Irenaeus Wolff and Dominik Folli, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 227: 106722, 2024

Former title: Elusive Beliefs: Why Uncertainty Leads to Stochastic Choice and Errors

• We experimentally induce different levels of belief uncertainty and show that more belief uncertainty leads to more inconsistent behaviour.
• We point out that more information may lead to more uncertainty – if the information goes against one‘s prior
• We provide an individual-level experimental test of the `belief-sampling‘ model that has been shown to predict behaviour in multi-armed bandit settings (→ OR literature) as well as aggregate behaviour in games, markets, and surveys (→ Felix Mauersberger).

with Pascal Sulser & Urs Fischbacher

We run a field experiment on littering in public parking garages

• On the Swiss side of the border, there is less littering than on the German side. However, this is neither because Swiss people litter less than Germans, nor because of German parking garages being dirtier ex ante. Controlling for location, Germans litter weakly less (!) than Swiss people. People adapt, and Germans even over-adapt (in this case, being afraid of higher fines).
• Generally, our results strongly suggest that littering follows expectations. Germans living in Switzerland adapt the most („overshooting“ on both sides of the border), and they also see the largest differences. Overall, the data are consistent with a simple model of social norms, so that we conclude that littering is more about social norms than personal values

TWI-RPS „Heuristic Centered-Belief Players“ (R&R, Journal of Economic Psychology) download

• introduces the name-your-prize game: choose [27 EUR, 30 EUR, or 33 EUR] and you get it, unless your opponent chooses the same amount. Leads to a U-shaped aggregate pattern that is mostly robust to (17) variations.
• observes that none of the popular behavioural-econ models predicts the pattern
• A cluster-analysis of beliefs suggests that Noisy Introspection accounts for 50% of the data. The same analysis points to a new behavioural type that has roughly symmetric center-peaked beliefs, which displays a very strong aggregate U-pattern in the name-your-prize game (which causes the overall pattern to be U-shaped)
• The type also exists in existing 11–20-game data, where the type accounts for a disproportionate share of choices of 16 and below (which are irrational given the beliefs)
• The type has across-game predictive power: people classified by their name-your-prize beliefs as „heuristic centered-belief players“ account for a disproportionate share of choices of 16 and below in the 11–20 game

Dienstag, 27. Mai  2025

Details folgen

Donnerstag, 07.11.2024
17:00 bis 20:00

Lilienberg Unternehmerforum,
Ermatingen, Schweiz

Programm

Kostenbeitrag: CHF 70.- 

kostenfrei für Mitarbeiter/-innen der Uni Kontanz

Anmeldung

bis 5. November 2024:

Zahlung

Trotz grosser geopolitischer Risiken scheint die wirtschaftliche Lage in der Schweiz recht stabil. Allerdings hatte es die Bauwirtschaft in den vergangenen Jahren nicht ganz so leicht. Deshalb wollen wir am diesjährigen Forum einen Schwerpunkt darauf legen und uns dabei insbesondere mit der Sanierung des bestehenden Gebäudeparks befassen.
Das ist nicht nur ein Thema, das uns aus konjunktureller Sicht beschäftigt, es ist auch zentraler Baustein zum Erreichen der Klimaziele. Dr. Marco Schmid, Senior Economist bei Wüest Partner, gibt uns einen Einblick in das energetische und wirtschaftliche Potenzial von Energiesparmassnahmen im Gebäudebereich.
Einen Ausblick auf das wirtschaftliche Geschehen erhalten wir von Prof. Dr. Jan-Egbert Sturm, Direktor der KOF Konjunkturforschungsstelle der ETH Zürich. In seinem Vortrag zu den Prognosen für das kommende Jahr wird Professor Sturm auf die wichtigsten wirtschaftlichen Trends eingehen, die die globalen und nationalen Märkte im Jahr 2025 prägen werden. Er wird die neuesten Konjunkturprognosen vorstellen und die potenziellen
Chancen sowie Herausforderungen beleuchten, die Unternehmen und Entscheidungsträger im kommenden Jahr erwarten dürfen.
Ein ökonomischer Blick in die Zukunft – praxisnah am Thurgauer Prognoseforum 2024.

