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Parallel literatures in economics and psychology investigate why people voluntarily help others in need. Economics has investigated an other-regarding motive (altruism) and a self-regarding motive (warm-glow) and has used choice-based observations for inference. Psychology has similarly examined other- and self-regarding motives and has developed survey-based measurements to assess corresponding measures of empathic concern and a moral principle of care. This paper explores whether and how elicitation of charitable motives from economics relate to measurements from psychology. We find that when making donations to others in need, individuals with stronger empathic concern dispositions are more altruistic/other-regarding. Also, those who more strongly endorse a moral principle of care are more motivated by warm-glow/self-regard. The results connect two literatures, offer novel evidence from economics about theories developed in psychology, and demonstrate that well-developed survey questions from psychology can be predictive of the choice-based inference on altruistic and warm-glow motivations from economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine gender differences in willingness to compete, using data from a TV game show where in each episode the winner of an elimination competition in expectation wins hundreds of thousands of euros. At several stages of the elimination competition, contestants face a choice between continuing to compete and opting out in exchange for a comparatively modest prize. When there is no strategic interaction embedded in this choice, we observe the well-known pattern that women compete less than men, but this difference derives entirely from women avoiding competition against men. When there is strategic interaction and contestants should factor in their opponents' willingness to compete, women again tend to avoid competing against men; men then seem to anticipate the lower competitiveness of female opponents, as evidenced by their greater propensity to compete against women. Ability differences are unlikely to explain these results. Our findings show that the gender difference in willingness to compete that is well-documented in the experimental economics literature also occurs in a quasi-experimental real-world setting with exceptionally high stakes, and underline the importance of the gender of competitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People often extrapolate from data samples, inferring properties of the population like the rate of some event, class, or group ‒e.g., the percent of female scientists, the crime rate, the chances to suffer some illness. In many circumstances, though, the sample observed is non-random, i.e., is affected by sampling bias. For instance, news media rarely display (intentionally or not) a balanced view of the state of the world, focusing particularly on dramatic and rare events. In this respect, a recent literature in Economics hints that people often fail to account for sample selection in their inferences. We here offer evidence of this phenomenon at an individual level in a tightly controlled lab setting and explore conditions for its occurrence. We conjecture that people tend to update their beliefs as if no selection issues existed, unless they have extremely strong evidence about the data-generating process and the inference problem is simple enough. In this vein, we find no evidence for selection neglect in an experimental treatment in which subjects must infer the frequency of some event given a non-random sample, knowing the exact selection rule. In two treatments where the selection rule is ambiguous, in contrast, people extrapolate as if sampling were random. Further, they become more and more confident in the accuracy of their guesses as the experiment proceeds, even when the evidence accumulated patently signals a selection issue and hence warrants some caution in the inferences made. This is also true when the instructions give explicit clues about potential sampling issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We develop a model of decision under temptation, and test its predictions using a natural experiment. • Using passive observation, we create a dataset which takes advantage of exogenous variations in the amount of time over 2800 individual consumers spent exposed to tempting items while waiting in grocery store checkout lines. • We find that time spent in line economically and statistically significantly increases the probability that a consumer purchases a tempting item. A lengthy literature in economics and psychology indicates that prolonged exposure to a tempting stimulus can lead people to "succumb" to that temptation. Here we develop a model of decision under temptation, and test its predictions using a natural experiment. We take advantage of exogenous variations in the amount of time over 2800 individual consumers spent exposed to tempting items while waiting in grocery store checkout lines. Because we passively observe these consumers' naturally occurring purchase decisions, our approach avoids confounds that can arise in designed experiments on temptation and self-control. Our main finding is that time spent in line economically and statistically significantly increases the probability that a consumer purchases a tempting item. Our results provide novel quantitative content to the rapidly expanding literature on decisions under temptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Unethical behavior is usually associated with the risk of negative consequences. • However, the experimental literature so far focused mainly on environments that involve no fines. • We study ethical behavior of individuals and small groups in a compliance setting. • Our results show that groups are clearly less compliant than individuals. • The risk of being detected is the most important aspect in the group communication. Unethical behavior in organizations is usually associated with the risk of negative consequences for the organization and for the involved managers if being detected. The existing experimental literature in economics has so far focused mainly on the analysis of unethical behavior in environments that involve no fines or similar monetary consequences. In the current paper, we use a tax compliance framework to study (un-)ethical behavior of individuals and small groups. Our results show that groups are clearly less compliant than individuals. The risk of being detected is the most important aspect in the