Updated - please see paper 551.02 in this series. The Bank of Spain uses a unique auction format to sell government bonds, which can be seen as a hybrid of a uniform and a discriminatory auction. For winning bids above the average winning bid, buyers are charged the average winning bid,...

We analyze the effect of income taxation with limited loss deduction on investment decisions. An experiment with five treatments was conducted, one without taxation as a reference and four with taxation and limited loss compensation. The participants' task was to repeatedly choose one out of two...

updated version of paper no 55

Overconfidence is a well-established behavioral phenomenon that involves an overestimation of own capabilities. We introduce a model, in which managers and agents exert effort in a joint production, after the manager decides on the allocation of the tasks. A rational manager tends to delegate...

We present a field experiment to assess the effect of own and peer wage variations on actual work effort of employees with hourly wages. Work effort neither reacts to an increase of the own wage, nor to a positive or negative peer comparison. This result seems at odds with numerous laboratory...