American Economic Review200494(2), 362-366open access
Repetition and Reputation: Implications for Trust and Trustworthiness When Institutions Change by Iris Bohnet and Steffen Huck. Published in volume 94, issue 2, pages 362-366 of American Economic Review, May 2004
This paper provides the first experimental test of Edward Lazear's (1979) model of deferred compensation. We examine the relation ship between firms' wage offers and workers' effort supply in a multi-period environment. If firms can ex ante commit to a wage schedule with deferred compensation, workers should respond by supplying sufficient effort to avoid dismissal. We contrast this full-commitment case to controls with no commitment and computer-generated wages in order to examine the roles of monetary incentives, social preferences, and reciprocity. Finally, we examine a setup without formal commitment, but where firms can build a reputation for paying deferred wages.
The Review of Economics and Statistics2023105(4), 1008-1016open access
We measure the prevalence of discrimination between Jordanian host and Syrian refugee children attending school in Jordan. Using a simple sharing experiment, we find only a small degree of out-group discrimination. However, Jordanian children with Palestinian roots do not discriminate at all, suggesting that a family history of refugee status can generate solidarity with new refugees. We also find that parents’ narratives about the refugee crisis are correlated with their children's degree of out-group discrimination, particularly among Syrian refugee children, suggesting that discriminatory preferences are being transmitted through parental attitudes.