An active area of research within the social sciences concerns the underlying motivation for sharing scarce resources and engaging in other pro-social actions. We develop a theoretical framework that sheds light on the developmental origins of social preferences by providing mechanisms through...

to the class of games in which financial payoffs and `doing the right thing' are not necessarily in conflict. We argue that behaviour is crucially linked to not only the preferences of people, but also the properties of the situation. By doing so, we are able to provide a road map of the...

We use a sample of subsistence farmers in Sierra Leone as respondents to compare behavior in a context-free experiment (a standard public goods game) and behavior in the field (a real development intervention). There is no meaningful correlation in behavior across contexts. This casts doubt on...

We use a sample of subsistence farmers in Sierra Leone as respondents to compare behavior in a context-free experiment (a standard public goods game) and behavior in the field (a real development intervention). There is no meaningful correlation in behavior across contexts. This casts doubt on...

Psychological insights have made inroads within most areas of study in economics. One area where less advance has occurred is environmental and resource economics. In this study, we examine preference reversals over evaluation modes, in which economic values critically depend on whether a good...

The minimax argument represents game theory in its most elegant form: simple but with stark predictions. Although some of these predictions have been met with reasonable success in the field, experimental data have generally not provided results close to the theoretical predictions. In a...

This study presents an overview of modern field experiments and their usage in economics. Our discussion focuses on three distinct periods of field experimentation that have influenced the economics literature. The first might well be thought of as the dawn of ""field"" experimentation: the work...

Evidence suggests the calibration of hypothetical and actual behavior is good-specific. We examine whether clustering commodities into mutual categories can reduce the burden. While we reject a common calibration across sets of commodities, a sport-specific calibration function cannot be rejected.

In organizations, teams are ubiquitous. 'Weakest Link' and 'Best Shot' are incentive schemes that tie a group member’s compensation to the output of their group’s least and most productive member, respectively. In this paper, we test the impact of these incentive schemes by conducting two...

In the past several decades the experimental method has lent deep insights into economics. One perhaps surprising area that has contributed is the experimental study of children, where advances as varied as the evolution of human behaviors that shape markets and institutions, to how early life...