We analyze the optimal choice of risk in a two-stage tournament game between two players that have different concave utility functions. At the first stage, both players simultaneously choose risk. At the second stage, both observe overall risk and simultaneously decide on effort or investment....

This research integrates a standard "cheating" experiment into a broad household survey and finds relationships between individual characteristics and cheating behavior. We allow for attendance of others at the cheating experiment, addressing the "reputation to be seen as honest," finding there...

This paper studies the impact of incentives on worker self-selection in a controlled laboratory experiment. Subjects face the choice between a fixed and a variable payment scheme. Depending on the treatment, the variable payment is a piece rate, a tournament or a revenue-sharing scheme. We find...

Incentivized experiments in which individuals receive monetary rewards according to the outcomes of their decisions are regarded as the gold standard for preference elicitation in experimental economics. These task-related real payments are considered necessary to reveal subjects' "true...

Incentivized experiments in which individuals receive monetary rewards according to the outcomes of their decisions are regarded as the gold standard for preference elicitation in experimental economics. These task-related real payments are considered necessary to reveal subjects' "true...

We study the role of risk aversion underlying son preference in patriarchal societies, where sons serve as better insurance for old-age support than daughters. The implications of an insurance motive on son preference are two-fold. First, prior to the birth of their children, more risk-averse...

I revisit the question of which motive underlies insurance demand. I draw on the literature of state-dependent utility and on the literature of imperfectly divisible consumption to argue that the general purpose of insurance is not a risk transfer, but meeting a conditional need. In this way,...

Incentivized experiments in which individuals receive monetary rewards according to the outcomes of their decisions are regarded as the gold standard for preference elicitation in experimental economics. These task-related real payments are considered necessary to reveal subjects' \true...

This article develops a new rationale for the emergence of pay-for-performance contracts where the labor market is competitive, workers are risk averse, and firms are risk neutral and unaware of workers' productivities. The article shows that the prevalence of pay for performance rises and the...

This paper reports on an experiment designed to examine the effects of small-scale changes in wealth on risk attitudes. We find that the money given prior to risky choices does not induce a change of subjects' risk preferences. This result supports a key assumption in a recent literature over...