Broken windows: the metaphor has changed New York and Los Angeles. Yet it is far from undisputed whether the broken windows policy was causal for reducing crime. The scope of the theory is not confined to crime. The theory claims that crime is inextricably linked to social order more generally....

Despite a large theoretical and empirical literature on public goods and common-pool resources, a systematic comparison of these two types of social dilemmas is lacking. In fact, there is some confusion about these two types of dilemma situations. As a result, they are often treated alike. In...

We analyze the effects of ostracism on cooperation in a linear public good experiment with fixed partner design. Our results show that introducing ostracism increases contribution levels significantly except in first and last periods. Despite reductions in group size due to ostracism, the net...

Other-regarding motivation is a fundamental determinant of public service provision. In health care, one example is physicians who act benevolently towards their patients when providing medical services. Such patient-regarding motivation seems closely associated with a personal sacrifice that...

Psychological game theory can provide rational-choice-based framing effects; frames influence beliefs, beliefs influence motivations. We explain this theoretically and explore empirical relevance experimentally. In a 2×2 design of one-shot public good games we show that frames affect subjectʼs...

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...