This paper reports an experiment designed to assess the influence of workplace arrangements on the reactions to (the absence of) control. We compare behavior in an Internet and a laboratory principal-agent game where the principal can control the agent by implementing a minimum effort requirement. Then the agent chooses an effort costly to her but beneficial to the principal. Our design captures meaningful differences between working from home and working at the office arrangements. Online subjects enjoy greater anonymity than lab subjects, they interact in a less constrained environment than the laboratory, and there is a larger physically-oriented social distance between them. Control is significantly more effective online than in the laboratory. Positive reactions to the principal’s choice not to control are observed in both treatments, but they are significantly weaker online than in the laboratory. Principals often choose the highest control level, which maximizes their earnings.

Azrieli et al. (J Polit Econ, 2018) provide a characterization of incentive compatible payment mechanisms for experiments, assuming subjects’ preferences respect dominance but can have any possible subjective beliefs over random outcomes. If instead we assume subjects view probabilities as objective—for example, when dice or coins are used—then the set of incentive compatible mechanisms may grow. In this paper we show that it does, but the added mechanisms are not widely applicable. As in the subjective-beliefs framework, the only broadly-applicable incentive compatible mechanism (assuming all preferences that respect dominance are admissible) is to pay subjects for one randomly-selected decision.

We investigate how the selection process of a leader affects team performance with respect to social learning. We use a laboratory experiment in which an incentivized guessing task is repeated in a star network with the leader at the center. Leader selection is either based on competence, on self-confidence, or made at random. In our setting, teams with random leaders do not underperform. They even outperform teams with leaders selected on self-confidence. Hence, self-confidence can be a dangerous proxy for competence of a leader. We show that it is the declaration of the selection procedure which makes non-random leaders overly influential. To investigate the opinion dynamics, we set up a horse race between several rational and naïve models of social learning. The prevalent conservatism in updating, together with the strong influence of the team leader, imply an information loss since the other team members’ knowledge is not sufficiently integrated.

We aim to test the hypothesis that overconfidence arises as a strategy to influence others in social interactions. To address this question, we design an experiment in which participants are incentivized either to form accurate beliefs about their performance at a test, or to convince a group of other participants that they performed well. We also vary participants’ ability to gather information about their performance. Our results show that participants are more likely to (1) overestimate their performance when they anticipate that they will try to persuade others and (2) bias their information search in a manner conducive to receiving more positive feedback, when given the chance to do so. In addition, we also find suggestive evidence that this increase in confidence has a positive effect on participants’ persuasiveness.

We conduct a laboratory experiment in Kenya in which we elicit time and risk preference parameters from 494 participants, using convex time budgets and tightly controlling for transaction costs. Using the Kenyan mobile money system M-Pesa to make real-time transfers to subjects’ phones , we vary whether same-day payments are made immediately after the experimental session or at the close of the business day. We find strong evidence of present bias, with estimates of the present bias parameter ranging from 0.902 to 0.924—but only when same-day payments are made immediately after the experiment.

We conducted an experiment in a high-immersive virtual reality environment to study the effect of the presence of a virtual observer on cheating behavior. Participants were placed in a virtual room and played 30 rounds of a cheating game without a chance of their cheating being detected. We varied whether or not a virtual observer (an avatar) was present in the room, and, if so, whether the avatar was actively staring at the decision maker or passively seated in a corner watching his smartphone. Results display significantly less cheating with an active than with a passive avatar, but not less cheating than in a control condition without an avatar. This suggests that an active (virtual) observer can intensify reputational concerns, but that the presence of someone passive and uninterested may actually alleviate such concerns.

There is a heated debate on whether markets erode social responsibility and moral behavior. However, it is a challenging task to identify and measure moral behavior in markets. Based on a theoretical model, we examine in an experiment the relation between trading volume, prices and moral behavior by setting up markets that either impose a negative externality on third parties or not. We find that moral behavior reveals itself in lower trading volume in markets with a negative externality, while prices mostly depend on the market structure. We further investigate individual characteristics that explain trading behavior in markets with negative externalities.

