All Outputs (34)

Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons (2017)
Journal Article
Gaechter, S., Kölle, F., & Quercia, S. (2017). Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons. Nature Human Behaviour, 1, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0191-5

Social cooperation often requires collectively beneficial but individually costly restraint to maintain a public good, or it needs costly generosity to create one. Status quo effects predict that maintaining a public good is easier than providing a n... Read More about Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons.

Conditional cooperation and betrayal aversion (2017)
Journal Article
Cubitt, R., Gaechter, S., & Quercia, S. (2017). Conditional cooperation and betrayal aversion. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 141, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2017.06.013

We investigate whether there is an association between conditional cooperation and betrayal aversion, two phenomena that we conjecture share common psychological characteristics despite having been studied largely separately in the previous literatur... Read More about Conditional cooperation and betrayal aversion.

The importance of peers for compliance with norms of fair sharing (2017)
Journal Article
Gaechter, S., Gerhards, L., & Nosenzo, D. (2017). The importance of peers for compliance with norms of fair sharing. European Economic Review, 97, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2017.06.001

A burgeoning literature in economics has started examining the role of social norms in explaining economic behavior. Surprisingly, the vast majority of this literature has studied social norms in asocial decision settings, where individuals are obser... Read More about The importance of peers for compliance with norms of fair sharing.

Occasional errors can benefit coordination (2017)
Journal Article
Gaechter, S. (2017). Occasional errors can benefit coordination. Nature, 545, https://doi.org/10.1038/545297a

The chances solving a problem that involves coordination between people are increased by introducing robotic players that sometimes make mistakes. This finding has implications for real-world coordination problems.

Conducting interactive experiments online (2017)
Journal Article
Arechar, A. A., Gaechter, S., & Molleman, L. (2018). Conducting interactive experiments online. Experimental Economics, 21(1), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-017-9527-2

Online labor markets provide new opportunities for behavioral research, but conducting economic experiments online raises important methodological challenges. This particularly holds for interactive designs. In this paper, we provide a methodological... Read More about Conducting interactive experiments online.

Growth and inequality in public good provision (2017)
Journal Article
Gaechter, S., Mengel, F., Tsakas, E., & Vostroknutov, A. (2017). Growth and inequality in public good provision. Journal of Public Economics, 150, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.03.002

In a novel experimental design we study public good games with dynamic interdependencies, where each agent’s wealth at the end of period t serves as her endowment in t + 1. In this setting growth and inequality arise endogenously allowing us to addre... Read More about Growth and inequality in public good provision.

Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies (2016)
Journal Article
Gaechter, S., & Schulz, J. (2016). Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies. Nature, 531(7595), https://doi.org/10.1038/nature17160

Deception is common in nature and humans are no exception. Modern societies have created institutions to control cheating, but many situations remain where only intrinsic honesty keeps people from cheating and violating rules. Psychological, sociolog... Read More about Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies.

Eye movements in strategic choice (2015)
Journal Article
Stewart, N., Gaechter, S., Noguchi, T., & Mullett, T. L. (2016). Eye movements in strategic choice. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 29(2-3), https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.1901

In risky and other multiattribute choices, the process of choosing is well described by random walk or drift diffusion models in which evidence is accumulated over time to threshold. In strategic choices, level-k and cognitive hierarchy models have b... Read More about Eye movements in strategic choice.

Visible inequality breeds more inequality (2015)
Journal Article
Gaechter, S. (2015). Visible inequality breeds more inequality. Nature, 526, https://doi.org/10.1038/526333a

Experiments suggest that when people can see wealth inequality in their social network, this propels further inequality through reduced cooperation and reduced social connectivity. News & Views comment on Nishi et al, Nature 526, 2015, p. 426-429.

Combining ‘‘real effort’’ with induced effort costs: the ball-catching task (2015)
Journal Article
Gaechter, S., Huang, L., & Sefton, M. (2016). Combining ‘‘real effort’’ with induced effort costs: the ball-catching task. Experimental Economics, 19(4), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-015-9465-9

We introduce the “ball-catching task”, a novel computerized task, which combines a tangible action (“catching balls”) with induced material cost of effort. The central feature of the ball-catching task is that it allows researchers to manipulate the... Read More about Combining ‘‘real effort’’ with induced effort costs: the ball-catching task.

Measuring the closeness of relationships: a comprehensive evaluation of the 'Inclusion of the Other in the Self' scale (2015)
Journal Article
Gaechter, S., Starmer, C., & Tufano, F. (2015). Measuring the closeness of relationships: a comprehensive evaluation of the 'Inclusion of the Other in the Self' scale. PLoS ONE, 10(6), Article e0129478. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129478

Understanding the nature and influence of social relationships is of increasing interest to behavioral economists, and behavioral scientists more generally. In turn, this creates a need for tractable, and reliable, tools for measuring fundamental asp... Read More about Measuring the closeness of relationships: a comprehensive evaluation of the 'Inclusion of the Other in the Self' scale.

Peer effects and social preferences in voluntary cooperation: a theoretical and experimental analysis (2015)
Journal Article
Thöni, C., & Gaechter, S. (2015). Peer effects and social preferences in voluntary cooperation: a theoretical and experimental analysis. Journal of Economic Psychology, 48, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2015.03.001

Social preferences and social influence effects ("peer effects") are well documented, but little is known about how peers shape social preferences. Settings where social preferences matter are often situations where peer effects are likely too. In a... Read More about Peer effects and social preferences in voluntary cooperation: a theoretical and experimental analysis.

Human pro-social motivation and the maintenance of social order (2014)
Book Chapter
Gaechter, S. (2014). Human pro-social motivation and the maintenance of social order. The Oxford Handbook of Behavioral Economics and the Law. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199945474.013.0002

This chapter presents some insights from basic behavioral research on the role of human prosocial motivation to maintain social order. I argue that social order can be conceptualized as a public goods game. Past attempts to explain social order typic... Read More about Human pro-social motivation and the maintenance of social order.

A cooperative instinct (2012)
Journal Article
Gaechter, S. (2012). A cooperative instinct. Nature, 489(7416), https://doi.org/10.1038/489374a

Acting on a gut feeling may sometimes lead to poor decisions, but it will usually support the common good, according to a study showing that human intuition favours cooperative, rather than selfish, behaviour.