This paper experimentally investigates how risk attitudes mitigate leadership effectiveness in a collective setting with projects that exhibit both free riding and coordination problems. We take two novel approaches: 1) the introduction of economic game theory to psychological studies of...

An individual should be indifferent between a rebate subsidy of rate sr and a matching subsidy of rate sm = sr /(1 - sr), and the total amount received by the charity should be the same regardless of subsidy type. Recent laboratory and field experiments contradict these straightforward...

Using experimental techniques, we identify parental attitudes toward different-gendered children in rural Bangladesh. We randomly selected households that had at least two school-age children (6–18 years) of different genders. Parents, either jointly or individually, were given endowments to...

This paper investigates whether parents’ inherent gender bias is associated with intrahousehold human capital investment among boys and girls. We conduct an artifactual field experiment to identify parents’ inherent gender bias and then attempt to examine how this attitude correlates with...

We examine the extent to which individual donors are warm glow or altruistic givers and whether this distinction motivates giving decisions, particularly paternalism. Results from our experiment suggest that motivations for giving are heterogeneous, ranging from pure altruism to impure altruism...

Numerous studies have looked at the factors that influence the likelihood of successful coordination. Two of the most important factors are the size of the group and whether communication is possible. To our knowledge, there has been no systematic study of the interaction between group size and...

We report results from a multi-period game designed to stimulate feelings of envy. There are a number of important features of our game that distinguish it from previous games used to examine envy. A unique and important feature of our design is that it addresses the two negative effects of...

This paper reports results from a field study comparing the effects of rebates and matching subsidies for charitable contributions. The study was conducted in conjunction with Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, a religiously affiliated social services charity. The field experiment has three...

Models of social preferences (i.e. inequality aversion), assuming society is defined by a hierarchy based on income or wealth, predict that the poor envy the rich. Reference Group Theory predicts that the poor (rich) envy others from the same social group or class. We report results from a game...

This paper revisits the question of framing and the provision of public goods. It also addresses the question, is giving in Dictator Games an expression of altruism or an artefact of experimentation? What is unique about this paper is that we employ a “real donation” lab experiment in a...