We analyze an experimental public goods game in which group members can endogenously determine whether they want to supplement a standard voluntary contribution mechanism with the possibility of rewarding or punishing other group members. We find a large and positive effect of endogenous...

The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) in the EU's economic and monetary union (EMU) aims to assure sound public finances in the EMU Member States by providing for sanctions against countries with excessive deficits. We experimentally examine the voting procedure of the SGP and find that the...

We examine gender differences in trust in another party's cooperation (CC) or its ability (AC). While men and women do not differ concerning trust in cooperation, gender has a strong influence when trust in another subject's ability is required.

On 11 May 2001, readers of the Berliner Zeitung were invited to participate in an ultimatum bargaining experiment played in the strategy vector mode: each participant chooses not only how much (s)he demands of the DM1,000 pie but also which of the nine possible offers of DM100, 200, …, 900...

We show in a public goods experiment on three continents that conditional cooperation is a universal behavioral regularity. Yet, the number of conditional cooperators and the extent of conditional cooperation are much higher in the United States than anywhere else.

Bilateral joint ventures, such as marriage, are economically inspired by their prospects of labor division and specialization. However, specialization makes the partnerwho investsmore in relation-specificqualificationsmore exploitable (holdup problem). In a two-person experiment we study...

Economic decisions have been shown to depend on actual outcomes as well as perceived intentions. In this paper, we examine whether and how the relative importance of outcomes or intentions for economic decision develops with age. We report the result of ultimatum games with children, teens and...

We study the behavior of football (soccer) referees in the German Bundesliga. Referees are requested to act as impartial agents. However, they may be tempted to allocate benefits and rewards in a biased way. Agency theory has long neglected this form of malfeasance of economic agents, but has...