(revised: January 2012; first version: July 2008)
formerly distributed with title "Resource Allocations and Voting for Punishment in Heterogeneous Groups"

Resources are often allocated in groups through decentralized non-market mechanisms. We experimentally investigate resource allocations in unequal groups with a rich representative repeatedly allocating resources among poorer members, who can announce their (dis-)approval of the allocation by voting for a measure that materially hurts the representative. To examine the effect of inequality aversion, we keep the information on the distribution private in one condition and make it commonly known in another. We also investigate whether casting votes publicly or secretly influences allocation and voting behavior. We find that disapproval rates are highest when voting is secret or when the allocation of resources is commonly known. Interestingly, disapproval voting does not stimulate representatives to appear more pro-social, but rather induces them to keep everything. With private information on the allocation and public voting, disapproval is least frequent and the poorest group members are mostly excluded from the resources. The analysis shows that inequality aversion of poorer group members crucially interacts with the investigated institutional and informational details of the resource allocation situation.
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(first version: december 2011)

Existing experimental research on behavior in weakest-link games shows overwhelmingly the inability of people to coordinate on the efficient equilibrium, especially in larger groups. We hypothesize that people will be able to coordinate on efficient outcomes, provided they have sufficient freedom to choose their interaction neighborhood. We conduct experiments with medium sized and large groups and show that neighborhood choice indeed leads to coordination on the fully efficient equilibrium, irrespective of group size. This leads to substantial welfare effects. Achieved welfare is between 40 and 60 percent higher in games with neighborhood choice than without neighborhood choice. We identify exclusion as the simple but very effective mechanism underlying this result. In early rounds, high performers exclude low performers who in consequence ‘learn’ to become high performers.
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(revised: December 2011; first version: August 2009)

We investigate the emergence and enforcement of contribution norms to public goods in homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. With survey data we demonstrate that uninvolved individuals hold well defined yet conflicting normative ideas of fair contribution rules related to efficiency, equality, and equity. In the experiment, in the absence of punishment no contribution norm is observed and all groups converge towards free-riding. With punishment, strong and stable differences in contributions emerge across group types and individuals in different roles. In some cases these differences result from the emergence of an absolute efficiency norm where all fully contribute. In the cases where full efficiency is not attained, these differences result from the enforcement of different relative contribution norms. Our experimental data show that individuals often agree on and enforce a contribution norm even when it entails pronounced differences in earnings.
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(first version: August 2011)

In this paper we experimentally investigate whether partial coercion can in combination with conditional cooperation increase contributions to a public good. We are especially interested in the behavior of the non-coerced populations. The main finding is that in our setting conditional cooperation is not a strong enough force to increase contribution levels. Although, non-coerced subjects rationally adjust their beliefs about contribution behavior of coerced subjects they do not increase their own contributions to the public good accordingly. This points to the limits of the actual strength of conditional cooperation and puts some doubt on the idea that it is crucial in overcoming social dilemma problems.
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(February 2011)

In a series of experiments conducted in Belgium (Wallonia and Flanders), France and the Netherlands, we compare behavior regarding tax evasion and welfare dodging, with and without information about others’ behavior. Subjects have to decide between a ‘registered’ income, the realization of which will be known to the tax authority for sure, and an ‘unregistered’ income that will only be known with some probability. This unregistered income comes from self-employment in the Tax treatment and from black labor supplementing some unemployment compensation in the Welfare treatment. Subjects have then to decide on whether reporting their income or not, knowing the risk of detection. The results show that (i) individuals evade more in the Welfare treatment than in the Tax treatment; (ii) many subjects choose an option that allows for tax evasion or welfare fraud but report their income honestly anyway; (iii) examples of low compliance tend to increase tax evasion while examples of high compliance exert no influence; (iv) tax evasion is more frequent in France and the Netherlands; Walloons evade taxes less than the Flemish. There is no cross-country difference in welfare dodging.
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(December 2010)

