Levent Neyse

German Institute for Economic Research | DIW Berlin · SOEP

This paper contributes to a better understanding of the biological underpinnings of overconfidence by analyzing performance predictions in the Cognitive Reflection Test with and without monetary incentives. In line with the existing literature we find that the participants are too optimistic about their performance on average; incentives lead to hi...

Trustful and trustworthy behaviors have important externalities for the society. But what exactly drives people to behave in a trustful and trustworthy manner? Building on research suggesting that individuals’ social preferences might be a common factor informing both behaviors, we study the impact of a set of different motives on individuals’ choi...

Gene-culture co-evolution emphasizes the joint role of culture and genes for the emergence of altruistic and cooperative behaviors and behavioral genetics provides estimates of their relative importance. However, these approaches cannot assess which biological traits determine altruism or how. We analyze the association between altruism in adults a...

Intuition is a central element of entrepreneurial decision-making. We conceptually replicate a published study by using new representative data from 1961 adults and the widely used Cognitive Reflection Test, which assesses the ability to avoid intuitive decisions and to switch to an analytical process. We extend the analysis by exploring occupation...

While laboratory and field experiments are the major items in the toolbox of behavioral economists, household panel studies can complement them and expand their research potential. We introduce the German Socio-Economic Panel’s Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS), which offers researchers detailed panel data and the possibility to collect personalized expe...

Risk attitudes are important predictors of various economic decisions and socioeconomic outcomes. Although studies show that peoples’ general willingness to take risks decreases with age, there are few reports on the age dependence of domain-specific risk attitudes. Drawing on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this study employs a proxy variable app...

Understanding the neural correlates of risk-sensitive skin conductance responses can provide insights into their connection to emotional and cognitive processes. To provide insights into this connection, we studied the cortical correlates of risk-sensitive skin conductance peaks using electroencephalography. Fluctuations in skin conductance respons...

Problem gamblers discount delayed rewards more rapidly than do non-gambling controls. Understanding this impulsivity is important for developing treatment options. In this article, we seek to make two contributions: First, we ask which of the currently debated economic models of intertemporal choice (exponential versus hyperbolic versus quasi-hyper...

A body of literature reports higher rates of depression and neuroticism in female samples compared to male samples. Numerous studies have investigated the role of prenatal sex hormone exposure in this sex difference, using the ratio between the second and fourth digit of the hand (“2D:4D”) as a putative marker. However, the sample sizes of those st...

Prenatal androgens have organizational effects on brain and endocrine system development, which may have a partial impact on economic decisions. Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between prenatal testosterone and financial risk taking, yet results remain inconclusive. We suspect that this is due to difficulty in capturing risk pre...

In contrast to the assumptions of standard economic theory, recent experimental evidence shows that the income of peers has a systematic impact on observed degrees of risk aversion. This paper reports the findings of two experiments examining the impact of income inequality on risk preferences and whether the knowledge of inequality mediates the de...

Problem gambling is a serious socioeconomic problem involving high individual and social costs. In this article, we study risk preferences of problem gamblers including their risk attitudes in the gain and loss domains, their weighting of probabilities, and their degree of loss aversion. Our findings indicate that problem gamblers are systematicall...

Prenatal androgen exposure affects the brain development of the fetus which may facilitate certain behaviors and decision patterns in the later life. The ratio between the lengths of second and the fourth fingers (2D:4D) is a negative biomarker of the ratio between prenatal androgen and estrogen exposure and men typically have lower ratios than wom...

2D:4D digit ratios are used for several health and business related applications. Currently, digit ratios are measured manually. This study proposes an automatic digit ratio measurement approach that can be used in the context of smart city healthcare and business applications. Smart city healthcare needs to be founded on the principles of self-ser...

People are usually more productive when they are paid according to their performance. Yet, it is reported that women prefer fixed rate payment over performance based payment schemes. This study experimentally investigates i) whether absolute incentives are effective without the knowledge of an alternative incentive scheme, ii) the possible role of...

This paper studies performance predictions in the 7-item Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) and whether they differ by gender. After participants completed the CRT, they predicted their own (i), the other participants’ (ii), men’s (iii), and women’s (iv) number of correct answers. In keeping with existing literature, men scored higher on the CRT than...

Economic experiments report that individuals perform better under a piece rate payment scheme in comparison to a fixed payment scheme. The reason is straightforward: incentives motivate people, and without incentives they decrease their effort. Yet women are prone to choose a fixed payment over a piece rate payment scheme. We aim to find out if thi...

Literature on Digit Ratio is rapidly growing in Economics. Quite surprisingly we observe that there is no consensus about how to make an accurate measurement in such a delicate task. Along this brief document we offer some concise guidance of how to scan the hands using digital scanners and provide a comprehensive guideline to make a reliable measu...