Does risk attitude (aversion or attraction) vary with the level of the income at risk? About half of our subjects chose to insure all levels, whereas another half chose instead not to insure low levels, but to insure high levels

Previous experimental studies have shown that centralized management that a legitimate enforcer implements can be effective in improving cooperation in social dilemmas. The current study examines whether the presence of peer punishment opportunities, especially the chance of retaliating the...

We provide evidence that long-term relationships between trading parties emerge endogenously in the absence of third party enforcement of contracts and are associated with a fundamental change in the nature of market interactions. Without third party enforcement, the vast majority of trades are...

This paper investigates how an increase in competition for workers infuences the impact of social preferences on labor market outcomes. By sorting into firms with homogeneous work forces, workers can alleviate their suffering from social comparisons. Competition promotes choice and thus...

An active area of research within the social sciences concerns the underlying motivation for sharing scarce resources and engaging in other pro-social actions. We develop a theoretical framework that sheds light on the developmental origins of social preferences by providing mechanisms through...

Do we praise altruistic acts because they produce social benefits or because they entail a personal sacrifice? Across five studies, we find that people mainly rely on personal cost rather than social benefit when evaluating prosocial actors. This occurs because sacrifice, but not benefit, is...

Fairness preferences fundamentally affect individual behavior and play an important role in shaping social and political institutions. However, people differ both with respect to what they view as fair and with respect to how much weight they attach to fairness considerations. In this paper, we...

How can development programmes reach out to remote communities? This paper presents experimental evidence on the impact of a role models intervention that aims to inspire ethnic minority households to start businesses and diversify income sources. The experiment took place in three provinces of...

Economists have long been concerned that negative attitudes about relative income reduce social welfare. This paper investigates whether such attitudes can be mitigated by a simple information treatment. Toward this end, we conducted an original randomized online survey experiment in the US and...

An active area of research within the social sciences concerns the underlying motivation for sharing scarce resources and engaging in other pro-social actions. We develop a theoretical framework that sheds light on the developmental origins of social preferences by providing mechanisms through...