Anfahrtsbeschreibung zum Lilienberg

12th Thurgau Experimental Economics Meeting (theem)

Technology and Human Behaviour

20th -22th March 2024, Kreuzlingen (CH)

Organized by the Thurgau Institute of Economics at the University of Konstanz

programme

slides of the keynote address by Gillian K. Hadfield

Keynote Speakers:

Gillian Kereldena Hadfield

Gillian K. Hadfield, B.A. (Hons.) Queens, J.D., M.A., Ph.D. (Economics) Stanford, is Professor of Law, Professor of Strategic Management and holds the Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society at the University of Toronto and a CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute. She is the inaugural Director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. She has recently been named one of seven AI2050 Senior Fellows by Schmidt Futures. AI2050 is a program that advances Eric and Wendy Schmidt’s $125 million, five-year commitment to support talented individuals working to ensure AI’s benefit to society. Her current research is focused on innovative design for legal and regulatory systems for AI and other complex global technologies; computational models of human normative systems; and working with machine learning researchers to build ML systems that understand and respond to human norms. Professor Hadfield is a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Human-Compatible AI at the University of California Berkeley and was a Senior Policy Advisor at OpenAI in San Francisco. Her book Rules for a Flat World: Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent It for a Complex Global Economy was published by Oxford University Press in 2017; a paperback edition with a new prologue on AI was published in 2020 and an audiobook version released in 2021.

Alicia von Schenk

Alicia von Schenk was appointed as Junior Professor (TT) for Applied Microeconomics, especially Human-Machine Interaction, at the University of Würzburg in 2022 at the age of 26. After having studied both economics and mathematics (BSc & MSc), she did her PhD at the Goethe University Frankfurt and became postdoc at the Center for Humans and Machines (MPI) in Berlin in 2021. Her research combines questions of behavioral and organizational economics with current and socially relevant topics in the field of artificial intelligence and human-machine interaction. She uses experimental methods and causal inference together with machine learning applications, e.g., to answer questions about technology acceptance and the effect of algorithms on individuals‘ preferences and decision-making.

Important Dates:

If you would like to present your research, please submit an extended abstract (max. 2000 characters, or about 300 words) in .txt format below. The conference fee is EUR 200 (including coffee breaks and the conference dinner).

Organized by:

Where to stay

How to get to theem

Theem takes place at the Kult-X, Hafenstrasse 8, CH-8280 Kreuzlingen.

By train

You can get to Kreuzlingen by train with the SBB (https://www.sbb.ch). The final station is Kreuzlingen. You can reach the Thurgau Institute of Economics by bus line 924. Please get off the bus at the stop Bärenplatz. You can reach Konstanz by Deutsche Bahn (https://www.bahn.de). From the main station take bus line 908 to get to the Thurgau Institute of Economics. Please get off the bus at the stop Bärenplatz.

By car

You can get to Kreuzlingen from Zurich on highway N7. From the north you can get to Kreuzlingen on highway A81. Please follow direction Kreuzlingen centre. Parking is possible at Bärenplatz opposite the Thurgau Institute of Economics.

By plane

The international airport next to Kreuzlingen is Zurich Kloten. From Zurich Kloten there is a direct train connection taking about one hour to Kreuzlingen with the SBB (https://www.sbb.ch). The regional airport next to Kreuzlingen is Friedrichshafen. From Friedrichshafen situated on the north side of the Lake Constance you can get to Kreuzlingen by express bus, train or ship.

On the maps

Podiumsdiskussion zum Thema Künstliche Intelligenz

18. Juni 2024
17:00 bis 19:30

Kult-X
Hafenstrasse 8
8280 Kreuzlingen

17:00 Uhr Getränkebuffet
17:30 Uhr Beginn der Vorträge
19:00 Uhr Apéro

Künstliche Intelligenz – zwischen Begeisterung und Sorge

Mit Artificial Intelligence, maschinellem Lernen, Deep Learning und ChatGPT haben neue Begriffe Einzug in unseren Alltag gefunden – in der Arbeitswelt, an Hochschulen und im privaten Leben. Die rasanten Entwicklungen, die der Einsatz künstlicher Intelligenz mit sich bringt, sind nicht mehr aufzuhalten. Die Optimisten sehen grosse Potenziale und Möglichkeiten für eine bessere Zukunft. Andere sehen Gefahren wie den Verlust ganzer Berufsfelder oder Eingriffe in die Persönlichkeitsrechte. Welche Chancen bietet die künstliche Intelligenz? Wer trifft die Entscheidungen? Wer hat die Kontrolle? Und wie sichern wir die Wahrung unserer demokratischen Werte? Unsere beiden Referierenden diskutieren diese Fragen aus Expertensicht.

