We devise a new experimental game by nesting a voluntary contributions mechanism in a broader spectrum of incentive schemes. With it, we study tensions between egalitarianism, equity concerns, self-interest, and the need for incentives. In a 2x2 design, subjects either vote on or exogenously...

We conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate the impact of institutions and institutional choice on truth-telling and trust in sender-receiver games. We find that in an institution with sanctioning opportunities, receivers sanction predominantly after having trusted lies. Individuals who...

In an experiment, we study risk-taking of cohabitating student couples, finding that couples' decisions are closer to risk-neutrality than single partners' decisions. This finding is similar to earlier experiments with randomly assigned groups, corroborating external validity of earlier results.

Empirical work on Akerlof's theory of gift exchange in labor markets has concentrated on the fair wage-effort hypothesis. In fact, however, the theory also contains a social component that stipulates that homogenous agents that are employed for the same wage level will exert more effort,...

We study household decision making in a high-stakes experiment with a random sample of households in rural China. Spouses have to choose between risky lotteries, first separately and then jointly. We find that spouses' individual risk preferences are more similar the richer the household and the...

This paper contributes to the micro-foundation of money in centralized markets with idiosyncratic uncertainty. It shows existence of stationary monetary equilibria and ensures that there is an optimum quantity of money. The rational solution of our model is compared with actual behavior in a...

We present a simple two-steps procedure for a within-subject test of the inequity aversion model of Fehr and Schmidt (1999). In the first step, subjects played modified ultimatum and dictator games and were classified according to their preferences. In the second step, subjects with specific...

We present a simple two-steps procedure for a within-subject test of the inequity aversion model of Fehr and Schmidt (1999). In the first step, subjects played modified ultimatum and dictator games and were classified according to their preferences. In the second step, subjects with specific...

This paper investigates in how far equity preferences may matter for climate negotiations. For this purposes we conducted a simple experiment with people who have been involved in international climate policy. The experiment, which was run via the Internet, consisted of two simple non-strategic...

There is a substantial literature examining coordination in public goods games. We conducted an experiment to explore how varying patterns of thresholds affect the willingness of subjects to contribute to a public good. We had subjects play a multiperiod game where each subject was allocated an...