We present evidence that non-cognitive skills such as individual investors’ personality traits significantly impact their portfolio choices. Based on large-scale survey data from the 2006-2012 waves of the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) we show that portfolio decisions are influenced by...

Using the 2006 wave of the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), this paper sheds light on the role jointly played by individuals’ financial risk tolerance and their level of trust in others (generalized trust) in affecting their risky assets investments. We document that...

This paper presents empirical evidence that \tax morale" - taxpayers' intrinsic motivation to pay taxes - constitutes a new determinant of happiness, even after controlling for several demographic and socioeconomic factors. Using data on Italian households for 2004, we assess the strength of tax...

In real life, punishment is often implemented only insofar as punishers are entitled to punish and punishees deserve to be punished. We provide an experimental test for this principle of legitimacy in the framework of a public goods game, by comparing it with a classic (unrestricted) punishment...

We experimentally investigate cooperation within a finitely repeated public goods game framework where peer punishment is possible but, unlike previous work, in each round access to sanctioning power is exclusively awarded to the group’s top contributor. We compare this mechanism with a...

Though risk attitude is central to economics and finance, relatively little is known about how it is formed and how it changes over time. Based on US data from a dedicated psycho-social module on lifestyle of the 2010 Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we provide new evidence on the correlation...

In this paper, we quantify the extent and identify some major determinants of lying in politics. We focus on public claims made by US national politicians between 2007 and 2012 and present a series of intriguing results. While politicians – and prominent ones in particular – are reluctant to...

In this study we provide direct evidence on the relationship between social status and personality traits. Using survey data from the 2006-2012 waves of the HRS, we show that individuals’ self-perceived social status is associated with all the “Big Five” personality traits, after...

Is culture an important variable to explain whether groups can successfully provide public goods? A wealth of empirical evidence on both industrialized and developing countries shows that cooperation levels decrease in the presence of ethnic divisions. Although several laboratory works deal with...