Podiumsgäste

Anmeldung

Anfahrtsbeschreibung zum TWI

11th Thurgau Experimental Economics Meeting (theem)

Behavior in a Crisis

29. – 31.03.2023, Kreuzlingen (CH)

Organized by the Thurgau Institute of Economics at the University of Konstanz

Keynote Speakers:

Farzana Afridi is a Professor of Economics at the Indian Statistical Institute in New Delhi and a Visiting Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore. Her widely published research in development and labor economics focuses on gender, social identity, human capital, and governance. Her most recent work examines the gendered impacts of crises and how public policies could mitigate negative shocks. Among other appointments, Farzana is the Lead Academic of the International Growth Centre’s India program and currently heads the Digital Labor and Women Economic Empowerment program, supported by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation.

Michael Callen is an Associate Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. His widely published research addresses open questions in political economy and development economics using experimental methods. His most recent work utilizes experiments to identify ways to address accountability and service delivery failures in the public sector. Among other appointments, he is an Affiliate of Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD), the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), the Jameel-Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), the Center for Economic Research Pakistan (CERP), Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC), and a Principal Investigator on the Building Capacity for the Use of Research Evidence (BCURE): Data and evidence for smart policy design project.

Abstract:

How does a crisis affect people’s behavior? One crisis follows another: financial crises, the European migrant crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, an energy crisis, and, of course, the climate crisis that has been looming for decades. Do individuals adjust their behavior to mitigate the personal and societal severity of a crisis, and if so, how? Is behavioral change only restricted to domains that relate directly to the crisis, or does it spill over to other domains? How can institutions foster citizens’ cooperation to overcome the crisis? What are the group dynamics emerging from a crisis, and how do they affect the crisis? To answer such questions, we invite contributions from economics, psychology, sociology, and political science.

Important Dates:

If you would like to present your research, please submit an extended abstract (max. 2000 characters, or about 300 words) in .txt format below. The conference fee is EUR 200 (including coffee breaks and the conference dinner).

Organized by:

Where to stay

How to get to theem

Theem takes place at the Kult-X, Hafenstrasse 8, CH-8280 Kreuzlingen.

By train

You can get to Kreuzlingen by train with the SBB (https://www.sbb.ch). The final station is Kreuzlingen. You can reach the Thurgau Institute of Economics by bus line 924. Please get off the bus at the stop Bärenplatz. You can reach Konstanz by Deutsche Bahn (https://www.bahn.de). From the main station take bus line 908 to get to the Thurgau Institute of Economics. Please get off the bus at the stop Bärenplatz.

By car

You can get to Kreuzlingen from Zurich on highway N7. From the north you can get to Kreuzlingen on highway A81. Please follow direction Kreuzlingen centre. Parking is possible at Bärenplatz opposite the Thurgau Institute of Economics.

By plane

The international airport next to Kreuzlingen is Zurich Kloten. From Zurich Kloten there is a direct train connection taking about one hour to Kreuzlingen with the SBB (https://www.sbb.ch). The regional airport next to Kreuzlingen is Friedrichshafen. From Friedrichshafen situated on the north side of the Lake Constance you can get to Kreuzlingen by express bus, train or ship.

On the maps

24. Mai 2022, 17:00 bis 18:30 Uhr

Der Anlass findet bei schönem Wetter direkt beim Container im Freien statt. Bei schlechtem Wetter bietet das Kult-X genügend Platz

Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft: wohlgesinnt und doch fremd?

Gerade in Zeiten gesellschaftlicher Unsicherheit ist Vertrauen wichtig für ein vitales Gemeinwesen und die Qualität von Demokratien. Dies hat sich nicht zuletzt in der Pandemie gezeigt. Doch wie kommunizieren wir wissenschaftliches Wissen in die Gesellschaft? Wie schaffen wir Vertrauen für Wissenschaft? Wie kann Politik
stärker wissensbasiert entscheiden? Können die einzelnen Regionen der IBK dabei voneinander lernen?

Dr. Katrin Schmelz, Verhaltensökonomin am Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut (TWI) an der Universität Konstanz, wird in einem Impulsreferat von ihren Forschungen berichten. Darin wurde untersucht, unter welchen Bedingungen sich Haltungen in stark kontroversen Themen verändern können.

