This natural field experiment tests the effects of purely symbolic awards on volunteer retention in a public goods context. The experiment is conducted at Wikipedia, which faces declining editor retention rates. Randomization assures that receipt of the award is orthogonal to previous...

External prominence (measured by the number of pages indexed on search engines or TED talk invitations) can be capitalized on the speakers' market while research performance (measured by publication and citation indicators) cannot. There is thus a clear distinction between the capitalization of...

Awards appear in various forms, ranging from the title "Employee of the Month" to prizes, decorations, and other honors. This contribution develops a theory designed to analyze the widely-observed phenomenon of award giving. We use signaling theory as a basis for our discussion. The perspectives...

The external influence of scholarly activity has to date been measured primarily in terms of publications and citations, metrics that also dominate the promotion and grant processes. Yet the array of scholarly activities visible to the outside world are far more extensive and recently developed...

The external influence of scholarly activity has to date been measured primarily in terms of publications and citations, metrics that also dominate the promotion and grant processes. Yet the array of scholarly activities visible to the outside world are far more extensive and recently developed...

Despite the social importance of awards, they have been largely disregarded by academic research in economics. This paper investigates whether a specific, yet important, award in economics, the John Bates Clark Medal, raises recipients? subsequent research activity and status compared to a...

Relative income differences are likely to lead to envy within a reference group. Envy in turn influences social behavior and on individual performance. While positional concerns are apparent in daily life, empirical evidence is rare in the economic literature. This paper investigates the impact...

In dieser Arbeit werden die Auswirkungen des Frauenstimmrechts auf die Staatsausgaben in den Kantonen der Schweiz untersucht. Anhand dieser institutionell bedingten Veränderung des Elektorats studieren wir den Zusammenhang zwischen repräsentierten Bürgerpräferenzen und dem Ergebnis des...

This paper investigates spatial spillovers in local spending decisions by using panel data of the Swiss communes in the canton of Lucerne during the 1990s. Due to the geographical fragmentation with a major central city and some 100 suburban communes within a distance from 4 to 55 kilometers to...