The disposition effect, i.e., the tendency to sell winning stocks too early and losing stocks too late is one of the most frequently observed and discussed biases of financial investors. We investigate in a laboratory experiment whether the option of automatic selling devices causally reduces...

People do not like to delegate the distribution of favors. To explain this reluctance we disentangle reward motives in an experiment, in which an investor can directly transfer money to a trustee or delegate this decision to another investor. Varying the transfer values of investor and delegate,...

This paper presents an experiment on the loyalty enhancing effect potentially created by retroactive price reduction schemes. Such price reductions are applied to all units bought in a certain time frame if the total quantity passes a given threshold. Close to the threshold, the marginal price...

This paper presents results from an experiment studying a two-person 4x4 pure coordination game. We seek to identify a labeling of actions that induces subjects to select all options with the same probability. Such a display of actions must be free from salient properties that might be used by...

Machiavelli advises against delegating the distribution of favors. We test this claim in an experiment, in which an investor can directly transfer money to a trustee or delegate this decision to another investor. Varying the value of the transfers of the investor and the delegate, we find that...

A small lie appears trivial but it obviously violates moral commandments. We analyze whether the preference for others’ truth telling is absolute or depends on the size of a lie. In a laboratory experiment we compare punishment for different sizes of lies controlling for the resulting economic...

Are people blamed for being pivotal if they implement an unpopular outcome in a sequential voting process? We conduct an experimental voting game and analyze how pivotality affects responsibility attribution by parties who can be negatively affected by the voting outcome. We measure...

In the two-person sequential best shot game, first player 1 contributes to a public good and then player 2 is informed about this choice before contributing. The payoff from the public good is the same for both players and depends only on the maximal contribution. Efficient voluntary cooperation...

Two pairs of two participants each interact repeatedly in two structurally independent but informationally linked Prisoner’s Dilemma games. Neither pair receives feedback about past choices by their own partner but is fully informed about the choices by the other pair. Considering this as a...

We examine the incentive effects of funding contracts on entrepreneurial effort decisions and allocative efficiency. We experiment with funding contracts that differ in the structure of investor repayment and, therefore, in the incentives for entrepreneurial effort provision. Theoretically the...