Loss aversion can occur in riskless and risky choices. Yet, there is no evidence whether people who are loss averse in riskless choices are also loss averse in risky choices. We measure individual-level loss aversion in riskless choices in an endowment effect experiment by eliciting both WTA and...

We compare social preference and social norm based explanations for peer effects in a threeperson gift-exchange game experiment. In the experiment a principal pays a wage to each of two agents, who then make effort choices sequentially. We find that both agents supply more effort in response to...

Efficiency under contractual incompleteness often requires voluntary cooperation in situations where self-regarding incentives for contractual compliance are present as well. Here we provide a comprehensive experimental analysis based on the gift-exchange game of how explicit and implicit...

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 subject’s...

In the last thirty years, economists and other social scientists have investigated people’s normative views on distributive justice. Here we study people’s normative views in social dilemmas, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance. Using insights from moral...

We provide a test of the role of social preferences and beliefs in voluntary cooperation and its decline. We elicit individuals’ cooperation preferences in one experiment and use them – as well as subjects’ elicited beliefs – to explain contributions to a public good played repeatedly....

Field evidence suggests that agents belonging to the same group tend to behave similarly, i.e., behavior exhibits social interaction effects. Testing for such effects raises severe identification problems. We conduct an experiment that avoids these problems. The main design feature is that each...