This paper revisits the question of framing and the provision of public goods. It also addresses the question, is giving in Dictator Games an expression of altruism or an artefact of experimentation? What is unique about this paper is that we employ a “real donation” lab experiment in a...

This paper revisits the question of “warm glow” vs. „cold prickle” and the provision of public goods. It also addresses the question, is giving in Dictator Games an expression of altruism or an artifact of experimentation? What is unique about this paper is that we employ a “real...

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...

In contrast to the simplifying assumption of selfishness, social incentives have been shown to play a role in economic interactions. Before incorporating social incentives into models and policies, however, one needs to know their efficiency relative to standard pay-for-performance incentives....

We compare behavior in modified dictator games with and without role uncertainty. Subjects choose between a selfish action, a costly surplus creating action (altruistic behavior) and a costly surplus destroying action (spiteful behavior). While costly surplus creating actions are most frequent...

Microfinance is generally associated with high repayment rates. However, it is not clear whether the success of microfinance results only from the use of group lending or is also due to other mechanisms such as peer sanctioning or dynamic incentives induced by long-term relationships that are...

Many of real-world public-goods are characterized by a marginal per capita return (MPCR) close to zero and have to be provided by large groups. Up until now, there is almost no evidence on how large groups facing a low MPCR behave in controlled public-good laboratory experiments involving...

We study experimentally the effects of sorting in contests between groups of heterogeneous players whose within-group efforts are perfect substitutes. The theory predicts that higher aggregate effort will be reached when variation in ability between groups is lower, i.e., by a more balanced...

Using a group identity manipulation we examine the role of social preferences in an experimental one-shot centipede game. Contrary to what social preference theory would predict, we fnd that players continue longer when playing with outgroup members. The explanation we provide for this result...

In markets where transactions are governed by contractual incompleteness, revealed intentions to evade taxes may affect market performance. We experimentally examine the impact of tax evasion attempts on the performance of credence goods markets, where contractual incompleteness results from...