Anfahrtsbeschreibung zum TWI

Wirtschaftsaussichten 2023

03.11.2022
17:00 bis 20:00

Lilienberg Unternehmerforum,
Ermatingen, Schweiz

Programm

KOF-Konjunkturprognose
Jan-Egbert Sturm, Leiter KOF ETH Zürich

Anmeldung zum Prognoseforum

Anfahrtsbeschreibung zum Lilienberg

Zahlen lügen nicht – Ökonomische Erkenntnisse für den Sport

Hinter sportlichen Erfolgen stecken immer mehr wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse. Im Fussball beispielsweise werden Datenerhebungen und -analysen sowie Statistiken zum Mitgaranten für Erfolg. Vorsprung gegenüber Konkurrenten, lautet die Losung. Wissenschaftlich ausgewertete Sportdaten bieten Managern, Trainern und Sportlern die Grundlage u.a. für Taktik, Trainingseinheiten und Transfers. Auch im Spitzensport spricht man heute von  Produktionsprozess . Was den Sport besonders auszeichnet: Zur Herstellung marktf higer Güter brauchen SportlerInnen ihre Gegner. Was w re ein Roger Federer alleine auf dem Center Court? Eine weitere Besonderheit ist die  Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothese , die Erkenntnis, dass eine Unsicherheit durchaus attraktiv sein kann. Der deutsche Alt-Bundestrainer Sepp Herberger formulierte dies einmal pr gnant wie folgt:  Warum gehen die Leute zum Fussball? Weil sie nicht wissen wie das Spiel ausgeht . Die Welt des Sports für einmal wissenschaftlich betrachtet am Bodensee Wirtschaftsforum 2022.

mit Ulrik Brandes, ETH Zürich und Helmut Dietl, Universität Zürich

11. Mai 2022
17:00 bis 19:30

Kult-X
Hafenstrasse 8
8280 Kreuzlingen

17:00 Uhr Getränkebuffet
17:30 Uhr Beginn der Vorträge
19:00 Uhr Apéro

Anmeldung bis 10. Mai 2022 per Post, E-Mail oder direkt hier über unsere Webseite (Teilnahme kostenlos)

Anmeldung zum Bodensee Wirtschaftsforum

Anfahrtsbeschreibung zum TWI

2020 (with Sebastian Fehrler and Baiba Renerte), download

• We use a standard ingredient of many models and experiments to obtain a setting in which both social projection and information neglect could happen: two urns (states of the world), a light one (2 light balls, 1 dark ball) and a dark one (2 dark balls, 1 light ball). Participants get a signal (a single draw) from the actually-drawn urn and have to guess on the colour of the next-to-be-drawn ball + to indicate the probabilities of the urn being light or dark and of the next ball being light or dark. Up to 70% report a 50-50 belief on the urn question, indicating that they cannot learn anything from the signal. We go to great lengths to induce learning in three consecutive experiments, but to little avail.

R&R, Economic Inquiry

download the current version | download the outdated WP

Builds on the working paper: If I Don’t Trust Your Preferences, I Won’t Follow Mine: Preference Stability, Beliefs, and Strategic Choice

• we don’t have good predictions for one-shot public-good situations (few models are calibrated to even allow for such predictions). This paper looks at whether Nash-equilibrium predicts aggregate behaviour out-of-sample when based on empirical conditional-contributions measurements (prediction from Wolff, 2017). Answer: yes, pretty well!
• even better when we provide conditions close to the mutual-knowledge-of-preferences assumption (by disclosing interaction partners‘ conditional-contribution vectors [in a deception-free way]). It even predicts behaviour of those who don’t believe in the displayed preferences, and of those who show stochastic preferences.
• in case of multiple equilibria, Fehr & Schmidt’s (1999) invoking of Pareto-dominance gets empirical support, even though about 1/5 of the population (each) also select the average- and the lowest-contribution equilibria.

with Urs Fischbacher and Moath Hussien

• We look at when it is ok or even expected to punish, analysing data from several countries

• Two projects in which we do what the title suggests. :-)

• Strategic behaviour of candidates may lead to certain types of candidates being selected/promoted
• This may yield unequal outcomes when focusing on certain (job-unrelated!) characteristics of the (non-)selected candidates (e.g., gender). How are such inequalities evaluated?

