We examine whether shrouding surcharges or partitioning prices raises demand in online shopping where consumers have very low costs of cancelling an initiated purchase process. In a field experiment with more than 34,000 consumers, we find that consumers in the online shop of a large German...

Internships during tertiary education have become substantially more common over the past decades in many industrialised countries. This study examines the impact of a voluntary intra-curricular internship experience during university studies on the probability of being invited to a job...

Credence goods markets are characterized by pronounced informational asymmetries between consumers and expert sellers. As a consequence, consumers are often exploited and market efficiency is threatened. However, in the digital age, it has become easy and cheap for consumers to self-diagnose...

Credence goods markets are characterized by pronounced informational asymmetries between consumers and expert sellers. As a consequence, consumers are often exploited and market efficiency is threatened. However, in the digital age, it has become easy and cheap for consumers to self-diagnose...

A vast literature investigating behavioural underpinnings of financial bubbles and crashes relies on laboratory experiments. However, it is not yet clear how findings generated in a highly artificial environment relate to the human behaviour in the wild. It is of concern that the laboratory...

The mission of a job does not only affect the type of worker attracted to an organisation, but may also provide incentives to an existing workforce. We conducted a natural field experiment with 267 short-time workers and randomly allocated them to either a prosocial or a commercial job. Our data...

In this paper we present results from a large scale real effort experiment in an online labor market investigating the effect of performance pay and two common leadership techniques: Positive expectations and specific goals. We find that positive expectations have a significant negative effect...

Credence goods markets are characterized by pronounced informational asymmetries between consumers and expert sellers. As a consequence, consumers are often exploited and market efficiency is threatened. However, in the digital age, it has become easy and cheap for consumers to self-diagnose...

This paper examines weight loss and the formation of healthy habits through cash rewards in the context of a multi-phase randomized controlled trial involving 700 obese individuals. We find effects of monetary incentives for weight loss of up to EUR 300 on body weight during all experimental...

Many people implicitly sell or give away their data when using online services and participating in loyalty programmes-despite growing concerns about company’s use of private data. Our paper studies potential reasons and co-variates that contribute to resolving this apparent paradox, which has...

We conducted a field experiment to evaluate the impact of job-search assistance on the employment of recently arrived refugees in Germany. The treatment group received job-matching support: an NGO identified suitable vacancies and sent the refugees' CVs to employers. Results of follow-up phone...

Information about past performance has been found to sometimes improve and sometimes worsen subsequent performance. Two factors may help to explain this puzzle: which aspect of one's past performance the information refers to and when it is revealed. In a field experiment in secondary schools,...

We run two field experiments within a large retail chain showing that the effectiveness of performance pay crucially hinges on prior job experience. Introducing sales-based performance pay for district- and later for store-managers, we find negligible average treatment effects. Based on surveys...

We conduct a randomized field experiment to study the effects of two financial education interventions offered to small-scale retailers in Western Uganda. The treatments contrast "active learning" with "traditional lecturing" within standardized lesson-plans. We find that active learning has a...

In this paper we focus on the role of caseworkers in the assignment and take-up of welfare-to-work programs. We conduct a field experiment that generates exogenous variation in the assignment to different policy regimes to caseworkers. The experiment allows us to provide evidence on the...

The question of whether and how living in a deprived neighborhood affects the labor market outcomes of its residents has been a subject of great interest for both policy makers and researchers. Despite this interest, empirical evidence of causal neighborhood effects on labor market outcomes is...

How pervasive is labor market discrimination against immigrants and what options do policymakers and migrants have to reduce it? To answer these questions, we conducted a field experiment on employer discrimination in Sweden. Going beyond existing work, we test for a large range of applicant...

We conducted a field experiment to identify the causal effects of extrinsic incentive cues on the sorting and performance of nascent social entrepreneurs. The experiment, carried out with one of the United Kingdom's largest support agencies for social entrepreneurs, encouraged 431 nascent social...

Information about past performance has been found to sometimes improve and sometimes worsen subsequent performance. Two factors may help to explain this puzzle: which aspect of one's past performance the information refers to and when it is revealed. In a field experiment in secondary schools,...

We conduct a randomized field experiment to study the effects of two financial education interventions offered to small-scale retailers in Uganda. The treatments contrast "active learning" with "traditional lecturing" within standardized lesson-plans. We find that active learning has a positive...

The ability of a tax authority to collect taxes successfully depends on both its relationship with taxpayers and how strongly these taxpayers are committed to contributing to the common good. We present field and laboratory experimental evidence on a new non-intrusive approach aimed at fostering...

This paper explores a possible sampling bias in field experiments through a unique combination of a large-scale field experiment on ethnic discrimination in the German rental housing market (N = 2,992 tested apartments) and data on the internet housing market where the apartments were sampled...

