Can “house money” explain asset market bubbles? We test this hypothesis in an asset market experiment with a certain dividend. We compare experiments where the initial portfolio of cash and shares is given to subjects, i.e. house money, to a treatment in which individual initial portfolios...

Holmström (1982) established that free riding behaviors are pervasive whenever people are paid according to aggregate measures of output such as team incentives. However, team incentives have been found to be particularly effective both in the lab and in the field. In this paper we show, in...

We study a principal-agent framework in which principals can assign wage-irrelevant goals to agents. We find evidence that, when given the possibility to set wage-irrelevant goals, principals select incentive contracts for which pay is less responsive to agents' performance. Agents' performance...

Several situations in our daily interactions are characterized by uncertainty and asymmetric information regarding the final outcomes. For example, an investor may overstate a project’s value, or a superior may choose to under, or over, state the gains from a project to a subordinate. We...

In real world situations the fundamental value of an asset is ambiguous. Recent theory has incorporated ambiguity in the dividend process and the information observed by investors, and studied its effect on asset prices. In this paper we experimentally study trader reaction to ambiguity when...

Financial markets are overwhelmed by daily announcements. We use experimental asset markets to assess the impact of releasing public messages with different levels of reliability on asset prices. Subjects receive qualitative announcements in predetermined trading periods that are either preset...

We study the effect of participative decision making in an experimental principalagent game, where the principal can consult the agent’s preferred option regarding the task to be undertaken in the final stage of the game. We show that consulting the agent was beneficial to principals as long...

We study the effect of firing threats and tenure in a virtual workplace that reproduces features of existing organizations. We show that organizations in which bosses can fire up to one third of their workforce produce twice more than organizations for which firing is not possible. Firing...

On-the-job leisure is a pervasive feature of the modern workplace. We studied its impact on work performance in a laboratory experiment by either allowing or restricting Internet access. We used a 2×2 experimental design in which subjects completing real-effort work tasks could earn cash...

Even though human social behavior has received considerable scientific attention in the last decades, its cognitive underpinnings are still poorly understood. Applying a dual-process framework to the study of social preferences, we show in two studies that individuals with a more...