• We study the consequences of patent protection depending on whether reverse-engineering is easy or difficult in the controlled world of a lab experiment

with Lara Suraci, Robin Cubitt, and Chris Starmer.

•  In a lottery-choice environment (think of robo-advisors), right from the start, most people are happy to delegate to an expected-value-maximising algorithm.
• Clearly less people delegate to an algorithm that „relies on modern decision science“ to try and choose what their previous choices suggest they would choose (while avoiding clearly suboptimal choices)
• People stick to their choices of delegating or not over rounds; they have a higher tendency to switch away from an algorithm after a zero-payoff, but only in case of the preferential algorithm
• We can exclude dissatisfaction with the algorithms‘ choices as a main driver of the treatment effects

• Does it matter whether you ask: „what do you think did your opponent do?“ or „what do you think did everybody else do?“ We show it does.
• In general, people show a clear consensus effect. But when it‘s a bad thing to do what my opponent does and you ask me for my guess about the opponent‘s action, I‘ll re-adjust and ex-post rationalise my action. Therefore: don‘t ask me about my opponent‘s action in such cases (my reports are going to be distorted twice rather than only once)!
• We find no evidence of a hindsight bias or wishful thinking in any of the treatments.

Wirtschaftsaussichten 2022

• 08.10.2021
• 17:00 bis 20:00
• Unternehmerforum Lilienberg, Ermatingen

Programm

Zu Gast

Jan-Egbert Sturm von der Konjunkturforschungsstelle KOF der ETH Zürich und Marius Brülhart der University Lausanne sind die diesjährigen Redner.

Vorträge zum Download

Anmeldung zum Prognoseforum

Anfahrtsbeschreibung zum Lilienberg

• Why do we see a bunching of choices in a pure discoordination game played on the options „A“, „B“, „A“, and „A“? And why do we see the same bunching in other games with the same unique mixed-strategy equilibrium prescribing uniform mixing (as I show)? And – why does the bunching correspond to the pattern we observe when people simply have to bet on one of the options (as I show)?
• My answer: many people reason strategically in one way or the other, but at some point they realise that this doesn‘t help in the situation at hand (it doesn‘t eliminate even a single option). At this point, they „switch off“ their „strategic-thinking engine“ and simply bet on any of the options (which ones is predicted by findings from psychology). This behaviour could be exploited by others who best-respond to it. But it isn‘t. Models that include layers of best-responding to betting-like behaviour predict clearly worse out-of-sample than a simple mix of betting-like behaviour and uniform randomisation. This answer accounts for two well-established findings, one from the literature and the other one from the real world: the seeker advantage in hide-and-seek games, and the bunching in national-lottery bets.

Irenaeus Wolff, Journal of Economic Psychology, 74: 102197, 2019

• Paying participants as soon as they finish the questionnaire ruins the data quality.
• If data quality is key, wait until everybody has finished before starting to pay. This often is costly, of course. If data quality is not absolutely key, consider paying after most participants have finished the questionnaire.
• Paying too little overall is bad too. Framing the show-up fee as being „for the completion of the questionnaire“ doesn‘t help, though.
• Neither providing progress feedback nor having people put in their names to prepare the receipts seems to affect the data quality. In our case, asking people to enter their names does not lead to more socially-desirable answers even on the very next screen, while providing progress feedback after two thirds of the pages at least improves the motivation to fill in open-answer questions.

Konjunkturaussichten 2020 mit Jan-Egbert Sturm und mit Tobias Straumann, dem bekannten Wirtschaftshistoriker

Programm

Bettina Rockenbach and Irenaeus Wolff, Review of Behavioral Economics, 6: 19–37, 2019

• Studies a setting in which interactions work as in the usual VCM experiment, but what people have at the end of a round is what they have at the beginning of the next one (think of a bank account that is endowed with a number of tokens only once, at the beginning). This also means that punishment destroys future contribution capabilities.
• In a treatment without peer-punishment, initial contribution levels predict final wealth levels. In a treatment with punishment, this is not the case. Here, what is important is that cooperators do not start punishing non-cooperators straight away, as doing so triggers retaliation cycles. In contrast, `patient‘ administration of punishment fosters wealth.

