We investigate whether overconfidence is affected by superstitious beliefs and whether the effect is heterogeneous according to gender. With this aim, we run a field experiment involving about 700 Italian students. According to widespread superstitions, some numbers are considered lucky while...

This paper uses experimental data to analyze how competitive behavior is influenced by coaching and peer observation. We study behavior in a sequential contest, considering information about the effort level of subjects in other contests (observation of peers) and information about the...

Standard social choice experiments generally force subjects to make decisions about giving money to another person, but the ability to avoid information outside of the lab could lead to less altruistic or fair behavior than such experiments tend to suggest. I expand on the design of Dana, Weber,...

While the share of fluctuating renewable energy resources is constantly increasing, the centralized, hierarchical organization of the current energy system cannot adequately accommodate such decentralized electricity generation. New ideas have been developed for improved integration, especially...

In this paper, we study bidding behavior by firms in beauty-contest auctions, i.e. auctions in which the winning bid is the one which gets closest to some function (average) of all submitted bids. Using a dataset on public procurement beauty-contest auctions in Italy and exploiting a change in...

This article provides an overview of the use of field experiments in energy and resource economics. I concentrate on two areas of study; field experiments that (i) speak to the use of dynamic pricing plans to manage the use of electricity and water and (ii) explore the adoption of energy saving...

Novel evidence is provided indicating that the influence from family (parents and partners) and peer social interaction on individuals’ stock market participation vary over different types of individuals. Focusing on distinct features of concern for the social interaction process, results...

This paper examines how third-party surveillance influences preferences over distributional outcomes. In addition, we examine what motivates people to invest economic resources to monitor decision-making processes. Our results show that a large majority of individuals is willing to pay for a...

For the procurement of complex goods the early exchange of information is important to avoid costly renegotiation ex post. We show that this is achieved by bilateral negotiations but not by auctions. Negotiations strictly outperforms auctions if sellers are likely to have superior information...

This paper studies, theoretically and empirically, the role of overconfidence in political behavior. Our model of overconfidence in beliefs predicts that overconfidence leads to ideological extremeness, increased voter turnout, and increased strength of partisan identification. Moreover, the...