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We investigate how the inclination to cheat changes when agents report the result of multiple realizations of a (private information) stochastic event rather than a single outcome. Multiple realizations render extreme outcomes unlikely, facilitating the identification of opportunistic behaviors and exposing to reputation concerns the individuals who report them. Consequently, multiple realizations lead to a significant reduction of cheating by large amounts. Simultaneously multiple realizations also diminish the intrinsic cost of lying, thereby inducing a widespread inclination to adjust upward the observed outcome in a plausible manner. The overall effect is only a marginal decrease in the degree of cheating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inflation expectations elicited in surveys have been found to exhibit large dispersion across individuals. Although several explanations have been proposed, none fully explain this puzzle. We explore in this paper a new behavioral factor: social comparison. Using original survey data, we find that respondents who feel they are falling behind compared to their peers report significantly and substantially higher inflation expectations. We argue that this result is consistent with an experience based belief formation model in which those unable to "keep up with the Joneses" overweight the high prices of "aspiration" goods they are unable to purchase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a large-scale field experiment assessing the impact of an intervention providing evidence-based information about costs and returns to higher education. Treatment impacts are evaluated through university enrolment, choice of field of study, and performance either at university or in the labour market. Thanks to the large sample size, treatment effects can also be assessed for subgroups (by gender and parental education). We find that treated females from high-educated families chose more economically rewarding fields of study, while treated males from low-educated families were more likely to enter the labour market. Although not necessarily in line with policy goals, choices induced by additional information were not detrimental to students' opportunities, as treated students displayed a similar academic performance and higher employment rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report results from an incentivized laboratory experiment undertaken with the purpose of providing controlled evidence on the causal effects of alcohol consumption on risk-taking, time preferences and altruism. Our design disentangles the pharmacological effects of alcohol intoxication from those mediated by expectations, as we compare the behavior of three groups of subjects: those who participated in an experiment with no reference to alcohol, those who were exposed to the possibility of consuming alcohol but were given a placebo and those who effectively consumed alcohol. All subjects participated in a series of economic tasks administered in the same sequence across treatments. After controlling for both the willingness to pay for an object and the potential misperception of probabilities as elicited in the experiment, we detect no effect of alcohol in depleting subjects’ risk tolerance. However, we find that alcohol intoxication increases impatience and makes subjects less altruistic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we argue that tax enforcement is an additional contextual factor affecting tax morale, one of the most important determinants of tax compliance. By using a unique dataset that merges a representative sample of Italian households with administrative data on tax enforcement, we first find that tax morale is positively correlated with tax enforcement. Second, to deal with possible endogeneity of tax enforcement, we show that results are confirmed in an IV specification using the change in the tax gap at the provincial level as an instrument for tax enforcement. Finally, we provide evidence that the impact of tax enforcement and social environment is stronger at low quantiles of tax morale. Our results show that besides that of lowering the expected value of tax evasion, tax enforcement has an additional and indirect effect on tax compliance through its effect on tax morale. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper we analyze the role played by self-confidence, modeled as beliefs about one''s ability, in shaping task choices. We propose a model in which fully rational agents exploit all the available information to update their beliefs using Bayes’ rule, eventually learning their true type. We show that when the learning process does not converge quickly to the true ability level, small differences in initial confidence can result in diverging patterns of human capital accumulation between otherwise identical individuals. If differences in self-confidence are correlated with socio-economic background (as a large body of empirical literature suggests), self-confidence can be a channel through which education and earning inequalities perpetuate across generations. Our theory suggests that cognitive tests should take place as early as possible, in order to avoid that systematic differences in self-confidence among equally talented people lead to the emergence of gaps in the accumulation of human capital. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Patron Game studies the individual provision of a public good, i.e., a situation in which the cost of contributing exceeds by construction its private return (e.g., volunteering, Open Collaboration projects). We test the Patron Game in the lab finding that contributions are high, though significantly lower than in a classic Public Good Game. Results show that demand effects and the warm glow of giving account almost entirely for the contributions, with the former playing the most prominent role. The social nature of the individual provision of a public good is confirmed by the fact that, even when the efficiency multiplier is removed, contributions are higher than in comparable Dictator Games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents empirical evidence from the Programme for International Student Assessment 2003 survey on the role of students' attitudes towards competition and cooperation in mathematical literacy achievement. While individual competitive attitudes are positively correlated with test scores, the reverse occurs when considering the aggregation of individual attitudes. Similarly, while individual cooperative attitudes exhibit a negative correlation with test scores, the opposite is true in the aggregate. We provide an interpretation of this 'fallacy of composition' based on public good production and incentives to free riding, which is prevented by social norms held valid in a small or homogenous group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]