• People don‘t seem to give away their data just because the true size of loyalty-programme benefits often remains hidden. Instead, it seems like the programmes successfully hide that customers are paying with their data – or that the ambiguity of which data is eventually used helps the companies. Finally, we find that political support for the `liberal democrats‘ (the most business-friendly party) is correlated with weaker privacy concerns.

Irenaeus Wolff, Economics Letters, 150: 83–85, 2017

• Shows that empirically (judging by people‘s revealed preferences), there are positive-contributions equilibria far more often than we would expect, e.g., by the parameterised model of Fehr & Schmidt (1999). That re-opens the question of why contribution levels don‘t converge to these more socially-beneficial equilibria in repeated settings.

Bettina Rockenbach and Irenaeus Wolff, German Economic Review, 17(3): 316–336, 2016

• We let participants come up with their own rules for a standard public-good setting on four consecutive occasions. Many start out introducing (centralised!) punishment but abandon it later on. Also, many use openly-fictional framing, and surprisingly successfully so. A number of rule designers choose to conceil individual contributions, and no designer introduced a leader or ostracism. Finally, rule designers typically combined several rule components.

Irenaeus Wolff, Economics Letters, 141: 134–137, 2016

• Can we explain behaviour in a Hide&Seek game on „A“, „B“, „A“, and „A“ using a level-k model that uses empirical measures of salience as level-0? Short answer from 9 different measurements of salience: No.

J.Philipp Reiss and Irenaeus Wolff, Experimental Economics, 17(4): 586–614, 2014

• Do people respond to incentives of credit contracts in a limited-liability setting as predicted by theory? The answer is yes, but only after sufficient learning opportunities.
• After learning, non-monotonic contracts perform much better than standard debt contracts. However, under non-monotonic contracts, „entrepreneurs“ misreport their earnings in order to repay less, albeit much less so than they could (mirroring the lying literature).

Arne R. Weiss and Irenaeus Wolff, Economics Bulletin, 33(1): 794–796, 2013

• In elections that are based on self-descriptions of the candidates, voters on average expect elected candidates to line their pockets more than randomly-selected candidates. However, this is not the case. The difference in voter-expectations comes exclusively from those who voted for the losing candidate. They are all too pessimistic with respect to the winner. A comforting finding for real elections, if your candidate didn‘t make it this time…

Irenaeus Wolff, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 315: 128–138, 2012

• Asks whether the mix of behavioural types typically observed in public-good experiments could `survive‘ in an evolutionary-game-theory model (even though punishment and counter-punishment carry costs). Answer: yes it can, so we shouldn‘t be surprised to see what we see.

Andreas Nicklisch and Irenaeus Wolff, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 84(3): 892–905, 2012

• Shows that the popular reciprocity models systematically miss an important aspect: Most of the time, people don‘t kill others just because these others were slightly unkind even if doing so was costless (i.e., marginal punishment costs were negligible; the point is important because it means fitting any of the models and predicting out-of-situation is doomed to fail whenever marginal punishment costs differ).
• Increasing the fixed costs of punishment makes punishment more extreme, but only among the `reciprocity types‘: the fractions of selfish and inequality-averse players are small and stable.

Andreas Nicklisch and Irenaeus Wolff, Journal of Public Economic Theory, 13(5): 791–827, 2011

• Examines the contribution norms in a public-good setting by looking at punishment patterns.
• Full contribution is the norm, even though people tend to hold others to the standard of their own contribution: the more tokens I keep to myself, the more likely I will be punished; however, this effect is much stronger once I contribute less than my potential punisher.
• In the first (of many potential) punishment stage(s), we find no evidence of anti-social punishment (in the sense of players punishing more cooperative others). This strongly suggests that anti-social punishment in typical public-good experiments is mostly `pre-emptive retaliation‘.
• When others are allowed to voice their opinion on whether a player should punish a certain other player before the potential punisher decides about how strongly to punish (if at all), the punishment choices rely on the observers‘ judgements rather than directly on the norm. However, the judgements follow the same principles as the norm.
• Precedes a similar and often-cited GEB paper with similar conclusions by two years.

