Experimental and empirical evidence shows that the utility an individual derives from a certain state depends on the reference state she compares it to. According to economic theory, the reference state is determined by past, present and future outcomes of either the individual herself or her...

Experimental and field evidence show that people perceive and evaluate new risks differently from risks that are common. In particular, people get used to the presence of certain risks and become less eager to avoid them. We explain this observation by including risks in the reference states of...

Three results emerge from a simple experiment on imitation. First, I find behavior which strongly suggests an intention to imitate. Second, players imitate successful other players rather than repeating successful actions. Third, to find imitation examples, players use several periods of memory....

Private banks often blame state guarantees to distort competition by giving public banks the advantage of lower funding costs. In this paper I show that if borrowers perceive the public bank as supporting economic development, private banks may be able to separate firms by self selection, enter...

We study the relation between people's personal values and environmentally friendly consumption behavior. We first assessed subjects' personal values using the Aspiration Index. Then subjects participated in a laboratory supermarket offering organic and conventional food products and different...

Die Covid-19-Pandemie verursacht weltweit erhebliche Verwerfungen in Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft. Kurz- und mittelfristigen Finanzhilfen zur Abmilderung der akuten Folgen von Corona müssen so ausgerichtet werden, dass sie gleichzeitig den langfristig nötigen Wandel hin zu einer nachhaltigen...

By now there is substantial experimental evidence that people make use of "moral wiggle room" (Dana et al., 2007), that is, they tend to exploit moral excuses for selfish behavior. However, this evidence is limited to dictator games. In our experiment, a trust game variant, we study whether...

In experimental economics there exists a lively debate about the independence of observations. Although opinions on the issue differ widely, all concerns regard the independence of subjects' behavior within one session or experiment. This paper attempts to shed some light on the independence of...