research
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Cues for Consumer Choice Behaviour on a Cryptomarket for Drugs
Abstract Background: Illicit online marketplaces for drugs on the Tor network have been studied so far from a descriptive perspective and the only data available on consumer choice behavior stems from interviews with small participant samples. This article seeks to increase external validity of previous research by providing a whole-market analysis of choice behavior on…
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How Abstinence Affects Preferences
“Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.“ (Stephen Hawking) The context of the study Recently, the mass-media got interested in the effects of easy and cheap access to high-speed pornographic material over the internet (check out this wonderful article in the Economist). Yet, there is almost no…
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How Hunger Affects Distributional Preferences
Experimental economists have a long tradition of running experiments with monetary incentives, with a number of underlying assumptions and methodological concerns that have yet to be tested and answered. One of these questions is if participants in those experiments care about efficiency. Or more precisely, do participants exhibit efficiency preferences (Engelmann & Strobel, 2004)? One…
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Accountability and Pecuniary Sanctions Influence Fiduciary Money Management
Sandro Casal, Matteo Ploner and I investigated the conflict of interests between investors and fund managers which often arises in asset management. A main goal of financial regulators is to identify and mitigate this conflict. We therefore focused on measures that may foster protection of investors’ interests. In an experiment capturing the essential elements of…
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Age Affects Decision Making Under Uncertainty
Behavioral Evidence In an aging society, the extent to which aging affects financial decision making becomes increasingly important to understand. We (Carsten Diener, Chrsitian Fiebach, Christiane Schwieren, Gil Sharvit and I) investigated decision making under uncertainty and how it is affected by age in two separate studies. Uncertain decisions are defined as choices with some…
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Testing Social Production Functions with Incentives
Background [This experiment has been published in the Journal of the Economics of Ageing. Our working paper and an earlier discussion paper.] The “aging employee” has recently become a hot topic in many fields of behavioural research. With the aim to determine the effects of different incentive schemes (piece rate, competition, choice between piece rate…
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The Effects of Aging on Decision Making
A Selective Literature Overview With a growing part of the population getting older, the potential demands of older adults put increasing strain on already-limited resources. It is therefore of crucial importance to understand the effects of aging on the maintenance of independence, with the target to facilitate and improve independent functioning. In this regard, decision…
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Publications and Working Papers
Sproten, A.N., Schwieren, C. (forthcoming), “Age Differences in the Reaction to Incentives – a Test of the Successful Ageing Extension of Social Production Functions Theory“, The Journal of the Economics of Ageing. Doctoral thesis “Developmental neuroeconomics: lifespan changes in economic decision making“. 2014 (October): “Fostering the Best Execution Regime: An Experiment about Pecuniary Sanctions and…
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Research Profile
I am a behavioural scientist and I am used to applying methods from various fields (such as economics, psychology, endocrinology, or neuroscience) to the corresponding research questions. My research clusters around three central pillars, viz. ageing, social norm compliance, and new media.