Hong Geng, Arne R. Weiss and Irenaeus Wolff, Journal of Public Economic Theory, 13(5): 695–719, 2011

• Why do citizens fare better when there are (fair) elections? Why do elections keep the elected from lining their pockets too much? Reciprocity towards the electorate? No: it is their promises:

• • In elections based on self-descriptions without promises, the elected appropriate (as) much of the cake (as randomly selected people).
  • In elections based on promises, the elected on average feel partially bound to their promises (they knowingly let their voters down, but not completely). Put in terms of a simple guilt-aversion model: candidates‘ second-order beliefs match voters‘ first-order beliefs, albeit at a more pro-social level than candidates‘ actual choices.

• Precedes a very similar and often-cited AJPS paper by three years.

Können wir den Medien vertrauen?

• 23.05.2019
• 17:00 bis 19:30
• Aula der Kantonsschule Kreuzlingen

Können wir den Medien vertrauen? Meinungsbildung im digitalen Zeitalter; Journalismus unter Druck: „Fakenews“, fehlende Inserate, Konkurrenz seitens sozialer Medien. Wie werden wir uns in Zukunft informieren? Was ist uns seriöser Journalismus wert?

Mit Wolfgang Gaissmaier, Universität Konstanz und Stefan Schmid, Chefredaktor Thurgauer Zeitung/St. Galler Tagblatt

Programm

Präsentation Gaissmaier

Präsentation Schmid

Urs Fischbacher, Leiter des Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstituts wurde in den Beirat des Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) berufen. Das WZB erforscht grundlegende gesellschaftliche Fragen. Die thematischen Schwerpunkte sind Bildung und Arbeit, Migration, Demokratie und Autokratie, internationale Politik und Recht. Am WZB arbeiten Forscherinnen und Forscher verschiedener Disziplinen zusammen – vor allem aus der Soziologie, der Politikwissenschaft, der Ökonomie, der Rechtswissenschaft und der Psychologie.

10th Thurgau Experimental Economics Meeting (theem)

Social Preferences

16^th-18^th April, 2019 in Kreuzlingen (CH)

Organized by the Thurgau Institute of Economics at the University of Konstanz

Keynote speakers:

Yan Chen, Ernst Fehr and Ian Krajbich

Program theem 2019 for download

Non-selfish behavior has been documented in many experiments. However, our understanding of many facets of pro- as well as anti-social behavior is still incomplete. We invite exciting new contributions on social behavior from fields like economics, psychology, political sciences, anthropology or biology. Submissions will address, for example, the heterogeneity in moral motives, preferences for equity, social norms, psychological processes underlying social behavior, or the evolution of social preferences. We look forward to your submissions.

If you would like to present your research, please submit an extended abstract (max. 2000 characters, or max. 300 words) below. The conference fee is EUR 200 (including coffee breaks and the conference dinner).

Important Dates

Please forward this call for papers to other researchers who might be interested in the topic. For further questions please contact us via hc.meehtobfsctd@ofni.

How to get to theem

Theem takes place at the College of Education (Pädagogische Hochschule) Thurgau, Building P, unterer Schulweg 3, CH-8280 Kreuzlingen.

By train

You can get to Kreuzlingen by train with the SBB (http://www.sbb.ch). The final station is Kreuzlingen. You can reach the Thurgau Institute of Economics by bus line 924. Please get off the bus at the stop Bärenplatz. You can reach Konstanz by Deutsche Bahn (http://www.bahn.de). From the main station take bus line 908 to get to the Thurgau Institute of Economics. Please get off the bus at the stop Bärenplatz.

By car

You can get to Kreuzlingen from Zurich on highway N7. From the north you can get to Kreuzlingen on highway A81. Please follow direction Kreuzlingen centre. Parking is possible at Bärenplatz opposite the Thurgau Institute of Economics.

By plane

The international airport next to Kreuzlingen is Zurich Kloten. From Zurich Kloten there is a direct train connection taking about one hour to Kreuzlingen with the SBB (http://www.sbb.ch). The regional airport next to Kreuzlingen is Friedrichshafen. From Friedrichshafen situated on the north side of the Lake Constance you can get to Kreuzlingen by express bus, train or ship.

Wirtschaftsaussichten 2020

• 24.10.2019
• 17:00 bis 20:00
• Unternehmerforum Lilienberg, Ermatingen

Programm

Laut Seco (Sommer 2019) sollte das Wirtschaftswachstum der Schweiz 2020 moderat anziehen und auf 1,7% steigen. Die EU-Kommission geht von einem Wachstum von 1,4% aus und David Malpass, der Direktor der Weltbank, prognostiziert ein globales Wachstum von 2,7%. Angesichts steigender Staatsverschuldungen, Währungsverwerfungen und unter dem Damoklesschwert zunehmender Handelshemmnisse dürfte 2020 ein weiteres herausforderndes Jahr für unsere Unternehmen werden. Genaueres dazu von Jan-Egbert Sturm von der Konjunkturforschungsstelle KOF der ETH Zürich.

