There is much debate as to why economics students display more self-interested behavior than other students: whether homo economicus self-select into economics or students are instead “indoctrinated” by economics learning, and whether these effects impact on preferences or beliefs about...

Many experimental studies report that economics students tend to act more selfishly than students of other disciplines, a finding that received widespread public and professional attention. Two main explanations that the existing literature offers for the differences found in the behavior...

Human decision making is a process guided by different and partly competing mo-tivations that can each dominate behavior and lead to different effects depending on strength and circumstances. "Over-stylizingʺ neglects such competing concerns and context-dependence, although it facilitates the...

We conduct an experiment assessing the extent to which people trade off the economic costs of truthfulness against the intrinsic costs of lying. The results allow us to reject a type-based model. People's preferences for truthfulness do not identify them as only either quot;economic typesquot;...

This paper examines the willingness of private financial decision makers to pay for socially responsible investments (SRI). Our empirical analysis is based on unique data from a representative computer-based survey in Germany that especially comprised two stated choice experiments. The...

This paper uses a controlled laboratory experiment to investigate the effect of wealth on individual social responsibility (ISR), defined as choosing a more socially responsible product if a cheaper alternative is available. We find that rich consumers are significantly less likely to engage in...

This paper explores the effects of incidental guilt on Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) decisions of retail investors. Do investors who feel guilty invest more in SRIs to clear their conscience? Are guilty investors willing to sacrifice returns to restore their moral selves? Using survey...

Green startups are a major driver of eco-innovation and as such a major contributor to climate change mitigation and green growth. However, they often lack sufficient funding from investors. Our study focuses on the factors that determine venture capital investors to invest in green startups. In...

I suppose that people react with anger when others show themselves not to be minimally altruistic. With heterogeneous agents, this can account for the experimental results of ultimatum and dictator games. Moreover, it can account for the surprisingly large fraction of individuals who offer an...

This paper considers the effect of status or relative income on work effort combining experimental evidence from a gift-exchange game with ISSP survey data. We find a consistent negative effect of others' incomes on individual effort in both datasets. The individual's rank in the income...