Recent theories of compliance predict that, apart from utilitarian considerations, individual decisions to respect or break the law account for virtuous motives and non-utilitarian willingness to promote the social good. We test whether empirical evidence resonates with these theories by...

Humans display a puzzling cross-population variation in the ability to cooperate with out-group members. One hypothesis is that impartial institutions substituting kith and kin as risk-buffering providers would favor the expansion of cooperative networks. Here I propose a research design that...

In this article, I propose a theoretical framework for systematically including the discussion of tastes and values in the economic analysis of the law. I argue that Cultural Economics offers a welfaristic argument for including the promotion of welfare-enhancing tastes and values as one of the...

The aim of this work is to explain the success registered by a zero-cost policy against sales tax evasion based on a lottery mechanism which has been recently implemented in a growing number of countries. It is suggested how the specific sales tax evasion situation in which this policy has been...

We designed a natural-field experiment in the context of local public transportation to test whether rewards in the form of lottery prizes coupled with traditional sanctions efficiently reduce free-riding. We organized a lottery in a medium-size Italian city the participation in which is linked...

Can the potential availability of unemployment insurance (UI) affect the behavior of employed workers and the duration of their employment spells? I apply a regression kink design (RKD) to address this question using linked employer-employee data from the Brazilian labor market. Exploiting the...

Can unemployment insurance (UI) affect the behavior of employed workers and the duration of their employment spells? I apply a regression kink design to address this question using data from the Brazilian labor market. Exploiting the UI schedule, I find that a 1% higher potential benefit level...