Agents in a finite two-sided market make costly investments and are then matched assortatively based on these investments. Besides signaling complementary types, investments also generate benefits for partners. We shed light on quantitative properties of the equilibrium investment behavior. The...

Cooperativeness among genetically unrelated humans remains a major puzzle in the social sciences. We explore the causal impact of physical distance on willingness to help. In a field setting, participants decide about supporting local refugees at the dispense of money to themselves. We vary...

We study how the diffusion of being pivotal affects immoral outcomes. In a first set of experiments, subjects decide about agreeing to kill mice and receiving money versus objecting to kill mice and foregoing the monetary amount. In a baseline condition, subjects decide individually about the...

Agents in a finite two-sided market are matched assortatively, based on costly investments. Besides signaling private, complementary types, investments generate direct benefits for partners. We explore quantitative properties of the equilibrium investment behavior. The bilateral external...

Cooperativeness among genetically unrelated humans remains a major puzzle in the social sciences. We explore the causal impact of physical distance on willingness to help. In a field setting, participants decide about supporting local refugees at the dispense of money to themselves. We vary...

A well-known theoretical result in the contest literature is that greater heterogeneity decreases performance of contestants because of the "discouragement effect." Leveling the playing field by favoring weaker contestants through bid-caps and favorable tie-breaking rules can reduce the...

We study how institutional design influences moral transgression. People are heterogeneous in their feelings of guilt and can share guilt with others. Institutions determine the number of supporters necessary for immoral outcomes to occur. With more supporters required, every supporter can share...

This paper studies how organizational design affects moral outcomes. Subjects face the decision to either kill mice for money or to save mice. We compare a Baseline treatment where subjects are fully pivotal to a Diffused-Pivotality treatment where subjects simultaneously choose in groups of...

This paper studies how organizational design affects moral outcomes. Subjects face the decision to either kill mice for money or to save mice. We compare a Baseline treatment where subjects are fully pivotal to a Diffused-Pivotality treatment where subjects simultaneously choose in groups of...

This paper studies how organizational design affects moral outcomes. Subjects face the decision to either kill mice for money or to save mice. We compare a Baseline treatment where subjects are fully pivotal to a Diffused-Pivotality treatment where subjects simultaneously choose in groups of...