The German Constitutional Court is radically different from the (mostly US) courts in which panel effects have been studied so widely. On the one hand, to a large extent, ideological and gender bias are neutralized by design. On the other hand, panels are not randomly composed. This makes it...

Panel effects have been widely studied in randomly composed panels. However for many courts, panel composition stays constant. Then judges become familiar with each other. They know what to expect from each other. There is room for mutual trust. A local culture may emerge. If rejection is the...

The German Constitutional Court is radically different from the (mostly US) courts in which panel effects have been studied so widely. On the one hand, to a large extent, ideological and gender bias are neutralized by design. On the other hand, panels are not randomly composed. This makes it...

Broken Windows: the metaphor has changed New York and Los Angeles. Yet it is far from undisputed whether the broken windows policy was causal for reducing crime. In a series of lab experiments we show that first impressions are indeed causal for cooperativeness in three different institutional...

According to Adam Smith (1790), human selfishness can be restrained by introspection. We test the effect of introspection on people's willingness to cooperate in a public good game. Drawing on the concept of identity utility (George A. Akerlof and Rachel E. Kranton, 2000), we show theoretically...

In a full-information, zero transactions costs world, the degree of protection afforded to an entitlement does not affect the likelihood of efficient trade. In reality, imperfect information is often inevitable. Specifically, a party will usually have incomplete information about fairness norms...

Experimental participants are more likely to follow an arbitrary rule the more of their peers do so as well. The difference between unconditional and conditional rule following is most pronounced for individuals who follow few rules unconditionally.

Arguably, for many citizens the perceived expected disutility from sanctions is smaller than the monetary gain from tax evasion. Nevertheless most people pay their taxes most of the time. In a lab experiment, we show that the willingness to pay taxes even absent enforcement is indeed pronounced....

Often, religion, law and tradition co-evolve. Religious precepts shape social practice, which translates into law. Yet this harmony is not universal. The Sharia guarantees daughters their share in the family estate. Yet in Pakistan, this rule clashes with tradition. While the country was jointly...

For decades, experimental economics has been very interested in behavior that could be characterized as practicing solidarity (although the term is rarely used). Solidarity is a key concept in Catholic Social Teaching. This paper builds a bridge between these two endeavors that, thus far, had...