This paper presents experimental evidence that contributions to a public good can bepath-dependent for a limited time span. We study a repeated linear public-good gamewith punishment opportunities. Our data shows that subjects who had experienced ahigher marginal return on public-good...

We present an experimental study on the wasted resources associated with tax evasion. The waste arises from taxpayers and tax authorities, investing costly effort in concealment, respectively detect ion, of tax evasion. We show that (socially ineffcient) efforts depend positively on the...

Few micro…nance-funded businesses grow beyond subsistence entrepreneur-ship. This paper considers one possible explanation: that the structure ofexisting micro…nance contracts may discourage risky but high-expected returninvestments. To explore this possibility, I develop a theory that uni…es...

Preference for control affects investment behavior. Participants of laboratory experiments invest different amount of money in a risky asset when face with two different methods of control which have identical payoff structure and probability distribution, but provide different sense of control....

Economics and management science share the tradition of ordering risk aversionby fitting the best expected utility (EU) model with a certain utility function to in-dividual data, and then using the utility curvature for each individual as the soleindex of risk attitude. (Cumulative) Prospect...

Two rationality arguments are used to justify the link between condi-tional and unconditional preferences in decision theory: dynamic consistencyand consequentialism. Dynamic consistency requires that ex ante contingentchoices are respected by updated preferences. Consequentialism states...

This paper compares two prominent empirical measures of individualrisk attitudes | the Holt and Laury (2002) lottery-choice task and the multi-itemquestionnaire advocated by Dohmen, Falk, Human, Schupp, Sunde and Wagner(forthcoming) | with respect to (a) their within-subject stability over time...

We study properties of structured financial products optimizing a utility functional of a customer. The conventional method may have the disadvantage that the a priori restriction to a certain number of assets could make it impossible to find the optimal portfolio. So instead of optimizing the...

This study investigates loss aversion when the reference point is state-dependent.Using a state-dependent structure, prospects are more attractive if they depend positively on the reference point and are less attractive in case of negative dependence. In addition, the structure is neutral in the...

In an information cascade experiment participants are confronted with artificial predecessors predicting in line with the BHW model (Bikchandani et al.,1992). Using the BDM (Becker et al., 1964) mechanism we study participants'probability perceptions based on maximum prices for participating in...