We explore if fairness and inequality motivations affect cooperation in indefinitely repeated games. Each round, we randomly divided experimental participants into donor–recipient pairs. Donors could make a gift to recipients, and ex-ante earnings are highest when all donors give. Roles were randomly reassigned every period, which induced inequality in ex-post earnings. Theoretically, income-maximizing players do not have to condition on this inequality because it is payoff-irrelevant. Empirically, payoff-irrelevant inequality affected participants’ ability to coordinate on efficient play: donors conditioned gifts on their own past roles and, with inequalities made visible, discriminated against those who were better off.

We implement a laboratory financial market where traders can access costly technology that reduces communication latency with a remote exchange. In this environment, we conduct a market design study on high-frequency trading: we contrast the performance of the newly proposed frequent batch auction (FBA) against the continuous double auction (CDA), which organizes trades in most exchanges worldwide. Our evidence suggests that, relative to the CDA, the FBA exhibits (1) less predatory trading behavior, (2) lower investments in low-latency communication technology, (3) lower transaction costs, and (4) lower volatility in market spreads and liquidity. We also find that transitory shocks in the environment have substantially greater impact on market dynamics in the CDA than in the FBA.

Can we use the lens of dual-system theories to explain altruistic behavior? In recent years this question has attracted the interest of both economists and psychologists. We contribute to this emerging literature by reporting the results of a meta-study of the literature and a new experiment. Our meta-study is based on 22 experimental studies conducted with more than 12,000 subjects. We show that the overall effect of manipulating cognitive resources to promote the “intuitive” system at the expense of the “deliberative” system is very close to zero. One reason for this null result could be that promoting intuition has heterogeneous effects on altruism across different subgroups of subjects or contexts. Another reason could be that there simply is no real effect and that previously reported single results are false positives. We explore the role of heterogeneity both by performing a mediator analysis of the meta-analytic effect and by conducting a new experiment designed to circumvent the issue of potential heterogeneity in the direction of the effect of promoting intuition. In both cases, we find little evidence that heterogeneity explains the absence of an overall effect of intuition on altruism. Taken together, our results offer little support for dual-system theories of altruistic behavior.

Using a series of laboratory experiments in the context of bilateral bargaining over whether and how to engage in a joint venture, this paper shows that fairness concerns result in failures to undertake profitable joint production opportunities. We find that framing an opportunity as an employment relationship rather than as a partnership significantly reduces these inefficiencies and increases subjects’ welfare. Consistent with the theoretical model developed in the paper, text analysis and a follow-up experiment demonstrate that the lower likelihood of an efficient outcome in the partnership frame is driven primarily by a concern for fairness generated by the perceived social relationship associated with partnerships, and not by differences in the economic structure, cognition, subject motivation, or changes in relative bargaining power.

We study gender differences in relation to performance and sabotage in competitions. While we find no systematic gender differences in performance in the real effort task, we observe a strong gender gap in sabotage choices in our experiment. This gap is rooted in the uncertainty about the opponent’s sabotage: in the absence of information about the opponent’s sabotage choice, males expect to suffer from sabotage to a higher degree than females and choose higher sabotage levels themselves. If beliefs are exogenously aligned by implementing sabotage via strategy method, the gender gap in sabotage choices disappears. Moreover, providing a noisy signal about the sabotage level from which subjects might suffer leads to an endogenous alignment of beliefs and eliminates the gender gap in sabotage.

We conduct experiments comparing the performance of individuals and teams of four subjects in solving two rather different tasks. The first involves nonograms, logic puzzles that require a series of incremental steps to solve. The second task uses CRT-type questions, which require a single, specific insight. Contrary to the existing literature, team performance in both tasks is statistically indistinguishable from that of individuals when communication is costless. If a tiny message cost is imposed, team performance improves and becomes statistically better than that of individuals, although still worse than previous research on teams would have suggested. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to find that imposing friction on communication leads to more effective performance in teams. Message costs reduce the quantity of messages but increase the quality, specifically the mix of good and bad suggestions. The improved quality of communication with message costs allows teams to out-perform individuals. Our analysis suggests that organizations would do better by identifying an able individual to perform an intellective task rather than using teams; prediction exercises indicate that this will not harm, and will generally increase, performance relative to a team, and only requires the cost of paying one individual rather than many.

