This paper provides behavioral foundations for parametric weighting functions under rankdependent utility. This is achieved by decomposing the independence axiom of expected utility into separate meaningful properties. These conditions allow us to characterize rank-dependent utility with power...

Many public goods like lighthouses and fire departments do not provide direct utility but act as insurance devices against shipwreck and destruction. They either diminish the size and/or the probability of the loss. We extend the public good model with this insurance aspect and generalize...

We use a survey method designed to capture whether the consumption sharing ability of households varies systematically at different levels of well being. Evidence from Cyprus reconfirms our previous results from other countries, that household consumption economies of scale increase as the...

A distinguishing feature among households is whether adult members work or not, since the employment status affects a household's available time for home activities. Using a survey method in two countries, Belgium and Germany, we provide household incomes that retain the level of well-being...

Modern macroeconomics empirically addresses economy-wide incentives behind economic actions by using insights from the way a single representative household would behave. This analytical approach requires that incentives of the poor and the rich are strictly aligned. In empirical analysis a...

This paper presents an experimental study of the random incentive mechanisms which are a standard procedure in economic and psychological experiments. Random incentive mechanisms have several advantages but are incentive-compatible only if responses to the single tasks are independent. This is...

Economic experiments report that individuals perform better under a piece rate payment scheme in comparison to a fixed payment scheme. The reason is straightforward: incentives motivate people, and without incentives they decrease their effort. Yet women are prone to choose a fixed payment over...

This paper investigates the relationship between market overconfidence and occurrence of stock-price bubbles. Sixty participants traded stocks in ten experimental asset markets. Markets were constructed on the basis of subjects’ overconfidence: The most overconfident subjects form high...

Standard economic theory assumes that individual risk taking decisions are independent from the social context. Recent experimental evidence however shows that the income of peers has a systematic impact on observed degrees of risk aversion. In particular, subjects strive for balance in the...

We present a preference foundation for Chance Theory (CT), a model of decision making under uncertainty where the evaluation of an act depends distinctively on its lowest outcome. This outcome is evaluated with the riskless value function u and the potential increments over it are evaluated by...