In experimental economics there exists a lively debate about the independence of observations. Although opinions on the issue differ widely, all concerns regard the independence of subjects' behavior within one session or experiment. This paper attempts to shed some light on the independence of...

The higher our aspirations, the higher the probability that we have to adjust them downwards when forming more realistic expectations later on. This paper shows that the costs induced by high aspirations are not trivial. We first develop a theoretical framework to identify the factors that...

In economic theory, utility depends on past, present and future outcomes. The experiment described in this paper suggests that utility also depends on people’s attitudes, and that it can easily be manipulated through these attitudes. The results imply, first, that purely outcome-based models...

By now there is substantial experimental evidence that people make use of "moral wiggle room" (Dana et al., 2007), that is, they tend to exploit moral excuses for selfish behavior. However, this evidence is limited to dictator games. In our experiment, a trust game variant, we study whether...

Using a laboratory experiment, we examine whether voluntary monetary sanctions induce subjects to coordinate more efficiently in a repeated minimum effort coordination game. While most groups first experience inefficient coordination in a baseline treatment, the efficiency increases...