Some companies engage in mass fundraising in addition to their core business. Via a corporate social responsibility (CSR) channel this may increase sales. However, ask avoidance, if present, could imply that fundraising activities may harm a company's core business. We examine how asking for...

Some companies engage in mass fundraising - where thousands of recipients are asked to make small donations - in addition to their core business. Via a corpo-rate social responsibility (CSR) channel this may increase sales. However, recent research uncovered significant "ask avoidance" which, if...

Existing sociological research on support for anti-poverty programs largely focuses on broad categories of welfare or assistance to the poor rather than particular types of transfers. Using an experimental survey design and mixed methods research, we examine whether support for anti-poverty...

In settings where other-regarding motives are likely to be (and some would argue, should be) at the forefront of our minds, how much of our behavior can still be explained by narrow pecuniary self-interest by itself? In an experiment where subjects are asked to vote between two income...

How can we maximize the common good? This is a central organizing question of public policy design, across political parties and ideologies. The answer typically involves the provisioning of public goods such as fresh air, national defense, and knowledge. Public goods are costly to produce but...

The quality of governance crucially affects corporate outcomes, and may be particularly important for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) not disciplined by market competition forces. We examine the impact of board composition on the performance of companies controlled by public entities in Italy....

Whether, and if so, how exactly gender differences are manifested in moral judgment has recently been at the center of much research on moral decision making. Previous research suggests that women are more deontological than men in personal, but not impersonal, moral dilemmas. However, typical...

Cognitive biases play a fundamental part in franchisor-franchisee deal making. Ordinarily, franchisors have more power and information than do franchisees. The disparity between these parties is often exacerbated by the franchisees' psychological dispositions. Are franchisees biased or...

Courts are rarely asked to judge beauty. Such a subjective practice would normally be anathema to the ideal of objective legal standards. However, one area of federal law has a long tradition of explicitly requiring courts to make aesthetic decisions: the law of design. New designs may be...

Conflicts of interest can lead experts to give biased and corrupt advice. Although disclosure is often proposed as a potential solution to these problems, we show that it can have perverse effects. First, people generally do not discount advice from biased advisors as much as they should, even...