The paper studies a major human activity ? that of watching TV - where many individuals have incomplete control over, and foresight into, their own behavior. As a consequence, they watch more TV than they consider optimal for themselves and their well-being is lower than what could be achieved....

The risk of external interventions crowding-out intrinsic motivation has long been established in economics. This paper introduces a new dimension by arguing that a crowding-out effect does become possible if individuals receive higher relative compensation. Using a unique, large data set that...

Three topics of a European constitution are discussed. First, basic arguments from constitutional political economy that aim at restricting representatives? potential misuse of powers in a European Union with extended competencies are summarized. Since a European demos does not yet exist, an...

The traditional economic approach to tax evasion does not appear to be particularly successful in explaining the extent of tax compliance. We argue instead that a psychological tax contract which establishes a fiscal exchange between the state and the citizens shapes tax compliance to a large...

Distortions in memory impose important bounds on rationality but have been largely disregarded in economics. While it is possible to learn, it is more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to unlearn. This retention effect lowers individual utility directly or via reduced productivity, and adds...

The tax compliance literature has mainly focused on individual tax evasion rather than firm tax evasion. In general, there is a lack of field experiments on the topic, and measuring tax compliance is challenging. To address this shortcoming in the literature, we conduct a field experiment on...

Nobel laureates have achieved the highest recognition in academia, reaching the boundaries of human knowledge and understanding. Owing to past research, we have a good understanding of the career patterns behind their performance. Yet, we have only limited understanding of the factors driving...

This study explores whether awards breed further awards and what happens after a researcher receives the Nobel Prize. We therefore collected data on all the 1901 to 1980 Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry and medicine or physiology, looking at the number of awards received each year for 50...

We exploit a natural measure of congruence between politicians and their constituency' bnm bnnb fgvhjuis preferences to directly quantify the extent of legislative shirking and evaluate the mechanism of the median voter model. The median voter model explains the behavior of politicians with...

Under certain conditions, output related performance measurement and pay-for-performance produce negative outcomes. We argue that in public service, these negative effects are stronger than in the private sector. We combine Behavioural Economics and Management Control Theory to determine under...