the highest standing bid or ask for another bid at positive costs. We find that sellers stop searching earlier than theoretically optimal. Inducing a mild form of time...

The aim of the present paper is to examine the existence and patterns of systematic within-country inequalities in effective land rights in Rwanda. The results of empirical estimations drawing on data on the land tenure arrangements of over 5,000 Rwandan households indeed suggest systematic...

This study is about institution building with limited resources. Through a case study of the establishment of a supreme audit institution (SAI) in Rwanda, we examine the tensions between institutional first-best benchmarks and local operational constraints in a developing country...