We modify the Acquiring-a-Company game to study lying in ultimatum bargaining. Privately informed sellers send messages about the alleged value of their company to potential buyers. Via random information leaks, buyers can learn the true value before proposing a price which the seller finally...

This paper studies the role of beliefs about own performance or appearance for compliance at the customs. In an experiment in which underreporting has a higher expected payoff than truthful reporting we find: a large share, about 15-20 percent of the subjects, is more compliant if they have...

We study the role of face-to-face interaction for gender differences in deceptive behavior and perceived honesty. In the first part, we compare women's to men's deceptive behavior using data from an incentivized income reporting experiment in which lies can be detected in the course of an audit....

In today's business environment, team work is omnipresent. But might teams be more prone toward non-compliance with laws and regulations than single individuals despite imminent negative consequences of uncovering misconduct? The recent prevalence of corporate delinquencies gives rise to this...

We derive the optimal contract between a principal and a liquidity-constrained agent in a stochastically repeated environment. The contract comprises a court-enforceable explicit bonus rule and an implicit fixed salary promise that must be self-enforcing. Since the agent's rent increases with...

We study the effects of a unique lending program initiated by the Swedish government at the height of the financial crisis that allowed firms to suspend payment of all labor-related taxes and fees. Comprehensive administrative data on all Swedish firms show that firms borrowing from the program...

Governments often choose deficit financing over budget cuts or tax increases to fund public goods, driven by the political unpopularity of the latter options. This study investigates the potential trade-off between maintaining prudent public finances and securing voter support by analyzing the...

We modify the Acquiring-a-Company game to study lying in ultimatum bargaining. Privately informed sellers send messages about the alleged value of their company to potential buyers. Via random information leaks, buyers can learn the true value before proposing a price which the seller finally...

Defense spending accounts for a large share of the budget in many countries, but the value of the resulting public good - national defense – has so far escaped assessment. Much of the literature has instead considered indirect benefits of defense spending in terms of greater economic growth or...

We find experimental evidence that the decision problem of tax compliance changes if subjects' declarations are not randomly assessed, but is based on their appearance as captured by pictures of their faces, even if the aggregate audit probability does not change. Some subjects may fear that...