Overall, 72 subjects invest their endowment in four risky assets. Each combination of assets yields the same expected return and variance of returns. Illusion of expertise prevails when one prefers nevertheless the self-selected portfolio. After being randomly assigned to groups of four,...

This paper studies the evasion of TV license fees in Austria. We exploit border differentials to identify the effect of fees on evasion. Comparing municipalities at the low- and high-fee side of state borders reveals that higher fees trigger significantly more evasion. The central estimate from...

We experimentally investigate the path dependence of voluntary contributions in a public good game with heterogeneous agents who vary in their ability to increase the public good. More specifically, we analyze whether contribution norms observed in a first phase of the experiment under a...

In a lab experiment, we investigate whether social information can improve the accuracy of self-assessments of relative performance. In particular, we compare the effectiveness of di erent types of social information: subjects either learn their close peers' (i) average absolute performance,...

An empirically well-established finding is that equity portfolios are concentrated in the domestic equity market of the investor. Previous theoretical and empirical analyses have mainly focused on institutional explanations and largely neglected individual behavior. In this study we report the...

We investigate how the transparency of selecting an agent affects the agent’s reciprocal behavior. In a modified gift-exchange game, agents either receive information about having (not) been selected or receive no such information at all, which allows to analyze reciprocity of agents who were...

We run a large-scale natural field experiment to evaluate alternative strategies to enforce compliance with the law. The experiment varies the text of mailings sent to potential evaders of TV license fees. We find a strong alert effect of mailings, leading to a substantial increase in...

This paper studies the effect of introducing costly partner selection for the voluntary contribution to a public good. Subjects participate in six sequences of five rounds of a two-person public good game in partner design. At the end of each sequence subjects can select a new partner out of six...

In this paper we relate individual risk attitude as elicited by binary lotteries and certainty equivalents to market behavior. By analyzing 26 independent markets with a total of 280 participants we show that binary lottery choices and certainty equivalents are poorly correlated. Only lottery...

This paper studies the evasion of TV license fees in Austria. We exploit border differentials to identify the effect of fees on evasion. Comparing municipalities at the low- and high-fee side of state borders reveals that higher fees trigger significantly more evasion. The central estimate from...