There is a large body of evidence showing that a substantial proportion of people contribute positive amounts in public goods games, even if the situation is one-shot and completely anonymous. Clearly, this is in conflict with the prediction of neoclassic economic theory. One of the most...

The opportunity to tell a white lie (i.e., a lie that benefits another person) generates a moral conflict between two opposite moral dictates, one pushing towards telling always the truth and the other pushing towards helping others. Here we study how people resolve this moral conflict. What...

Recent studies suggest that cooperative decision-making in one-shot interactions is a history-dependent dynamic process: promoting intuition versus deliberation has typically a positive effect on cooperation (dynamism) among people living in a cooperative setting and with no previous experience...

Extensive experimental research on public goods games documents that many subjects are “conditional cooperators” in that they positively correlate their contributions with (their belief about) contributions of other subjects in their group. The goal of our study is to shed light on what...

This paper presents a formal theory of reciprocity. Reciprocity means that people reward kind actions and punish unkind ones. The theory takes into account that people evaluate the kindness of an action not only by its consequences but also by the intention underlying this action. The theory...

We investigate the dynamic effects of a charitable lottery and an income tax on donations. The analysis is based on a two-round dictator game with the subject’s charity of choice as recipient and additional incentives in the first round only. The immediate effect of a charitable lottery leads...

On the doctrinal surface, there is a deep divide between common and continental law when it comes to the origin of contractual obligations. Under continental law, in principle a unilateral promise suffices. Common law by contrast requires consideration. When it comes to deciding cases, the...

The conflict between pro-self and pro-social behaviour is at the core of many key problems of our time, as, for example, the reduction of air pollution and the redistribution of scarce resources. For the well-being of our societies, it is thus crucial to find mechanisms to promote pro-social...

Previous experiments have found mixed results on whether honesty is intuitive or requires deliberation. Here we add to this literature by building on prior work of Capraro (2017). We report a large study (N=1,389) manipulating time pressure vs time delay in a deception game. We find that, in...

Many situations require people to act quickly and are characterized by asymmetric information. Since asymmetric information makes people tempted to misreport their private information for their own benefit, it is of primary importance to understand whether time pressure affects honest behavior....