We experimentally investigate the extent to which social observability of one’s actions and the possibility of social non-monetary judgment affect the decision to engage in rule breaking behavior. We consider three rule breaking scenarios — theft, bribery and embezzlement — in the absence of any formal enforcement mechanism. By involving a student sample characterized by cultural heterogeneity ...

Isolated peroxisomes were able to utilize [3H]isopentenyl diphosphate to synthesize farnesyl diphosphate, which then was utilized as substrate by both the peroxisomal squalene synthetase and cis-prenyltransferase. The specific activity of squalene synthetase in peroxisomes was as high as in microsomes, i.e. 160 pmol/mg of protein/min. If NADPH was omitted from the assay medium, presqualene diph...

The use of student subjects and the role of deception in economic experiments are two controversial issues that have been widely discussed in the agricultural and resource economics (ARE) community recently. We provide a self-contained methodological discussion of these issues from the perspective of the larger experimental economics community. Our main points are that field professionals are m...

This paper provides evidence against the argument that the rich prevent the poor from obtaining public education in unequal developing democracies. In Brazilian municipalities with low median incomes, voters are significantly less likely to reelect incumbent candidates from parties that increased the number of local public primary schools during their terms. This is not true for municipalities ...

Exploring the Nature of Loss Aversion Loss aversion, the fact that losses have a greater impact than gains, is a fundamental property of behavioral accounts of choice. In this paper, we suggest four possible characterizations of the relative impact of losses and gains: (1) It could be a constant, such as the much cited value of 2, as in losses have twice the impact of gains. (2) It could be a s...

The aim of this work is the parallel solution of large 3D-CFD problems concerning the numerical description of turbulent combustion and pollutant formation processes in coal-fired utility boilers. The in-house developed multi-domain CFD code AIOLOS for quasi-stationary, weakly compressible, turbulent reacting flows is used. The code is based on a conservative finite-volume formulation with a co...

A frequently cited argument against the use of market-based instruments like emission permit trading systems is that they diminish our sense of moral responsibility to be good environmental citizens. By changing pollution from a sin against nature remedied only by personal atonement into a commodity that can be bought and sold with no special social consequences, market-based instruments may we...

A number of recent theoretical papers have shown that for buyer-size discounts to emerge in a bargaining model, the total surplus function over which parties bargain must have certain nonlinearities. We test the theory in an experimental setting in which a seller bargains with a number of buyers of different sizes. We generate nonlinearities in the surplus function by varying the shape of the s...

Selection and Mode Effects in Risk Preference Elicitation Experiments We combine data from a risk preference elicitation experiment conducted on a representative sample via the Internet with laboratory data on students for the same experiment to investigate effects of implementation mode and of subject pool selection. We find that the frequency of errors in the lab experiment is drastically bel...