Contrary to the traditional economic view that individuals misreport private information to maximize material payoffs, recent evidence highlights robust preferences for truth-telling among many decision-makers. Theoretical models that align with aggregate behavioral patterns posit that these...

Unethical behavior such as dishonesty, cheating and corruption occurs frequently in organizations or groups. Recent experimental evidence suggests that there is a stronger inclination to behave immorally in groups than individually. We ask if this is the case, and if so, why. Using a...

Unethical behavior such as dishonesty, cheating and corruption occurs frequently in organizations or groups. Recent experimental evidence suggests that there is a stronger inclination to behave immorally in groups than individually. We ask if this is the case, and if so, why. Using a...

Unethical behavior such as dishonesty, cheating and corruption occurs frequently in organizations or groups. Recent experimental evidence suggests that there is a stronger inclination to behave immorally in groups than individually. We ask if this is the case, and if so, why. Using a...

Procrastination is often attributed to time-inconsistent preferences but may also arise when individuals derive anticipatory utility from holding optimistic beliefs about their future effort costs. This study provides a rigorous empirical test for this notion of ‘motivated procrastination’....

Traditionally, economic models have attributed procrastination to present bias. However, procrastination may also arise when individuals derive anticipatory utility from holding motivated, overly optimistic beliefs about the workload they need to complete. This study provides a rigorous...

Using a standard cheating game, we investigate whether the request to sign a no-cheating declaration affects truth-telling. Our design varies the content of a no-cheating declaration (reference to ethical behavior vs. reference to possible sanctions) and the type of experiment (online vs....

Several recent papers argue that contracts provide reference points that affect ex post behavior. We test this hypothesis in a canonical buyer-seller relationship with renegotiation. Our paper provides causal experimental evidence that an initial contract has a highly significant and...