Empirical and experimental papers find that high-powered incentives may reduce performance rather than improve it; a phenomenon referred to as choking under pressure. We show that competition for high ability workers nevertheless leads firms to offer high bonus payments, thereby deliberately...

We extend gender research on risk behavior to betting markets. Our data set consists of all 5,136,660 bets in New Zealand from 2006 to 2009 and allows assigning each bet to individ-ual bettors. Women are much more prone to the favorite-longshot bias and suffer higher losses. Usually, betting on...

We develop a theoretical model to identify and compare partial and equilibrium effects of uncertainty and the magnitude of fines on punishment and deterrence. Partial effects are effects on potential violators' and punishers' decisions when the other side's behavior is exogenously given....

We analyze mechanism choices of competing sellers with private valuations and show the existence of monotone pure strategy equilibria where sellers with higher reservation value choose mechanisms with a lower selling probability and a larger revenue in case of trade. As an application we...

We analyze mechanism choices of competing sellers with private valuations and show the existence of monotone pure strategy equilibria where sellers with higher reservation value choose mechanisms with a lower selling probability and a larger revenue in case of trade. As an application we...

We develop a theoretical model to identify and compare partial and equilibrium effects of uncertainty and the magnitude of fines on punishment and deterrence. Partial effects are effects on potential violators' and punishers' decisions when the other side's behavior is exogenously given....

We use data from a German health insurer to study how the impact of switching from a fee for service system (FFS) to a high powered incentive scheme (prospective payment system; PPS) depends on the characteristics of patients and hospitals. As hospitals had a transition period of several years...