This paper addresses the self-selection of potential migrants. In particular, the study examines whether risk and time preferences explain a significant proportion in the movement heterogeneity of individuals. It is further intended to shed light on the role of social preferences (trust,...

This paper examines the optimal direction of marginal income tax reform in the context of New Zealand, which recently reduced its top marginal income tax rate to one of the lowest in the OECD. A behavioural microsimulation model is used, in which social welfare functions are defined in terms of...

Is the willingness to make trades influenced by how the total gains from trade are split between the trading partners? We present results from a bilateral trade game (n = 128) where all participants were price-takers and trading pairs faced one of three exogenously imposed trading prices. The...

Increasing inequality and associated egalitarian sentiments have again put redistribution on the political agenda. Support for redistribution may also be affected by altruistic and egalitarian preferences, but knowledge about the distribution of these preferences in the broader population and...

Economic preferences are important for lifetime outcomes such as educational achievements, health status, or labor market success. We present a holistic view of how economic preferences are related within families. In an experiment with 544 families (and 1,999 individuals) from rural Bangladesh...

Economic preferences are important for lifetime outcomes such as educational achievements, health status, or labor market success. We present a holistic view of how economic preferences are related within families. In an experiment with 544 families (and 1,999 individuals) from rural Bangladesh...

We propose and axiomatically characterize a family of welfare criteria that prioritize individuals making larger sacrifices. By combining efficiency with a concern for equality of sacrifice, our criteria avoid serious shortcomings of utilitarianism. We illustrate our results within the...

This dissertation presents three independent essays that elicit social preferences in school children by using a combination of experimental measures and survey data. Chapter 2 consider the development of motivations for helping in informal risk-sharing networks from a sample of school children...

This study explores mechanism design for networks of interpersonal relationships. Agents' social (i.e., altruistic or spiteful) preferences and private payoffs are all subject to asymmetric information; utility is (quasi-)linear, types are independent. I show that any network of at least three...

We use queuing-related behavior as an instrument for assessing the social appeal of alternative cultural norms. Specifically, we study the behavior of rational and sophisticated individuals who stand in a given queue waiting to be served, and who, in order to speed up the process, consider...

There is a large body of evidence showing that a substantial proportion of people cooperate in public goods games, even if the situation is one-shot and completely anonymous. In the present study, we bring together two major endogenous factors that are known to affect cooperation levels, and in...

We use queuing-related behavior as an instrument for assessing the social appeal of alternative cultural norms. Specifically, we study the behavior of rational and sophisticated individuals who stand in a given queue waiting to be served, and who, in order to speed up the process, consider...

We study the relative risk aversion of an individual with particular social preferences: his wellbeing is influenced by his relative wealth, and by how concerned he is about having low relative wealth. Holding constant the individual's absolute wealth, we obtain two results. First, if the...

We use queuing-related behavior as an instrument for assessing the social appeal of alternative cultural norms. Specifically, we study the behavior of rational and sophisticated individuals who stand in a given queue waiting to be served, and who, in order to speed up the process, consider...

Ostracism is practiced by virtually all societies around the world as a means of enforcing cooperation and excluding members who show anti-social behaviors or attitudes. In this paper, we use a public goods experiment to study whether groups choose to implement an institution that allows for the...

This paper tracks the consequences of individuals' desire to align their location with their social preferences. The social preference studied in the paper is distaste for relative deprivation, measured in a cardinal manner. Location is conceived as social space, with individuals choosing to...

We study how the work effort and output of non-migrants in a village economy are affected when a member of the village population migrates. Given that individuals dislike low relative income, and that migration modifies the social space of the non-migrants, we show why and how the non-migrants...

We frame sustainability problems as bargaining problems among stakeholders who have to agree on a common development path. For infinite alternatives, the set of feasible payoffs is unknown, limiting the possibility to apply classical bargaining theory and mechanisms. We define a framework...

Charitable donations provide positive externalities and can potentially be increased with an understanding of donor preferences. We obtain a uniquely comprehensive characterization of donation motives using an experiment that varies treatments between and within subject. Donations are increasing...

A real-effort experiment is conducted in order to detect preferences for one out of three different models of the Welfare State characterized by different tax-and-transfer schemes. We reproduce a small society in the lab where: Subjects are grouped in three stylized classes (the rich, the middle...

We study how the work effort and output of non-migrants in a village economy are affected when a member of the village population migrates. Given that individuals dislike low relative income, and that migration modifies the social space of the non-migrants, we show why and how the non-migrants...

This paper tracks the consequences of individuals' desire to align their location with their social preferences. The social preference studied in the paper is distaste for relative deprivation, measured in a cardinal manner. Location is conceived as social space, with individuals choosing to...

We study how the work effort and output of non-migrants in a village economy are affected when a member of the village population migrates. Given that individuals dislike low relative income, and that migration modifies the social space of the non-migrants, we show why and how the non-migrants...

This paper tracks the consequences of individuals' desire to align their location with their social preferences. The social preference studied in the paper is distaste for relative deprivation, measured in a cardinal manner. Location is conceived as social space, with individuals choosing to...

We use a large and heterogeneous sample of the Danish population to investigate the importance of distributional preferences for behavior in a public good game and a trust game. We find robust evidence for the significant explanatory power of distributional preferences. In fact, compared to...

Solidarity in teamwork situations is important for the success and longevity of teams. This paper studies how helping group members is affected when groups are randomly merged and increase in size. Group mergers put social norms that are prevailing in previously small groups to the test as new...

This study presents descriptive and causal evidence on the role of social environment for the formation of prosociality. In a first step, we show that socioeconomic status (SES) as well as the intensity of mother-child interaction and mothers' prosocial attitudes are systematically related to...