What makes workers happy? Here we argue that pure ?rank? matters. It is currently believed that wellbeing is determined partly by an individual?s absolute wage (say, 30,000 dollars a year) and partly by the individual?s relative wage (say, 30,000 dollars compared to an average in the company or...

Typically, laboratory experiments suffer from homogeneous subject pools and self-selection biases. The usefulness of survey data is limited by measurement error and by the questionability of their behavioral relevance. Here we present a method integrating interactive experiments and...

According to social-psychological research, feelings of uncertainty in decision-making evoke two opposite responses: (i) reduction of uncertainty by information search, leading to less stereotyping of people, and hence less discrimination; (ii) social identification with an ingroup, inducing...

Does the cultural background influence the success with which genetically unrelated individuals cooperate in social dilemma situations? In this paper we provide an answer by analyzing the data of Herrmann et al. (Science 2008, pp. 1362-1367), who study cooperation and punishment in sixteen...

Diese kumulative Dissertation beinhaltet einen Literaturüberblick, sowie vier empirische Studien, die die Wirkung von Steuerprüfungen und deren Konsequenzen auf wiederholte Steuerentscheidungen untersuchen. Ausgehend vom ökonomischen Standardmodell der Steuerhinterziehung wurde ein...

As Korea is expected to see an increase in the share of single-parent families, this study analyzes the impact of a family transition from a two-parent to single-parent home on child development. The level of development is measured based on health, self-regulated learning, emotional disorders,...

From 2000 to 2003, when Ben Bernanke was a professor and then a Fed Governor, he wrote extensively about monetary policy at the zero bound on interest rates. He advocated aggressive stimulus policies, such as a money-financed tax cut and an inflation target of 3-4%. Yet, since U.S. interest...

The behavior of asset prices is analyzed in a general equilibrium model where agents not only have preferences over consumption but also (implicitly) over their beliefs. Agents endogenously choose to disregard information contained in a signal if it conflicts with their desired beliefs. In this...

How do evaluative practices become natural and ubiquitous in an organization? In this paper we integrate findings from previous empirical work on the adoption of evaluative practices in organizations with insights from institutional theory and social psychology research for advancing the...

Consider a situation where person A undertakes a costly action that benefits person B. This behavior seems altruistic. However, if A expects a reward in return from B, then A's action may be motivated by the expected rewards rather than by pure altruism. The question we address in this...