Individuals who share a common identity show persistently elevated contributions to public goods. Yet, so far the factors that actually trigger this welfare enhancement are not precisely understood. We investigate two channels: (1) subjects ́expectations on group members ́cooperativeness and...

We study the effect of communicating student-specific teacher expectations on academic performance. We randomize whether students (a) receive high-performance expectations, (b) are additionally paired with a classmate for encouragement, (c) receive information about past performance, or (d)...

We experimentally investigate the determinants of overconfidence and test the hypothesis, advanced by Robert Trivers, that overconfidence serves to more effectively persuade or deceive others. After performing a cognitively challenging task, half of our subjects are informed about the...