Recent developments in virtual reality (VR) technology have the potential to revolutionize the way economists do experimental research. With Oculus’ light and affordable head mounted display (HMD) human subjects can literally move and use objects in virtual spaces and interact with others....

In games of social learning individuals tend to give too much weight to their own private information relative to the information that is conveyed by the choices of others (Weizsäcker, 2010). In this paper we investigate differences between individuals and small groups as decision makers in...

Economic interactions often take place in open communities, where agents are free to leave in order to join a more preferred community. Tiebout (1956) conjectured that “voting with feet” might generate considerable efficiency gains, since individuals with different preferences sort...

Broken windows: the metaphor has changed New York and Los Angeles. Yet it is far from undisputed whether the broken windows policy was causal for reducing crime. The scope of the theory is not confined to crime. The theory claims that crime is inextricably linked to social order more generally....

We analyse two team settings in which one member in a team has stronger incentives to contribute than the others. If contributions constitute a sacrifice for the strong player, the other team members are more inclined to cooperate than if contributions are strictly dominant for the strong player.

Economic and social interactions often take place in open communities but the dynamics of the community choice process and its impact on cooperation of its members are yet not well understood. We experimentally investigate community choice in social dilemmas. Participants repeatedly choose...

Broken Windows: the metaphor has changed New York and Los Angeles. Yet it is far from undisputed whether the broken windows policy was causal for reducing crime. In a series of lab experiments we put two components of the theory to the test. We show that first impressions and early punishment of...

We study gender diversity and performance in endogenously formed teams. Participants choose to either perform a cooperation task with members of the own gender only or in a mixed-gender team. We find that independent of the team choice, initially men cooperate significantly more than women. In...

We investigate an experimental representatives' trust game which resembles trust relationships between representatives of organisations. Personality traits of subjects are elicited by a personality questionnaire (Cattell's 16 PF-R) which is well established in personnel psychology. For the first...

Economic and social interactions often take place in open communities but the dynamics of the community choice process and its impact on cooperation of its members are yet not well understood. We experimentally investigate community choice in social dilemmas. Participants repeatedly choose...