We present a descriptive model of choice with normative foundations based on how the brain is thought to represent value. An individual’s behavior is fully described by two primitives: an individual’s expectation and one free parameter we call “predisposition”. The model captures the same apparent preference phenomena illustrated by Prospect Theory but unlike Prospect Theory accounts for indivi...

Economic reconstruction typically takes place after the end of war. Yet recently, economic reconstruction has been viewed as a means to ‘win hearts and minds’ during ongoing conflict. Drawing on a variety of reconstruction experiences from Afghanistan and Iraq, we identify four ‘reconstruction traps’ that result from the incentives and constraints faced by actors involved in economic reconstruc...

Recent studies find ample evidence that monetary and immaterial gifts influence effort in the workplace. We investigate the impacts of monetary gift exchange and of expressions of respect on salespersons’ reciprocity when purchasing doner durum, a common lunch snack. Prior to the food’s preparation, we either induce monetary gift exchange by tipping or explore the role of respect by making a co...

Using the techniques of revealed preference analysis, we study a two-stage model of choice behavior. In the first stage, the decision maker maximizes a menu-dependent binary relation encoding preferences that are imperfectly perceived. In the second, a menu-independent binary relation is maximized over the subset of alternatives that survive the first stage. This structure can support various i...

We compare the rationality of choice under risk – utility maximization, stochastic dominance, and expected-utility maximization – of students from one of the best universities in the US and one of the best universities in Africa. The US subjects came nearer to consistency with utility maximization and the dominance principle, but there are no differences between the two samples in consistency w...

We present experimental evidence from a bilingual city in Northern Italy on whether the language spoken by a partner in a prisoner’s dilemma game affects behavior and leads to discrimination. Running a framed field experiment with 828 sixto eleven-year old primary school children in the city of Meran, we find that cooperation generally increases with age, but that the gap between cooperation am...

Recent research has shown that women shy away from competition more often than men. We evaluate experimentally three alternative policy interventions to promote women in competitions: Quotas, Preferential Treatment, and Repetition of the Competition unless a critical number of female winners is reached. We find that Quotas and Preferential Treatment encourage women to compete significantly more...

Punishment typically involves depriving violators of resources they own such as money or labor. These resources can become revenue for authorities and thus motivate profitseeking punishment. In this paper, we design a novel experiment to provide direct evidence on the role punishment plays in communicating norms. More importantly, we provide experimental evidence indicating that if people know ...

Using controlled experiments, we examine how individuals make choices when faced with multiple options. Choice tasks are designed to mimic the selection of health insurance, prescription drug, or retirement savings plans. In our experiment, available options can be objectively ranked allowing us to examine optimal decision making. First, the probability of a person selecting the optimal option ...

Organizations, Diffused Pivotality and Immoral Outcomes This paper studies how organizational design affects moral outcomes. Subjects face the decision to either kill mice for money or to save mice. We compare a Baseline treatment where subjects are fully pivotal to a Diffused-Pivotality treatment where subjects simultaneously choose in groups of eight. In the latter condition eight mice are ki...