We consider the interaction of intrinsic motivation and concerns for social approval in a laboratory experiment. We elicit a proxy for Fairtrade preferences before the experiment in which we elicit willingness to pay for conventional and Fairtrade chocolate. Treatments vary whether this can be...

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...

We consider the interaction of intrinsic motivation and concerns for social approval in a laboratory experiment. We elicit a proxy for Fairtrade preferences before the experiment. In the experiment, we elicit willingness to pay for conventional and Fairtrade chocolate. Treatments vary whether...

We analyze reciprocal behavior when moral wiggle room exists. Dana et al. (2007) show that giving in a dictator game is only partly due to distributional preferences as the giving rate drops when situational excuses for selfish behavior are provided. Our binary trust game closely follows their...

This paper provides a direct test of the hypothesis that agents' objective functions are non-separable in economic incentives and social preferences. We study experimentally fixed-prize contests using a 2x2 design, varying orthogonally the degree of competition of the incentive mechanism...

Chapter written for the Handbook of Reciprocity, Gift-Giving and Altruism

Most economic models are based on the self-interest hypothesis that assumes that all people are exclusively motivated by their material self-interest. In recent years experimental economists have gathered overwhelming evidence that systematically refutes the self-interest hypothesis and suggests...

This paper surveys recent experimental and field evidence on the impact of concerns for fairness, reciprocity and altruism on economic decision making. It also reviews some new theoretical attempts to model the observed behavior.

In this paper, we use the classical twin design to provide estimates of genetic and environmental influences on experimentally elicited preferences for risk and giving. Using standard methods from behavior genetics, we find strong prima facie evidence that these preferences are broadly heritable...