How mystery products fail to captivate consumers despite the thrill of the unknown: We show that the mix of potential items is the main driver of value, with hidden odds inducing a steeper price discount when the outcomes vary significantly in quality or brand prestige.

How selection bias masks the true size of the gender pay gap: Our new approach reveals that positive selection into employment systematically widens the gap for less educated workers at lower quantiles while narrowing it among top earners.

Why is there less beautiful architecture than we'd like? Our research shows that because neighbours get the benefits for free while builders pay extra, the market systematically undersupplies the architecture we prefer, making a construction subsidy the most efficient fix.

How AI restrictions can backfire in higher education: Our new experiment shows that unrestricted access to AI tutors fosters significantly better learning outcomes than restricted sessions by enabling gradual scaffolding rather than disruptive, intensive bursts of usage.

How behavioral design can undermine user value despite maximizing engagement: Our experiment shows it doubles app usage time but systematically induces a significantly lower willingness to pay than designs prioritizing transparency and user choice.

How to explain why stocks pay so well while interest rates stay low: Our paper shows that combining rare disasters with tail aversion explains these puzzles without assuming extreme risk aversion, matching real-world data while staying consistent with microeconomic evidence.

How AI integration in research can fall short despite rapid adoption: Our large-scale survey of 6215 researchers shows that a widespread prompting skill gap and persistent gender disparities in familiarity systematically hinder the technology's transformative potential.

Why the motherhood penalty persists: Our analysis shows that declines in general competencies like numeracy account for at most 10% of the long-term child penalty in earnings, suggesting that gender norms, not skill depreciation, remain the primary driver of inequality.

📢 The Call for Papers for the 𝗖𝗘𝗦𝗶𝗳𝗼 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀, organized by @klaus-m-schmidt.bsky.social & Ernst Fehr is now open! Keynotes: Supreet Kaur & @philippstrack.bsky.social 📆 𝟮𝟯 - 𝟮𝟰 𝗢𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 ℹ️https://www.ifo.de/cesifo/f9G In cooperation with @rationalitycrc.bsky.social

How do adults react to data on educational inequality? We show that data on the wealth gap in German schools causes people to agree that circumstances impact educational success and increases private donations. Yet, it doesn't change support for government spending.

📣 Call for Papers - EXTENSION OF DEADLINE Join us for the 2nd Berlin PhD Conference in Economics in July. 🗓 July 6-8, 2026 ⏰ Application deadline: 30 January 2026 🔗 Learn more & apply: berlinschoolofeconomics.de/event-detail... #phdconference #callforpapers @rationalitycrc.bsky.social

📢 Call for papers: CESifo Area Conference on Economics of Education co-organized w/ Eric Hanushek (Stanford) 🏛️ 11-12 Sept 2026, Munich 🧑‍🏫 Keynote: John List (Chicago) @johnlist.bsky.social 👉 www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/ev... ⏰ Deadline: 11 May 2026 🖼️ Past programs: sites.google.com/view/woessma...

Does religious education in school create life-long believers? We exploit staggered German state reforms to show that abolishing compulsory religious education significantly reduced students' religiosity as adults and led to higher labor-market participation and earnings.

📣 Call for Papers | Riederau Workshop on People’s Understanding of and Support for Economic Policies We are pleased to announce the Riederau Workshop on People’s Understanding of and Support for Economic Policies, taking place 8–10 September 2026 in Riederau am Ammersee (Germany).

How does competitive pressure fail to protect buyers in information markets? Our new model of "portfolio competition" shows that when signals are complements, sellers leverage the buyer's desire for the joint portfolio to extract the full social surplus.

Why can boosting product quality actually reduce a manufacturer's profits? Our findings show that when retailers control pricing, increasing demand strengthens the retailer's power, compelling manufacturers to give up more profit and optimally limit product quality.

🎉 Congratulations to 𝗗𝗼𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗲 𝗛𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵𝘀 on winning funding for a @leibniz-gemeinschaft.de Junior Research Group for the period 2026–2030! The group will study the behavior of firms and consumers in the transition from efficiency-driven to resilience-driven globalization👏👏

How Germany’s historical high mobility fell short of its reputation: Our data reveals that intergenerational income persistence sharply increased for recent cohorts, reaching levels comparable to the US and coinciding with increasingly class-dependent educational attainment.

How labor market resilience can fall short despite new skill demands: Our analysis shows that robot automation systematically increases training for new skills in service sectors but also speeds up the retirement of manufacturing workers.

How costly data production can thwart price discrimination profits: We show that socially optimal market segmentation forces the seller into "indecisive segments", ensuring zero profit gain and showing that the private incentive to produce information is inefficient.

Join us for the 2nd Berlin PhD Conference in Economics on July 6-8, 2026.

How information campaigns can fall short even if they successfully correct beliefs: Our experiments show that correcting consumers' large underestimations of which products cause high emissions does not have an effect on their actual consumption decisions.

How can AI overcome the scarcity of employee data that impedes its use in hiring? Our new field experiment shows that adding non-incentivized behavioral measures improves AI's productivity predictions and makes algorithmic hiring more efficient than even human managers.

How do elite families maintain their status over multiple generations? Using data from prewar Japan, we show that adoption expands the choice to a broader talent pool, increasing the probability of maintaining elite status in the son’s generation by 27%.

Does job flexibility foster gender equality? On the contrary. Our new paper reveals that the shift to working from home significantly intensifies gender gaps in both paid hours and care-giving among couples.

