Although theoretical research on optimal capital taxation suggest to incorporate public opinions, the empirical literature on preferences regarding capital taxation almost exclusively focusses on the emotionally loaded estate tax. This paper presents a more comprehensive investigation of...

The individual capacity to form personal preferences constitutes an essential element of the democratic process. At the same time, policies with far-reaching consequences often require profound expertise. Taxation is such an example. Due to its complex character, bounded rationality might induce...

We study how punishment influences conditional cooperation. We ask two questions: 1) how does conditional cooperation change if a subject can be punished and 2) how does conditional cooperation change if a subject has the power to punish others. In particular, we disentangle the decision to be a...

This paper investigates whether tax evasion can be beneficial for an optimal income tax schedule. Past theoretical discussions have presented mixed outcomes as to whether allowing taxpayers to opt into uncertainty could indeed enhance overall tax revenues. In this study, we conducted an original...

We study how punishment influences conditional cooperation. We ask two questions: 1) how does conditional cooperation change if a subject can be punished and 2) how does conditional cooperation change if a subject has the power to punish others. In particular, we disentangle the decision to be a...

Risk and uncertainty are an integral part of everyday human interactions. Recent literature has shown that group size uncertainty might change strategic cooperation behavior in significant ways. In this paper, we investigate how conditional cooperation changes under group size uncertainty in a...

The goal of this paper is to study how litigation and settlement behavior is affected by subjects motivated by spiteful preferences -- a potentially common driver for litigation behavior. We focus on litigation and settlement behavior both under the American and the English fee-shifting rule. To...

This paper studies how litigation and settlement behavior is affected by agents motivated by spiteful preferences under the American and the English fee-shifting rule. We conduct an experiment and find that litigation expenditures and settlement requests are higher for more spiteful...