Suchergebnisse

"Soziologie und Ökonomie repräsentieren bislang zwei unterschiedliche Ausrichtungen sozialwissenschaftlicher Forschung. Wir zeigen anhand von zwei alten soziologischen Themen -Vertrauen und Reziprozität - wie neuere Entwicklungen in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften alte Unterschiede in neue Gemeinsamkeiten überführen können. Dies gilt auch auf methodischer Ebene - in der Kombination von Experimenten und Survey-Studien. Wir beschreiben zunächst, wie Vertrauen in Umfragestudien gemessen wird, und stellen dann die wichtigsten Laborexperimente zur Vertrauens- und Reziprozitätsmessung vor. Wir zeigen, dass diese Experimente gewinnbringend in der interdisziplinären Forschung eingesetzt werden können. Wir diskutieren auch die Frage ob und in welchem Ausmaß die experimentellen Befunde auch ausserhalb des Labors Gültigkeit haben. Eine Variante dieser Frage ist, ob soziologisch unterschiedliche Gruppen sich auch unterschiedlich verhalten. Wir zeigen, dass dies der Fall ist, aber das alle qualitativen Ergebnisse der bisherigen Laborexperimente erhalten bleiben. Dies gilt auch, wenn man Experimente im Rahmen von repräsentativen Haushaltspanels durchführt. Vor allem letztere Methode hat unseres Erachtens ein sehr grosses Potenzial in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung." (Autorenreferat)

Gift-giving customs are ubiquitous in social, political, and business life. Legal regulation and industry guidelines for gifts are often based on the assumption that large gifts potentially influence behavior and create conflicts of interest, but small gifts do not. However, scientific evidence on the impact of small gifts on business relationships is scarce. We conducted a natural field experiment in collaboration with sales agents of a multinational consumer products company to study the influence of small gifts on the outcome of business negotiations. We find that small gifts matter. On average, sales representatives generate more than twice as much revenue when they distribute a small gift at the onset of their negotiations. However, we also find that small gifts tend to be counterproductive when purchasing and sales agents meet for the first time, suggesting that the nature of the business relationship crucially affects the profitability of gifts.

Gift-giving customs are ubiquitous in social, political, and business life. Legal regulation and industry guidelines for gifts are often based on the assumption that large gifts have the potential to influence behavior and create conflicts of interest, but small gifts do not. However, scientific evidence on the impact of small gifts on business relationships is scarce. We conducted a controlled field experiment in collaboration with sales agents of a multinational consumer products company to study the influence of small gifts on the outcome of business negotiations. We find that small gifts matter. On average, sales representatives generate more than twice as much revenue when they distribute a small gift at the onset of their negotiations. However, we also find that small gifts tend to be counterproductive when purchasing and sales agents meet for the first time, underlining that the nature of the business relationship crucially affects the profitability of gifts.

Gift-giving customs are ubiquitous in social, political, and business life. Legal regulation and industry guidelines for gifts are often based on the assumption that large gifts have the potential to influence behavior and create conflicts of interest, but small gifts do not. However, scientific evidence on the impact of small gifts on business relationships is scarce. We conducted a controlled field experiment in collaboration with sales agents of a multinational consumer products company to study the influence of small gifts on the outcome of business negotiations. We find that small gifts matter. On average, sales representatives generate more than twice as much revenue when they distribute a small gift at the onset of their negotiations. However, we also find that small gifts tend to be counterproductive when purchasing and sales agents meet for the first time, underlining that the nature of the business relationship crucially affects the profitability of gifts.

People self-assess their relative ability when making career choices. Thus, confidence in own abilities is likely an important factor for selection into various career paths. In a sample of 711 first-year students we examine whether there are systematic differences in confidence levels across fields of study. We find evidence for selection based on our experimental confidence measure: While Political Science students exhibit the highest confidence levels, students of Humanities range at the other end of the scale. This may have important implications for subsequent earnings and/or professions students select themselves in.

International audience ; We explore the impact of the self-serving bias on the supply and demand for redistribution. We present results from an experiment in which participants decide on redistribution after performing a real e↵ort task. Dependent on individual performance, participants are divided into two groups, successful and unsuccessful. Participants' success is exogenously determined, because they are randomly assigned to either a hard or easy task. However, because participants are not told which task they were assigned to, there is ambiguity as to whether success or failure should be attributed to internal or external factors. Participants take two redistribution decisions. First, they choose a supply of redistribution in a situation where no personal interests are at stake. Second, they choose a redistributive system behind a veil of ignorance. Our results confirm and expand previous findings on the self-serving bias: successful participants are more likely to attribute their success to their e↵ort rather than luck, and they opt for less redistribution. Unsuccessful participants tend to attribute their failure to external factors and opt for more redistribution. We demonstrate that the self-serving bias contributes to a polarization of the views on redistribution.