Speziell auf den Aspekt der Tiefzinspolitik geht Tobias Straumann ein. Er beleuchtet die Thematik aus einer historischen Perspektive; hatten wir doch in der Schweiz bereits Ende 1960, Anfang 1970 eine Tiefzinsphase zu verkraften, und so wirft er einen Blick zurück und einen mutigen voraus.

Programm

Sturm_Präsentation

Straumann_Präsentation

Steigende Kosten im Gesundheitswesen – Kann es so weitergehen?

• 02.05.2018
• 17:00 bis 19:30
• Aula der Kantonsschule Kreuzlingen

Programm

Die Krankenkassenprämien steigen Jahr für Jahr. Mittlerweile sind die Gesundheitsausgaben in der Schweiz auf 12% des Bruttoinlandprodukts angestiegen. Das wirft Fragen auf: Ist es eher die Alterung der Bevölkerung oder der medizinische Fortschritt, der diesen Anstieg verursacht? Werden die Gesundheitsausgaben unbezahlbar, wenn die Politik nicht gegensteuert? Muss der Leistungskatalog der Sozialen Krankenversicherung beschnitten werden? Und wenn ja, gibt es Kriterien für eine Rationierung, die als fair wahrgenommen und von allen Akteuren im Gesundheitswesen akzeptiert werden?
Diese Knacknuss diskutieren wir am Bodensee Wirtschaftsforum mit den Gesundheitsökonomen Konstantin Beck und Friedrich Breyer.
Herzlich willkommen, wir freuen uns auf Ihre Teilnahme!

9th Thurgau Experimental Economics Meeting (theem)

Decision-Making in Groups

11^th-13^th April, 2018 in Kreuzlingen (CH)

Organized by the Thurgau Institute of Economics at the University of Konstanz

Keynote speakers:

Juan Camilo Cárdenas and Jean-Robert Tyran

Program theem 2018 for download

Many important decisions are made in groups. This applies to very different contexts, including decision-making in families, peer groups, monetary policy committees or government cabinets. We are interested in two main questions: (i) How do group contexts shape group members’ individual decisions? (ii) How do groups decide collectively? A group context can affect decisions because of factors like conformity effects and social learning. When a group has to make a collective decision, the individual decisions then have to be aggregated by some mechanism. We are interested in both how these mechanisms come into place and how they affect the group decision. We welcome contributions on any of these aspects from economics as well as other disciplines, such as social psychology or political science. We look forward to your submissions.

If you would like to present your research, please submit an extended abstract (max. 2000 characters, or max. 300 words) below. The conference fee is EUR 200 (including coffee breaks and the conference dinner).

Important Dates

Please forward this call for papers to other researchers who might be interested in the topic. For further questions please contact us via hc.meehtobfsctd@ofni.

How to get to theem

Theem takes place at the College of Education (Pädagogische Hochschule) Thurgau, Building P, unterer Schulweg 3, CH-8280 Kreuzlingen.

By train

You can get to Kreuzlingen by train with the SBB (http://www.sbb.ch). The final station is Kreuzlingen. You can reach the Thurgau Institute of Economics by bus line 924. Please get off the bus at the stop Bärenplatz. You can reach Konstanz by Deutsche Bahn (http://www.bahn.de). From the main station take bus line 908 to get to the Thurgau Institute of Economics. Please get off the bus at the stop Bärenplatz.

By car

You can get to Kreuzlingen from Zurich on highway N7. From the north you can get to Kreuzlingen on highway A81. Please follow direction Kreuzlingen centre. Parking is possible at Bärenplatz opposite the Thurgau Institute of Economics.

By plane

The international airport next to Kreuzlingen is Zurich Kloten. From Zurich Kloten there is a direct train connection taking about one hour to Kreuzlingen with the SBB (http://www.sbb.ch). The regional airport next to Kreuzlingen is Friedrichshafen. From Friedrichshafen situated on the north side of the Lake Constance you can get to Kreuzlingen by express bus, train or ship.