group communication process when deciding on compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People share their experiences of goods and services online through reviews, ratings and endorsements on social networks, potentially generating welfare-improving information that can help subsequent consumers make better, more informed decisions. While the economics literature has focused on questions of alignment and the intensive quality of provided information, another tension is extensive: in the absence of an incentive, many might choose not to provide information at all. We study three different incentives that encourage information transmission on the extensive margin, examining the tradeoffs between the quality and quantity of information. Our findings indicate substantial efficiency gains are possible relative to no incentives, even when the incentives damage the preference alignment between those sending and receiving information. In particular, our results suggest that a partially aligned incentive (similar to a referral or sales commission) can encourage the provision of information while not producing substantial reductions in quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Incidence of turn-taking is limited to environment with homogeneous costs. • Individuals do not engage in turn-taking when the perfect turn-taking path is at odds with efficiency. • The timed contribution protocol limits the frequency of mis-coordinated outcomes. Cooperation can take several forms when a group of people interact repeatedly over time. Turn-taking is one such form of intertemporal cooperation that is observed in various daily activities, but at the same time, remains under-studied in the economics literature. We report results from experiments designed to investigate the path of intertemporal cooperation in three-person finitely repeated public good games without communication. Each round, only a subset of individuals is needed to contribute in order to generate a public benefit to all group members. Incidence of perfect turn-taking is limited to settings where the costs are homogeneous. When the perfect turn-taking path is at odds with efficiency, players seldom engage in taking turns. Private information about costs changes the timing of individual decisions within each round. A timed contribution protocol limits the frequency of miscoordinated outcomes every round. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Economics literature rarely shows that macroeconomic processes influence institutions. • Monetary policy especially follows a complex and chaotic process. • Extreme monetary policy has the potential to shift institutions from their trend. • The Hungarian hyperinflations are shown to be chaotic in their nature. • Fragile political institutions in Hungary were altered by this economic chaos. Monetary policies follow a complex and chaotic process, one that is enhanced when monetary growth is taken to the extreme, as in hyperinflation. While we have a basic understanding of the complex dynamics of hyperinflation, a less-explored phenomenon accompanying hyperinflationary episodes is the effect that they have on institutional development. Building on recent advances in economic history examining monetary policy and institutions, this analysis uses more explicit recourse to complexity theory and in particular complex adaptive systems to examine two separate hyperinflationary episodes in Hungary, 1923 and 1946. Delving into the institutional and cultural roots of the inflationary policies of the Hungarian government and detailing the institutional effects which succeeded hyperinflation, this paper shows that the twin experiences of Hungary were both chaotic and created a chaotic and complex aftermath, the results of which are still being felt. Indeed, Hungary's 1923 and especially its 1946 hyperinflation shows that some economic chaos cannot be restrained by political institutions and in fact the institutions themselves were changed. When staring into the abyss, Hungary also found that the abyss stared back. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes potential gender differences in competitive environments using a sample of over 100,000 professional tennis matches. Focusing on two phenomena of the labor and sports economics literature, we find robust evidence for (i) the hot-hand effect (an additional win in the most recent ten matches raises the likelihood of winning by 3.2–3.4 percentage points) and (ii) the clutch-player effect, as top players are excelling in Grand Slam tournaments, the most important events. Overall, we find virtually no gender differences for the hot-hand effect and only minor distinctions for the clutch-player effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the literature on market competition, firms are often modeled as individual decision makers and the internal organization of the firm is neglected (unitary player assumption). However, as the literature on strategic delegation suggests, one cannot generally expect that the behavior of teams is equivalent to the behavior of individuals in Cournot competition. Nevertheless, there are models of team-organizations such that team-firms and individual firms are behaviorally equivalent. This provides a theoretical foundation for the unitary player assumption in Cournot competition. We show that this assumption is robust in experiments, which is in contrast to experimental results on price competition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: I suppose that people react with anger when others show themselves not to be minimally altruistic. With heterogeneous agents, this can account for the experimental results of ultimatum and dictator games. Moreover, it can account for the surprisingly large fraction of individuals who offer an even split with parameter values that are more plausible than those that are required to explain outcomes in these experiments with the models of Levine [Levine, D.K., 1998. Modeling altruism and spitefulness in experiments. Review of Economic Dynamics 1, 593–622], Fehr and Schmidt [Fehr, E., Schmidt, K.M., 1999. A theory of fairness, competition and cooperation. Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, 817–868], Dickinson [Dickinson, D.L., 2000. Ultimatum decision making: a test of reciprocal kindness. Theory and Decision 48, 151–177] and Bolton and Ockenfels [Bolton, G.E., Ockenfels, A., 2000. ERC: a theory of equity, reciprocity, and competition. American Economic Review 90, 166–193]. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]