This study presents descriptive and causal evidence on the role of social environment for the formation of prosociality. In a first step, we show that socioeconomic status (SES) as well as the intensity of mother-child interaction and mothers' prosocial attitudes are systematically related to...

This paper studies self-control in a nationally representative sample. Using the wellestablished Tangney scale to measure trait self-control, we find that people's age as well as the political and economic institutions they are exposed to have an economically meaningful impact on their level of...

This paper explores inequalities in IQ and economic preferences between children from high and low socio-economic status (SES) families. We document that children from high SES families are more intelligent, patient and altruistic, as well as less risk-seeking. To understand the underlying...

This paper studies self-control in a nationally representative sample. Using the well-established Tangney scale to measure trait self-control, we find that people’s age as well as the political and economic institutions they are exposed to have an economically meaningful impact on their level...

This paper explores inequalities in IQ and economic preferences between children from high and low socio-economic status (SES) families. We document that children from high SES families are more intelligent, patient and altruistic, as well as less likely to be risk-seeking. To understand the...

This study presents descriptive and causal evidence on the role of social environment for the formation of prosociality. In a first step, we show that socioeconomic status (SES) as well as the intensity of mother-child interaction and mothers' prosocial attitudes are systematically related to...

The motivation value of confidence postulates that individual effort provision is increasing in beliefs on one's own productivity. This relationship also holds for overconfident individuals who have exaggerated productivity beliefs (motivation value of overconfidence). We present first empirical...

Debates about affirmative action often revolve around fairness. Accordingly, we document substantial heterogeneity in the fairness perception of various affirmative action policies. But do these differences translate into different consequences? In a laboratory experiment, we study three...