We examine how absolute and relative gains within reward schemes influence dishonesty. In our online experiment, we vary two payoff dimensions in a cheating mind game: the payoff level and the absolute payoff difference between being successful or not. A higher payoff level has a negative impact...

We show that executives' early-life poverty experiences reduce both internal (executive-employee) and external (executive-peer) corporate pay disparities. Three mechanisms drive this effect: increased risk aversion in poverty-exposed executives, strategic avoidance of negative media coverage to...

How large is the gender pay gap among university professors, and how do institutional pay-setting mechanisms shape this disparity? This paper provides novel empirical evidence on the gender pay gap among professors at a renowned German university. Using detailed human resources data for the time...

Performance-contingent pay raises productivity, yet in the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) only about 16% of workers report receiving performance pay, with the incidence being roughly seven percentage points higher among university graduates than among non-graduates. This coexistence of low...