We conduct a field experiment in a naturally occurring labor environment and track whether the performance of workers responds to unexpected wage increases. Specifically, we investigate how the timing of wage increases affects efforts. We find that workers' performance is about 11% higher for the same total wage when their wage is increased in two steps as opposed to a single increase at the outset. Moreover, workers are more honest and are more willing to do voluntary extra work after surprising wage increases compared to a baseline condition without increases.
Die COVID-19-Pandemie hat die Fragilität des Gesundheitssystems, der Gesellschaft und der Wirtschaft beim Auftreten von weltweiten Krisen deutlich gemacht. Um auf die nächste Krise besser vorbereitet zu sein, stellen sich gesundheitspolitische, wirtschaftliche, rechtliche, ethische und politische Fragen. Zu diesem Thema veranstaltete die Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (BBAW) am 29. Juni 2021 ein Symposium. Gibt es bessere Strategien für mehr Resilienz, Effektivität und Gerechtigkeit? Was kann man dem Markt überlassen, was ist Sache des Staates? Wie sortiert man Finanzierung, Verantwortlichkeiten und Entscheidungsrechte innerhalb eines Landes und über die (europäischen) Ländergrenzen hinweg. Ausgewählte Beiträge zum Symposium werden in diesem Wirtschaftsdienst-Zeitgespräch zusammengefasst. ; The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fragility of the health system, society and economy when global crises occur. In order to be better prepared for the next crisis, health policy, economic, legal, ethical and political questions must be answered. The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) organised a symposium on this topic on 29 June 2021. Are there better strategies for more resilience, effectiveness and justice? What can be left to the market, and what is a matter for the state? How should funding, responsibilities and decisionmaking rights be sorted within a country and across (European) national borders? Selected contributions to the symposium are summarised in this Wirtschaftsdienst-Zeitgespräch.
Reinhard Selten, to date the only German Nobel Prize laureate in economics, celebrates his 80th birthday in 2010. While his contributions to game theory are well-known, the behavioral side of his scientific work has received less public exposure, even though he has been committed to experimental research during his entire career, publishing more experimental than theoretical papers in top-tier journals. This Festschrift is dedicated to Reinhard Selten's exceptional influence on behavioral and experimental economics. In this collection of academic highlight papers, a number of his students are.
Abstract The gas storage regulations are intended to increase security of supply in winter. Tenders and direct procurement by the Market Area Coordinator should ensure that gas storage facilities are filled. Both instruments can lead to a displacement of other storage volumes. Since direct procurement potentially leads to less displacement and allows for better control of strategic behavior, it may be more effective. Tender design can be improved by setting a reserve price and allowing storage obligation trading in a secondary market. Furthermore, separate tenders for withdrawal options, the elimination of the commodity price surcharge, and further adjustments can be beneficial.
Abstract A failure of the price mechanism in the gas market cannot be ruled out. The article explains how a market collapse can occur and what effects even the possibility of such a collapse can have. It explains the essential elements that an economic framework should have in the shadow of a possible market collapse.
Our recent working paper (Ambuehl, Ockenfels, and Stewart 2017) shows theoretically and experimentally that people with higher costs of information processing respond more to an increase in the incentive for a complex transaction, and decide to participate based on a worse understanding of its consequences. Here, we address the resulting tradeoff between the principle of informed consent and the principle of free contract. Respondents to our vignette study on oocyte donation overwhelmingly favor the former and support policies that require donors to thoroughly understand the transaction. This finding helps design markets that are not only efficient but also considered ethical.
We document an increase in the scoring probability from penalties in soccer, which separates the time period before 1974 significantly from that after 1976: the scoring probability increased by 11%.We explain this finding by arguing that the institution of penalty-shooting before 1974 is best described as a standard of behaviour for striker and goal-keeper, which in game-theoretic terms represents a 2x2-game. In contrast to this, after 1976 the institution of the penalty-duel is best described by a 3x3 game form constrained by certain behavioural rules. Those rules can be parameterized by a single parameter, which nevertheless allows the theoretical reproduction (and hence explanation) of all the empirically documented regularities.The scoring probability in equilibrium of the latter institution is higher than in the former one.We present historical evidence to the effect, that this change in the perception of penalty- duels (as two different games), was caused by Johan Neeskens' shrewd and 'revolutionary' penalty-taking during World-Cup 1974, when he shot a penalty in the first minute of the final between Germany and the Netherlands right into the middle of the goalmouth.
Moral behavior and legal institutions coevolve. While evolutionary game theory has often analyzed the evolution of moral behavior within given institutional rules, it has not examined the coevolution of moral preferences and different institutional aspects of the decision environment. By an 'indirect' evolutionary approach, we analyze the coevolution of moral preferences (in the sense of trustworthiness) and legal institutions like court rulings and legal insurance. We find that preference detection capabilities crowd in morality and can thus render useless the role of courts and legal insurance as public institutions. Legal institutions become crucial for the emergence of morality, however, when information about preference types is not available. This holds true even when courts do not have superior detection capabilities than other agents.
Abstract The benefits of a large organ pool accrue not only to the actual organ recipients themselves, but to others as well due to the insurance it provides against having to wait 'too long' for an organ transplant. We argue that this public good character of a large organ pool makes it economically and ethically justifiable to design a market mechanism that boosts the number of donors. Most importantly, such a mechanism has the potential to substantially alleviate the troubling equity and efficiency problems on the demand side while, at the same time, being entirely independent of the allocation algorithm used for the distribution of organs.
