Business practices and performance vary widely among local peers. This paper identifies key determinants of such heterogeneity among a sample of small urban retail shops in Indonesia, and experimentally tests whether learning about the best practices of local peers is valuable for business...

We study whether poverty can induce affective states that decrease productivity. In a controlled laboratory setting, we find that subjects randomly assigned to a treatment, in which they view a video featuring individuals that live in extreme poverty, exhibit lower subsequent productivity...

This article is the first attempt to study the empirical link between income aspirations and cooperation in a one shot public good game. By combining experimental with survey data, we find evidence that the more frustrated people are with their income, the lower is their propensity to cooperate...