We analyze one of the explanations why people participate in lotteries. Our hypothesis stipulates that part of the value that a unit of money buys in lotteries is consumed before the actual resolution in the form of emotions such as hope. In other words, a person holding a lottery ticket may...

This study attempts to combine two traditional fields in microeconomics: individual decision making under risk and decision making in an interpersonal context. The influence of social comparison on risky choices is explored in an experiment in which participants make a series of choices between...

This paper investigates the effects of intensified screening of disability insurance benefit applications. A large-scale experiment was setup where in 2 of the 26 Dutch regions case workers of the disability insurance administration were instructed to screen applications more intense. The...

This experimental study investigates how behavior changes after punishment for an unkind action. It also studies how fairness perceptions affect the reaction to punishment and whether this effect is consistent across repeated play and role experiences. A repeated version of the power-to-take...

This paper investigates an implication of the self-serving bias for reciprocal responses. It is hypothesized that negative intentionality matters more than positive intentionality for reciprocating individuals with a self-serving attributional style. Experimental evidence obtained in the hot...

While most papers on team decision-making find teams to behave more selfish, less trusting and less altruistic than individuals, Cason and Mui (1997) report that teams are more altruistic than individuals in a dictator game. Using a within-subjects design we re-examine group polarization by...

An experiment is conducted were subjects interact repeatedly to examine the effect of a particular leniency program on cartel formation, cartel stability and cartel recidivism. The program leads to lower prices for three reasons. First, non-cooperators are more persistent in their behavior which...

The power to take game is a simple two player game where players are randomly divided into pairs consisting of a take authority and responder. Both players in each pair have earned an own income in an individual real effort decision-making experiment preceding the take game. The game consists of...

We investigate experimentally whether emotions affect bidding behavior in a first price auction. To induce emotions, we confront subjects after a first auction series with a positive or negative random economic shock. We then explore the relation between emotions and bidding behavior in a second...

In this paper we discuss experimental evidence for two different institutional approaches to a possible resolution of the fundamental conflict between social welfare maximization and individual utility maximization. The basic workhorse for modelling this conflict is the voluntary contribution of...