Publications

Gender and Willingness to Compete for High Stakes

We examine gender differences in willingness to compete, using data from a TV game show where in each episode the winner of an …
Dennie van Dolder, Martijn J. van den Assem, Thomas Buser
Summary Journal article Download from SSRN Media: Süddeutsche Zeitung

Does Losing Lead to Winning? An Empirical Analysis for Four Sports

Berger and Pope (2011) show that being slightly behind increases the likelihood of winning in professional (NBA) and collegiate (NCAA) …
Bouke Klein Teeselink, Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder
Summary Journal article Download from SSRN

High-Stakes Failures of Backward Induction

We examine high-stakes strategic choice using more than 40 years of data from the American TV game show The Price Is Right. In every …
Bouke Klein Teeselink, Dennie van Dolder, Martijn J. van den Assem, Jason Dana
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Behavioral Risk Profiling: Measuring Loss Aversion of Individual Investors

Loss aversion has been shown to be an important driver of people’s investment decisions. Encouraged by regulators, financial …
Dennie van Dolder, Jurgen Vandenbroucke
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The Description-Experience Gap in Cooperation

Conditional cooperation is usually investigated in experiments where the choices of others are known. In many circumstances, however, …
Ozan Isler, Orestis Kopsacheilis, Dennie van Dolder
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Can the Market Divide and Multiply? A Case of 807 Percent Mispricing

This paper documents a strong violation of the law of one price surrounding a large rights issue. If prices are right, the relation …
Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder, Remco C.J. Zwinkels, Marc B.J. Schauten
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Nudging Student Participation in Online Evaluations of Teaching: Evidence from a Field Experiment

This paper reports the results of a large randomized field experiment that investigates the extent to which nudges can stimulate …
Susanne Neckermann, Uyanga Turmunkh, Dennie van Dolder, Tong V. Wang
Journal article Working paper on SSRN

Do Descriptive Social Norms Drive Peer Punishment? Conditional Punishment Strategies and Their Impact on Cooperation

Peer punishment is widely considered a key mechanism supporting cooperation in human groups. Although much research shows that human …
Xueheng Li, Lucas Molleman, Dennie van Dolder
Summary Journal article Working paper on SSRN

Prince: An Improved Method for Measuring Incentivized Preferences

This paper introduces the Prince incentive system for measuring preferences. Prince is a variation of the random incentive system that …
Cathleen A. Johnson, Aurélien Baillon, Han Bleichrodt, Zhihua Li, Dennie van Dolder, Peter P. Wakker
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Incentives, Performance and Choking in Darts

This paper examines how within-match variation in incentives affects the performance of darts players. The game of darts offers an …
Bouke Klein Teeselink, Rogier J.D. Potter van Loon, Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder
Journal article Working paper on SSRN

Malleable Lies: Communication and Cooperation in a High Stakes TV Game Show

We investigate the credibility of non-binding pre-play statements about cooperative behavior, using data from a high-stakes TV game …
Uyanga Turmunkh, Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder
Summary Journal article Working paper on SSRN

The Evil Eye: Eye Gaze and Competitiveness in Social Decision Making

We demonstrate that a person’s eye gaze and his/her competitiveness are closely intertwined in social decision making. In an …
Mauro Giacomantonio, Jennifer Jordan, Francesca Federico, Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder
Journal article Working paper on SSRN Blog: The Conversation

The Wisdom of the Inner Crowd in Three Large Natural Experiments

The quality of decisions depends on the accuracy of estimates of relevant quantities. According to the wisdom of crowds principle, …
Dennie van Dolder, Martijn J. van den Assem
Summary Journal article Working paper on SSRN News and views by Ed Vul Media: Bloomberg Media: Cosmos Magazine Media: Yahoo

Comparing Uncertainty Aversion Towards Different Sources

We propose simple behavioral definitions of comparative uncertainty aversion for a single agent towards different sources of …
Aurélien Baillon, Ning Liu, Dennie van Dolder
Journal article Working paper on SSRN

Risky Choice in the Limelight

This paper examines how risk behavior in the limelight differs from that in anonymity. In two separate experiments, we find that …
Guido Baltussen, Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder
Journal article Working paper on SSRN Media: Financial Times Media: The Times Blog: The Conversation

Number Preferences in Lotteries

We explore people’s preferences for numbers in large proprietary data sets from two different lottery games. We find that choice is far …
Tong V. Wang, Rogier J.D. Potter van Loon, Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder
Journal article Working paper on SSRN Media: Wall Street Journal Media: NOS (Dutch) Media: Algemeen Dagblad (Dutch) Media: BNR (Dutch)

Measuring Loss Aversion under Ambiguity: A Method to Make Prospect Theory Completely Observable

We propose a simple, parameter-free method that, for the first time, makes it possible to completely observe Tversky and Kahneman’s …
Mohammed Abdellaoui, Han Bleichrodt, Olivier L’Haridon, Dennie van Dolder
Journal article Working paper on SSRN Media: De Tijd (Dutch) Media: L'Echo (French)

Standing United or Falling Divided? High Stakes Bargaining in a TV Game Show

We examine high stakes three-person bargaining in a game show where contestants bargain over a large money amount that is split into …
Dennie van Dolder, Martijn J. van den Assem, Colin F. Camerer, Richard H. Thaler
Journal article Working paper on SSRN

Beyond Chance? The Persistence of Performance in Online Poker

A major issue in the widespread controversy about the legality of poker and the appropriate taxation of winnings is whether poker …
Rogier J.D. Potter van Loon, Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder
Journal article Working paper on SSRN Media: Newsweek Media: The Independent 1/2 Media: The Independent 2/2 Media: The Times Media: Daily Mail Blog: The Conversation

Individual Choices in Dynamic Networks: An Experiment on Social Preferences

Game-theoretic models of network formation typically assume that people create relations so as to maximize their own outcome in the …
Dennie van Dolder, Vincent Buskens
Journal article Working paper on SSRN

On the Social Nature of Eyes: The Effect of Social Cues in Interaction and Individual Choice Tasks

In an experimental setting, we applied a dual strategy to better understand the effect of pictures of eyes on human behavior. First, we …
Aurélien Baillon, Asli Selim, Dennie van Dolder
Journal article Working paper on SSRN

Split or Steal? Cooperative Behavior When the Stakes Are Large

We examine cooperative behavior when large sums of money are at stake, using data from the television game show Golden Balls. At the …
Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder, Richard H. Thaler
Summary Journal article Working paper on SSRN Media: FSR Forum Media: Tijdschrift voor het Economisch Onderwijs (Dutch)

Coöperatie in Spelshows (Cooperation in Game Shows)

In this chapter, we argue that game shows can be a useful source of data to study cooperative behavior. The unique combination of …
Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder
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Social Motives in Network Formation: An Experiment

Literature on network formation typically assumes that people create and remove relations as to maximize their outcome in the network. …
Dennie van Dolder, Vincent Buskens
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