We analyze the consequences of control on motivation in an experimental principal-agent game, where the principal can control the agent by implementing a minimum performance requirement before the agent chooses a productive activity. Our results show that control entails hidden costs since most agents reduce their performance as a response to the principal's controlling decision. Overall, the effect of control on the principal's payoff is nonmonotonic. When asked for their emotional perception of control, most agents who react negatively say that they perceive the controlling decision as a signal of distrust and a limitation of their choice autonomy.

Do employers and workers underbid prevailing wages if there si unemployment? Do employers take advantage of workers' underbidding by lowering wages? Do employers take advantage of workers underbidding by lowering wages? We hypothesize that under conditions of incomplete labor contracts, wage levels may positively affect workers' propensity to cooperate. This, in turn, may prevent firms from underbidding or accepting the underbidding of workers. Experimental double auctions conducted for the purpose of examinating these hypotheses yield the following results: (i) Workers' underbidding is very frequent, but employers refuse to accept workers' low wage offers in markets with complete labor contracts, employes accept and actively enforce wages close to the competitive level. (ii) Workers' effort is positively related to the wage level. Therefore over their effort level. This holds true even in the presence of explicit performance incentives.

We report the results of two laboratory experiments and a representative survey that investigate how default effects are shaped by information asymmetries and strategic incentives. We document that defaults are more informative when the interests of default setters and decision makers are more closely aligned. Decision makers’ propensity to accept defaults depends, both, on the alignment of interests and the quality of their information. In a second experiment, we demonstrate that decision makers are more likely to follow defaults than to accept (equally informative) advice. Complementary evidence from a representative survey underlines that consumers commonly perceive defaults as being set strategically.

We document the individual willingness to act against climate change and study the role of social norms in a large sample of US adults. Individual beliefs about social norms positively predict pro-climate donations, comparable in strength to universal moral values and economic preferences. However, we document systematic misperceptions of social norms. Respondents vastly underestimate the prevalence of climate-friendly behaviors and norms. Correcting these misperceptions in an experiment causally raises individual willingness to act against climate change and individual support for climate policies. The effects are strongest for individuals who are skeptical about the existence and threat of global warming.

We study the effects of defaults on charitable giving in a large-scale field experiment on an online fundraising platform. We exogenously vary default options along two choice dimensions: the charitable donation decision and the “co-donation” decision regarding how much to contribute to supporting the platform. We document a strong effect of defaults on individual behavior but nevertheless find that aggregate donation levels are unaffected by defaults. In contrast, co-donations increase in the default amount. We complement our experimental results with a structural model that investigates whether personalizing defaults based on individuals' donation histories can increase donation revenues.

This study presents evidence on the role of social environment for the formation of prosociality. We show that socioeconomic status (SES) as well as intensity of mother-child interaction and mothers? prosocial attitudes are related to elementary school children?s prosociality. We also present evidence on a randomly assigned variation of the social environment, providing children with a mentor for 1 year. Our data reveal a significant and persistent increase in prosociality in the treatment relative to the control group. Moreover, enriching the social environment closes the prosociality gap between low- and high-SES children. A mediation analysis suggests that prosociality develops in response to prosocial role models and intense social interactions.

This article studies the relationship between patience and comparative development through a combination of reduced-form analyses and model estimations. Based on a globally representative dataset on time preference in 76 countries, we document two sets of stylized facts. First, patience is strongly correlated with per capita income and the accumulation of physical capital, human capital, and productivity. These correlations hold across countries, sub-national regions, and individuals. Second, the magnitude of the patience elasticity strongly increases in the level of aggregation. To provide an interpretive lens for these patterns, we analyse an overlapping generations model in which savings and education decisions are endogenous to patience, aggregate production is characterized by capital-skill complementarities, and productivity implicitly depends on patience through a human capital externality. In our model estimations, general equilibrium effects alone account for a non-trivial share of the observed amplification effects, and an extension to human capital externalities can quantitatively match the empirical evidence.

This article studies the global variation in economic preferences. For this purpose, we present the Global Preference Survey (GPS), an experimentally validated survey data set of time preference, risk preference, positive and negative reciprocity, altruism, and trust from 80,000 people in 76 countries. The data reveal substantial heterogeneity in preferences across countries, but even larger within-country heterogeneity. Across individuals, preferences vary with age, gender, and cognitive ability, yet these relationships appear partly country specific. At the country level, the data reveal correlations between preferences and biogeo-graphic and cultural variables, such as agricultural suitability, language structure, and religion. Variation in preferences is also correlated with economic outcomes and behaviors. Within countries and subnational regions, preferences are linked to individual savings decisions, labormarket choices, and prosocial behaviors. Across countries, preferences vary with aggregate outcomes ranging from per capita income, to entrepreneurial activities, to the frequency of armed conflicts.