Leaks are pervasive in politics. Hence, many committees that nominally operate under secrecy de facto operate under the threat that information might be passed on to outsiders. We study theoretically and experimentally how this possibility affects the behavior of committee members and the...

This paper focuses on decisions under ambiguity. Participants in a laboratory experiment made decisions in three different settings: (a) individually, (b) individually after discussing the decisions with others, and (c) in groups of three. We show that groups are more likely to make...

Economic and social interaction takes place between individuals with heterogeneous characteristics. We investigate experimentally the emergence and informal enforcement of different contribution norms to a public good in homogeneous and different heterogeneous groups. When punishment is not...

Economic and social interaction takes place between individuals with heterogeneous characteristics. We investigate experimentally the emergence and informal enforcement of different contribution norms to a public good in homogeneous and different heterogeneous groups. When punishment is not...

The paper extends the standard tax evasion model by allowing for social interactions. In Manski's (1993) nomenclature, our model takes into account social conformity effects (i.e., endogenous interactions), fairness effects (i.e., exogenous interactions) and sorting effects (i.e., correlated...

The paper extends the standard tax evasion model by allowing for social interactions. In Manski's (1993) nomenclature, our model takes into account social conformity effects (i.e., endogenous interactions), fairness effects (i.e., exogenous interactions) and sorting effects (i.e., correlated...

One fundamental assumption often made in the literature on unawareness is that risk preferences are invariant to changes of awareness. We study how exposure to unawareness affects choices under risk. Participants in our experiment choose repeatedly between varying sure outcomes and a lottery in...

One fundamental assumption often made in the literature on unawareness is that risk preferences are invariant to changes of awareness. We study how exposure to unawareness affects choices under risk. Participants in our experiment choose repeatedly between varying sure outcomes and a lottery in...

Most monetary policy committees decide on interest rates using a simple majority voting rule. Given the inherent heterogeneity of committee members, this voting rule is suboptimal in terms of the quality of the interest rate decision, but popular for other (political) reasons. We show that a...