Ostracism is practiced by virtually all societies around the world as a means of enforcing cooperation. In this paper, we use a public goods experiment to study whether groups choose to implement an institution that allows for the exclusion of members. We distinguish between a costless exclusion institution and a costly exclusion institution that, if chosen, reduces the endowment of all players. We also provide a comparison with an exclusion institution that is exogenously imposed upon groups. A significant share of the experimental groups choose the exclusion institution, even when it comes at a cost, and the support for the institution increases over time. Average contributions to the public good are significantly higher when the exclusion option is available, not only because low contributors are excluded but also because high contributors sustain a higher cooperation level under the exclusion institution. Subjects who vote in favor of the exclusion institution contribute more than those who vote against it, but only when the institution is implemented. These results are largely inconsistent with standard economic theory but can be better explained by assuming heterogeneous groups in which some players have selfish and others have social preferences.

The underpricing of initial public offerings (IPO) is a well-documented fact of empirical equity market research. Theories explain this underpricing with market imperfections. We study three empirically relevant IPO mechanisms under almost perfect market conditions in the laboratory: a stylized book building approach, a closed book auction, and an open book auction. We report underpricing in each of these IPO mechanisms. Uncertainty about the aftermarket behavior may partly explain IPO excess returns but underpricing persists even in the repeated setting where uncertainty is negligible and despite the equilibrium adjustment dynamics, that we observe in the data. The data reveal a market-wide impact of investors’ reluctance to sell in the aftermarket at a price below the offering price. We conclude that a behavioural bias similar to the disposition effect fosters IPO underpricing in our setting.

When multiple charities, social programs and community projects simultaneously vie for funding, donors risk mis-coordinating their contributions leading to an inefficient distribution of funding across projects. Community chests and other intermediary organizations facilitate coordination among donors and reduce such risks. To study this, we extend a threshold public goods framework to allow donors to contribute through an intermediary rather than directly to the public goods. Through a series of experiments, we show that the presence of an intermediary increases public good success and subjects’ earnings only when the intermediary is formally committed to direct donations to socially beneficial goods. Without such a restriction, the presence of an intermediary has a negative impact, complicating the donation environment, decreasing contributions and public good success.

We investigate how information about the preferences of others affects the persistence of ‘bad’ social norms. One view is that bad norms thrive even when people are informed of the preferences of others, since the bad norm is an equilibrium of a coordination game. The other view is based on pluralistic ignorance, in which uncertainty about others’ preferences is crucial. In an experiment, we find clear support for the pluralistic ignorance perspective . In addition, the strength of social interactions is important for a bad norm to persist. These findings help in understanding the causes of such bad norms, and in designing interventions to change them.

The lack of a behavioral isomorphism between theoretically equivalent auction institutions is a robust finding in experimental economics. Using a near-continuous time environment and graphically adjustable bid functions, we are able to provide subjects with extensive feedback in multiple auction formats. We find that (1) First Price and Dutch Clock auctions are behaviorally isomorphic and (2) Second Price and English Clock auctions are behaviorally isomorphic. We further replicate the established result (1) that prices in Dutch Clock auctions exceed those of English Clock auctions and (2) that prices in First Price auctions exceed those of Second Price auctions. The latter pattern is often attributed to risk aversion which changes the equilibrium bidding strategy for First Price and Dutch Clock auctions. Because we observe each participant’s bid function directly, we find evidence suggesting a different explanation, namely that bidders are best responding to the distribution of observed prices.

Is the assumption that people automatically know their own preferences innocuous? We present an experiment studying the limits of preference discovery. If tastes must be learned through experience, preferences for some goods may never be learned because it is costly to try new things, and thus non-learned preferences may cause welfare loss. We conduct an online experiment in which finite-lived participants have an induced utility function over fictitious goods about whose marginal utilities they have initial guesses. Subjects learn most, but not all, of their preferences eventually. Choice reversals occur, but primarily in early rounds. Subjects slow their sampling of new goods over time, supporting our conjecture that incomplete learning can persist. Incomplete learning is more common for goods that are rare, have low initial value guesses, or appear in choice sets alongside goods that appear attractive. It is also more common for people with lower incomes or shorter lifetimes. More noise in initial value guesses has opposite effects for low-value and high-value goods because it affects the perceived likelihood that the good is worth trying. Over time, subjects develop a pessimistic bias in beliefs about goods’ values, since optimistic errors are more likely to be corrected. Overall, our results show that if people need to learn their preferences through consumption experience, that learning process will cause choice reversals, and even when a person has completed sampling the goods she is willing to try, she may continue to lose welfare because of suboptimal choices that arise from non-learned preferences.