This paper reports on a field experiment testing for sunk-cost effects in an education setting. Students signing up for extra-curricular tutorial sessions randomly received a discount on the tuition fee. The sunk-cost effect predicts that students who receive larger discounts will attend fewer...

This paper reports on a field experiment testing for sunk-cost effects in an education setting. Students signing up for extra-curricular tutorial sessions randomly received a discount on the tuition fee. The sunk-cost effect predicts that students who receive larger discounts will attend fewer...

In a randomized field experiment where first year university students could earn financial rewards for passing all first year requirements within one year we find small and non-significant average effects of financial incentives on the pass rate and the numbers of collected credit points. There...

This paper reports about a randomized field experiment in which first year economics and business students at the University of Amsterdam could earn financial rewards for passing the first year requirements within one year. Participants were assigned to a high, low and zero (control) reward...

In a randomized field experiment where first year university students could earn financial rewards for passing all first year requirements within one year we find small and non-significant average effects of financial incentives on the pass rate and the numbers of collected credit points. There...

Existing field evidence on rank-order tournaments typically does not allow disentangling incentive and sorting effects. We conduct a field experiment illustrating the confounding effect. Students in an introductory microeconomics course selected themselves into tournaments with low, medium, or...

This paper reports on a randomized field experiment in which first-year university students could earn financial rewards for passing all first-year requirements within one year. Financial incentives turn out to have positive effects on achievement of high-ability students, whereas they have a...

This Paper reports a randomized field experiment in which first year economics and business students at the University of Amsterdam could earn financial rewards for passing all first year requirements before the start of their second academic year. Participants were assigned to a high reward...

A vast body of empirical studies lends support to the incentive effects of rank-order tournaments. Evidence comes from experiments in laboratories and non-experimental studies exploiting sports or firm data. Selection of competitors across tournaments may bias these non-experimental studies,...

A vast body of empirical studies lends support to the incentive effects of rank-order tournaments. Evidence comes from experiments in laboratories and non-experimental studies exploiting sports or firm data. Selection of competitors across tournaments may bias these non-experimental studies,...