Does the scientific community sanction sexual misconduct unrelated to research integrity? Our new study finds a citation penalty: a significant decline in citations to the prior work of accused scientists. 190researchblog.subs...

We have concluded our week of power posting every day with two posts over the weekend-- on a market-design experiment 190researchblog.substack.com/p/beyond-str... and a study on measuring urban quality of life 190researchblog.substack.com/p/why-urban-...

How can traditional models fall short in measuring urban appeal? Our analysis reveals that neglecting mobility frictions causes an underestimation of the urban quality-of-life premium (QoL): increasing a region's population is associated with a significant increase in QoL. 190researchblog.subs...

How market design can fall short despite strategy-proofness: Our new experiment shows that underconfidence systematically induces significantly more instability (justified envy) than overconfidence in school choice. 190researchblog.subs...

How can information backfire in fighting hidden actions? Our new theory reveals the mechanism of surplus squeezing: costly perfect verification enables the seller to extract all buyer surplus, collapsing trade, while noisy verification sustains market exchange.

Pre-registration has become mainstream, yet trade-offs persist: Our new survey finds that researchers assign a credibility premium to significant results from pre-registered tests, but a significant proportion expects a negative impact on research creativity and volume.

Is China a "Paper Tiger" when it comes to scientific quality? Our investigation into citation home bias reveals China exhibits the largest bias globally, demonstrating that its apparent rise in citation rankings is overstated. 190researchblog.subs...

How much does out-of-school learning influence foreign-language acquisition? Our new analysis shows that historical national decisions to subtitle imported TV content systematically result in a large positive effect on English-language skills. open.substack.com/pu...

How to incentivise cooperation when monetary incentives are costly or ineffective? Our experiment shows a public recognition award increases employee willingness to help by 21%, leveraging social image towards peers and management-related reputation.

We are super excited about the launch of our new research blog! Did you ever complain about an unproductive food coma after lunch? No more! The CRC TRR 190 Coffee Break has your back with gold nuggets of research each Monday. And this week, we will post every day!

Join LMU Economics as an assistant professor!

Join the Berlin School of Economics as a PhD student!

Join the Berlin School of Economics as a Research Associate!

Dear fans of the CRC TRR 190, Next week, we will launch our research blog CRC TRR 190 Coffee Break! There will be a blog post about our most recent exciting research every day, from Monday to Sunday. Afterwards, we will post every Monday, 1pm CET.

3 days with an amazing line-up of instructors and poster sessions by junior researchers at the end of each day are over! It's been great hosting 3rd Summer School in International Economics by @jintlecon.bsky.social. Thanks to @rationalitycrc.bsky.social for supporting this event!

📢 New paper in the Economic Journal (@resmedia.bsky.social): 👉 Differences in patience can account for substantial regional variation in educational achievement within countries Data on Facebook interests allow us to derive regional measures of patience academic.oup.com/ej/advance-a... A 🧵 1/9

📣 Call for Papers: 𝗖𝗘𝗦𝗶𝗳𝗼 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀, organized jointly with @rationalitycrc.bsky.social 📅 24 - 25 October 2025, Munich Keynotes: Ben Enke (@harvard.edu), Gilat Levy (LS) Organizers: Ernst Fehr and Klaus Schmidt ℹ️ Info & Submissions Link: www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/ev...

🚨 Thrilled that our 🆕 paper “Age and Cognitive Skills: Use It or Lose It” just came out in #ScienceAdvances @science.org 💡 Longitudinal evidence: age pattern of literacy+numeracy not as bleak as cross-section suggests + strongly differs by skill usage www.science.org/doi/full/10.... 🧵A thread 1/7

Are women more compliant than men? In a new CRC Discussion Paper, @mgesuer.bsky.social, Nicola Cerutti, @friedrj.bsky.social, and @gyulaseres.bsky.social put this long-held belief to the test using a novel experimental design across two complementary experiments. #EconSky

🧑‍🎄time! Our @cepr_org @LSEGeography @CEP_LSE DP #PrimeLocations is forthcoming at AER: Insights.🍾 Our🎁4u: PL shapefiles and employment by sector at micro-geographic grid-level for 381 MSAs and 125 global cities. All free to download from primelocations.ahlfeldt.com Use it wisely!😀

Our research on gender and compliance behavior as a @rationalitycrc.bsky.social discussion paper: Women are often perceived as more compliant than men; however, the literature provides inconclusive evidence. In two experiments, we test this claim. rationality-and-competition.de/wp-content/u...

🌍 Want to connect with experts in behavioral economics and other fields of economics tackling applied societal questions of high policy relevance? 📚 Follow the “Rationality & Competition” Starter Pack for the latest research and discussions from our CRC members! #EconSky go.bsky.app/Uubbqcx

📢 Thrilled to announce that our CRC Rationality & Competition has been extended for the period 2025-2028! Huge thanks to the German Research Foundation (DFG), our incredible team, and especially our leads Klaus Schmidt & @georgweizsaecker.bsky.social! 🙌🚀 #EconSky

#EconSky 📉📈 🚨 Timely and important new findings by Andrej Woerner, Taisuke Imai, Klaus Schmidt, and @ddpace.bsky.social in a new article in Nature Sustainability @natureportfolio.bsky.social. 👀 Which #CarbonPricing scheme garners more support? LMU Munich, Osaka University

Discover this paper💡it uses machine learning to move beyond the binary view of gender, offering a nuanced view of how continuous gender identity predicts economic behavior📑 rationality-and-competition.de/wp-content/u... @mgesuer.bsky.social @humboldtuni.bsky.social @rationalitycrc.bsky.social #BSoE