We analyse an experimental public goods game in which group members can endogenously determine whether they want to supplement a standard voluntary contribution mechanism with the possibility of rewarding or punishing other group members. We find a significantly positive effect of endogenous institutional choice on the level of cooperation in comparison to the same exogenously implemented institutions. This suggests that participation rights enhance cooperation in groups. With endogenous choice, groups typically vote for the reward option, although punishment is even more effective in sustaining high levels of cooperation. Our results are evaluated against the predictions of social preference models.

Using new methods, we measure the intensities of higher-order risk preferences (prudence and temperance) in an incentivized experiment with 658 adolescents. Aligned with theory, we find that higher-order risk preferences are strongly related to field behavior, including prevention, health, addictive behavior, and financial decision-making. Most importantly, we show that ignoring prudence and temperance can yield misleading conclusions about the relation of risk preferences to field behavior, and that survey measures of risk tolerance often relate to field behavior because they capture higher-order risk preferences. (JEL C83, D81, D91, J13)

Our large-scale experiment with 542 families from rural Bangladesh finds substantial intergenerational persistence of economic preferences. Both mothers' and fathers' risk, time, and social preferences are significantly (and largely to the same degree) positively correlated with their children's economic preferences, even when controlling for personality traits and socioeconomic background. We discuss possible transmission channels and are the first to classify all families into one of two clusters, with either relatively patient, risk-tolerant, and prosocial members or relatively impatient, risk averse, and spiteful members. Classifications correlate with socioeconomic background variables. We find that our results differ from evidence for rich countries.

We study risk attitudes, ambiguity attitudes, and time preferences of 661 children and adolescents, aged ten to eighteen years, in an incentivized experiment and relate experimental choices to field behavior. Experimental measures of impatience are found to be significant predictors of health-related field behavior, saving decisions, and conduct at school. In particular, more impatient children and adolescents are more likely to spend money on alcohol and cigarettes, have a higher body mass index, are less likely to save money, and show worse conduct at school. Experimental measures for risk and ambiguity attitudes are only weak predictors of field behavior.

In this paper, we describe a series of laboratory experiments that implement specific examples of a general network structure. Specifically, actions are either strategic substitutes or strategic complements, and participants have either complete or incomplete information about the structure of a random network. Since economic environments typically have a considerable degree of complementarity or substitutability, this framework applies to a wide variety of settings. We examine behavior and equilibrium selection. The degree of equilibrium play is striking, in particular with incomplete information. Behavior closely resembles the theoretical equilibrium whenever this is unique; when there are multiple equilibria, general features of networks, such as connectivity, clustering, and the degree of the players, help to predict informed behavior in the lab. People appear to be strongly attracted to maximizing aggregate payoffs (social efficiency), but there are forces that moderate this attraction: (1) people seem content with (in the aggregate) capturing only the lion's share of the efficient profits in exchange for reduced exposure to loss, and (2) uncertainty about the network structure makes it considerably more difficult to coordinate on a demanding, but efficient, equilibrium that is typically implemented with complete information.