I study how different types of subsidization affect investment decisions in a laboratory experiment. Even though the expected pro t is identical in all treatments, I find highly significant differences between them. In particular, when investment alternatives get subsidized with tax credits the...

This paper tests whether changes in 'incidental emotions' lead to changes in economic choices. Incidental emotions are experienced at the time of an economic decision but are not part of the payoff from a particular choice. As such, the standard economic model predicts that incidental emotions...

Cross-cultural top-management-teams (cc-TMTs) are typically comprised of rational individuals. Yet cc-TMTs featuring uniformly wise and experienced executives often make irrational decisions (i.e., choices incompatible with reason or logic). Even most executives acknowledge this is true....

The influence of social norms on the willingness to obey legal norms depends on contingencies that have not been investigated. Theoretical, behavioral, and experimental considerations investigated in this paper establish the differential behavioral effects of legal rules and standards. The...

We examine the phenomenon of escalation from an economist's perspective, emphasizing explanations which do not rule out rational behavior on the part of firms or agents. We argue that escalation cannot be established as a separate phenomenon unless these possible alternative explanations are...

In the last decade, behavioral economics, borrowing from psychology and sociology to explain decisions inconsistent with traditional economics, has revolutionized the way economists view the world. But despite this general success, behavioral thinking has fundamentally transformed only one field...

Anaerobic digestion technology addresses environmental issues of waste disposal and greenhouse gas emission reduction. This paper examines attitudes toward adoption of this conservation technology on dairy farms. To specify an appropriate dependent variable without a large number of adopters, an...

Happiness research is on the rise, but is confounded by competing definitions of subjective well-being based on co-existing concepts, resulting in differing measures and giving rise to different potential policy applications. This paper motivates the societal necessity for using well-being...

This paper discusses how economic ethics can profit from taking into account the results of behavioral economics. In contrast to the neo-classical mainstream of economics, behavioral economics does not presuppose the model of ‘economic man’, but explores the ways in which real human beings...

Nobel Prize lecture.