We provide a parsimonious model of leadership in social dilemma situations and test it with a meta-analysis of experimental studies. We focus on studies with treatments that allow for sequential contributions to a public good [as in Güth et al. (J Public Econ 91:1023–1042, 2007)]. The group...

Tournaments require a large gap in prizes in order to induce incentives. The resulting unequal distribution suggests that monetary payoffs are not the only motive that determines agents’ decisions. In our experiment we test theoretical predictions about the role of envy and loss aversion in...

We analyze educational institutions’ incentives to set up demanding or lax curricula in duopolistic markets for education with endogenous enrolment of students. We assume that there is a positive externality from student achievement to the local economy. Comparing the case of regulated tuition...

In intergroup contests a manager advises and motivates her group’s members. Her rewards often depend on the subsequent contest expenditure of the members. I test whether such incentives undermine the credibility and effectiveness of a manager’s efforts. In the different experimental...

The paper discusses the impact of performance based selection in secondary education on student incentives. The theoretical approach combines human capital theory with signaling theory. The consideration of signaling offers an explanation for observed performance of educational systems with a...

This paper introduces and discusses an idea which minimizes gaming or manipulation activities, if payments are linked to results from manipulative methods. The idea is to add nonmanipulable information to manipulable information to improve the evaluation of a given output. A score declining in...