We measure and analyze discriminatory behavior against same-sex couples trying to rent an apartment in Portugal. This is the first correspondence field experiment investigating discrimination against this minority group in Portugal, adding to a literature using this method to ascertain...

I estimate the effects of collaborative and adversarial intergroup contact. I randomly assigned Indian men from different castes to participate in cricket leagues or to serve as a control group. League players faced variation in collaborative contact, through random assignment to...

Studies from various disciplines show that including more meat-free dishes in our diets benefits our environment and our health while also promoting animal welfare. However, little is known about what encourages the adoption of more meat-free meal choices into our everyday diets. This paper...

Studies from various disciplines show that including more meat-free dishes in our diets benefits our environment and our health while also promoting animal welfare. However, little is known about what encourages the adoption of more meat-free meal choices into our everyday diets. This paper...

Negative advertising is frequent in electoral campaigns, despite its ambiguous effectiveness: negativity may reduce voters' evaluation of the targeted politician but have a backlash effect for the attacker. We study the effect of negative advertising in electoral races with more than two...

I estimate the effects of collaborative and adversarial intergroup contact. I randomly assigned Indian men from different castes to participate in cricket leagues or to serve as a control group. League players faced variation in collaborative contact, through random assignment to...

We analyze the effects of substitutability of social incentives on the labor supply of gigworkers (N=944) in a natural field experiment. In our treatments, we vary the proportion of the worker's wage that is donated to a social cause. Our experimental design allows us to observe the decision to...

We ran a field experiment at a large Dutch school for intermediate vocational education to examine whether the response of teachers to student feedback depends on the content of the feedback. Students evaluated all teachers, but only a randomly selected group of teachers received feedback....

Influenza vaccination could be a cost-effective way to reduce costs in terms of human lives and productivity losses, but low take-up rates and vaccination unintentionally causing moral hazard may decrease its benefits. We ran a natural field experiment in cooperation with a bank in Ecuador,...

Public speaking is an important skill for career prospects and for leadership positions, but many people tend to avoid it because it generates anxiety. We run a field experiment to analyze whether in an incentivized setting men and women show differences in their willingness to speak in public....

We ran a field experiment at a large Dutch school for intermediate vocational education to examine whether the response of teachers to student feedback depends on the content of the feedback. Students evaluated all teachers, but only a randomly selected group of teachers received feedback....

Influenza vaccination could be a cost-effective way to reduce costs in terms of human lives and productivity losses, but low take-up rates and vaccination unintentionally causing moral hazard may decrease its benefits. We ran a natural field experiment in cooperation with a bank in Ecuador,...

Public speaking is an important skill for career prospects and for leadership positions, but many people tend to avoid it because it generates anxiety. We run a field experiment to analyze whether in an incentivized setting men and women show differences in their willingness to speak in public....

We analyze the effects of substitutability of social incentives on the labor supply of gigworkers (N=944) in a natural field experiment. In our treatments, we vary the proportion of the worker's wage that is donated to a social cause. Our experimental design allows us to observe the decision to...

We examine the impact of a large, randomized Girls' Education Challenge (GEC) project in rural Zimbabwe. The multifaceted project initially provided information about girls' rights and education barriers to girls, parents, teachers, and others. Later, the project introduced a learn-to-read...

We analyze cooperation within a company setting in order to study the relationship between cooperative attitudes and financial as well as non-financial rewards. In total, 910 employees of a large software company participate in an incentivized online experiment. We observe high levels of...

Programs that increase the economic capacity of poor women can have cascading effects on children's participation in school and work that are theoretically undetermined. We present a simple model to describe the possible channels through which these programs may affect children's activities....

The gender gap in risk-taking is often used to explain differences in labor market outcomes. Some studies, however, suggest that this gender gap does not extend to professional contexts. This paper examines potential drivers of the gender gap in risk-taking, comparing the professional context of...

In a climate system that is indifferent about where mitigation is carried out, the logic of comparative advantages favors abatement locations in developing and rapidly industrializing countries. There is evidence, however, that citizens of industrialized countries who voluntarily fund climate...

In most countries, there are systematic age and gender differences in labor market outcomes. Older workers and women often have lower employment rates, and the duration of unemployment increases with age. These patterns may reflect age and gender differences in either labor demand (i.e....

There is now an extensive literature on "gift exchange" showing that when principals and agents can trade "gifts" (rewards that should not emerge in a competitive equilibrium), exchange becomes more efficient. However, it is not obvious how gift exchange should be organized if the principal's...

A popular fundraising tool is donation matching, where every dollar is matched by a third party. But field experiments find that matching does not always increase donations. This may occur because individuals believe that peer donors will exhaust the matching funds, so their donation is not...

We provide the first experimental evidence about ethnic discrimination in the labor market in Georgia. We randomly assign Georgian and non-Georgian, male and female, names to similar resumes and apply for jobs as advertised in help-wanted web sites in Georgia. We find that gender has no effect...