We explore network effects on generosity for different network dimensions. To this end we elicit multiple network dimensions (friendship, social support, economic exchange, etc.) in a rural village in the Southern hemisphere and measure generosity with a sequence of dictator games conducted in the field. We find that networks of different dimensions differ substantially in density, clustering, and centrality. When relating generosity to networks we observe that social distance only matters for friendship ties but that structural network variables are important in all network dimensions. Importantly, these effects are not invariant across different network dimensions. We also find that individual characteristics are unrelated with generosity per se but that they have strong explanatory power for network formation.
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(July 2010)

More often than not production processes are the joint endeavor of people having different abilities and productivities. Such production processes and the associated surplus production are often not fully transparent in the sense that the relative contributions of involved agents are blurred; either by lack of information about the actual performance of collaborators or because of random noise in the production process or both. These variables likely influence the surplus sharing negotiations following the production. By means of a laboratory experiment, we systematically investigate their role for the whole bargaining process from opening offers to (dis)agreements and find that uncertainties in surplus production and (even) a very coarse performance information lead to bargaining asymmetries. In addition, we find that bargainers’ subjective entitlements are also influenced by performance information and the randomness inherent in the production process. These differences in subjective entitlements together with the differences in entitlements between better and worse performers influence the whole bargaining process and significantly contribute to the differences in bargaining outcomes.
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(July 2010)

Redistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes and economic experiments have revealed that most people have a preference for redistribution that is not merely inspired by self-interest. Interestingly, little is known on how these preferences interact with preferences for different pension schemes. In this paper we review the experimental evidence on preferences for redistribution and suggest some links to redistribution through pensions. For that purpose we distinguish between three types of situations. The first deals with distributional preferences behind a veil of ignorance. In the second type of situation, individuals make choices in front of the veil of ignorance and know their position. Finally, we discuss situations in which income is determined by interdependent rather than individual choices. In the closing parts of the paper we discuss whether and how these experimental results speak to the redistribution issues of pensions. For example, do they argue for or against mandatory participation? Should we have less redistribution and more actuarial fairness? How does this depend on the type of redistribution involved?.
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(revised December 2008; first version: April 2004)
An abridged version of this paper is published in Journal of Public Economics under the title
We study the effects of competition in a context in which people's actions can not be contractually fixed. We find that in such an environment the very presence of competition does neither increase efficiency nor does it yield any payoff gains for the short side of the market. We also find that competition has a strong negative impact on social well-being, the disposition towards others, and individually experienced well-being, the emotional state, of those on the long side of the market. We conjecture that this limits the possibilities of satisfactory interaction in the future and, hence, has negative implications for efficiency in the longer-run.
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(Revised June 2004)

We investigate experimentally whether emotions affect bidding behavior in a first price auction. To induce emotions, we confront subjects after a first auction series with a positive or negative random economic shock. We then explore the relation between emotions and bidding behavior in a second auction series. Our main results are: (i) the economic shock has a substantial impact on the experienced emotions of bidders; (ii) the emotional state systematically influences bidding behavior. Our results clearly suggest that emotions should not be excluded as an explanatory factor of behavior in competitive environments like auctions.
: Paper available upon request.

(2003)

We extend the standard ultimatum game to a three person game where the proposer chooses a three-way split of a pie and two responders independently and simultaneously choose to accept or reject the proposal. We investigate whether a responder perceives the other responder as a reference person. We do this by varying the other responder's payoff in case the responder rejects. Hence, we explore whether reciprocal behavior towards the proposer is affected by the presence of the third player. In three treatments, the third player is either negatively affected, unaffected, or positively affected by the responder's choice to punish the proposer. We find that responders are very heterogeneous in their actions. Around one half of subjects submit strategies showing no concern for the other responder's payoffs. Another half of the subject pool submits strategies sensitive to the distribution of the pie among all three players. Preferences for equal splitting of the pie are expressed by less than 10 percent of all responders.
: Paper available upon request.