Taking the initiative is a crucial element of leadership and an important asset for many jobs. We assess this element of leadership in a game in which it emerges spontaneously since people have a non-obvious possibility to take the initiative. We can show that leadership in this game correlates...

Are people blamed for being pivotal if they implement an unpopular outcome in a sequential voting process? We conduct an experimental voting game and analyze how pivotality affects responsibility attribution by parties who can be negatively affected by the voting outcome. We measure...

Participants in a public goods experiment receive private or common signals regarding the so-called "point of no return", meaning that if the group's total contribution falls below this point, all payoffs are reduced. An individual faces the usual conflict between private and collective...

We present experimental evidence on the existence of lies which are disadvantageous to the person lying in individual decision problems. Potential reasons for this behavior are preferences for manipulating others’ perceptions or preserving a positive self-perception. If the utility gained from...

We examine the incentives to self-select into politics and how they depend on the transparency of the entry process. To this end, we set up a two-stage political competition model and test its key mechanisms in the lab. At the entry stage, potential candidates compete in a contest to become...

This paper analyzes responsibility attributions for outcomes of collective decision making processes. In particular, we ask if decision makers are blamed for being pivotal if they implement an unpopular outcome in a sequential voting process. We conduct an experimental voting game in which...

Typically, laboratory experiments suffer from homogeneous subject pools and self-selection biases. The usefulness of survey data is limited by measurement error and by the questionability of their behavioral relevance. Here we present a method integrating interactive experiments and...

This paper investigates the driving forces behind informal sanctions in cooperation games and the extent to which theories of fairness and reciprocity capture these forces. We find that cooperators' punishment is almost exclusively targeted towards the defectors but the latter also impose a...

Typically, laboratory experiments suffer from homogeneous subject pools and selfselection biases. The usefulness of survey data is limited by measurement error and by the questionability of their behavioral relevance. Here we present a method integrating interactive experiments and...

We investigate the effect of monetary policy on stock market bubbles and trading behavior in experimental asset markets. We introduce the possibility of investing in interest bearing bonds to the widely used laboratory asset market design of Smith et al. (1988). Treatment groups face a variable...