My academic pursuits:
Born and raised in Wuerzburg, Germany, I headed off to college in Cologne to graduate in 2004 with a master's degree in economics (with minors in political science and business; thesis supervisor Axel Ockenfeld; as well as an MBA from Eastern Illinois University) .
I continued my education at the University of Zurich in Switzerland where I completed my doctorate degree in 2009 (commitee Bruno Frey, Ernst Fehr, Margit Osterloh).
From 2009 till 2013, I worked as a PostDoc at the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) and as lecturer at the University of Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany.
After taking some time off to meditate and travel, I became an assistant professor at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam in fall of 2013.
I spent the academic year 2015/16 in Princeton, USA, as a Visiting Assistant Professor and started in the fall of 2016 as a Senior Research Associate and later as an Associate Research Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. I ended my academic career there in July 2024.
Publications in Refereed Journals:
Loss-framed incentives and employee (mis-)behavior. 2022 (together with Eszter Czibor, Danny Hsu, David Jimenez-Gomez, and Burcu Subasi). Management Science. 68(10): 7065-7791, iii-iv. pdf
Nudging Student Participation in Online Evaluations of Teaching: Evidence from a Field Experiment. 2021 (together with Uyanga Turmunkh, Dennie van Dolder, and Tong Wang). European Economic Review. Forthcoming. pdf
Incentivizing Creativity: a Large-Scale Experiment with Performance Bonuses and Gifts. 2019. (together with Christiane Bradler and Arne Warnke). Journal of Labor Economics 37(3): 793 - 851. pdf
The Magic of the Personal Touch: Field Experimental Evidence on Money and Gratitude as Gifts. 2019. (together with Christiane Bradler). Scandinavian Journal of Economics 121(3): 1189 - 1221. pdf
Do Financial Incentives Crowd Out Intrinsic Motivation to Perform on Standardized Tests? 2018. (together with John List and Jeff Livingston). Economics of Education Review 66(C): 125 - 136.
Understanding the (unexpected) consequences of unexpected recognition. 2017. JEBO 135: 131-142 (together with Xiaolan Yang).
A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas. 2017. Review of Economics and Statistics 99(4): 577-590 (together with Michael Gibbs and Christoph Siemroth). pdf.
The effects of financial and recognition incentives across work contexts: the case of meaning. 2017, Economic Inquiry 55(1): 237–247 (together with Michael Kosfeld and Xiaolan Yang). pdf
The Behavioralist Goes to School: Leveraging Behavioral Economics to Improve Educational Performance. 2016. AEJ: Policy, 8(4): 183 - 219 (together with Steve Levitt, John List, and Sally Sadoff). pdf
Quantity Discounts on a Virtual Good: Results of a Massive Pricing Experiment. 2016. PNAS, 113(27): 7323–7328 (together with Steve Levitt, John List, and David Nelson).
Employee Recognition and Performance: A Field Experiment. 2016. Management Science, 62(11): 3085 - 3099 (together with Christiane Bradler, Robert Dur, and Arjan Non). pdf
What field experiments have and have not taught us about managing workers. 2014, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 30(4): 639 - 657 (together with Steven Levitt).
Awards at Work. 2014. Labour Economics 31: 205-217 (together with Bruno Frey and Reto Cueni). pdf
And the winner is ... - The motivating power of employee awards. 2013. Journal of Socio-Economics 46: 66-77 (together with Bruno Frey). pfd
Getting more work for nothing? Symbolic Awards and Worker Performance. 2011. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 3: 1-16 (together with Michael Kosfeld).pdf
Publications in German:
Work in Progress:
Effect of incentives on creativity and innovation (joint work with Dana Sisak, and John Morgan)
Loss-framed incentives and employee (mis-)behavior (joint with Eszter Czibor and Daiv Jimenez-Gomez)
Incentives, preferences and cognitive versus noncognitive skills in school children (joint work with Sally Sadoff, Steve Levitt, and John List)
Testing the effectiveness of informational nudges (joint work with Uyanga Turmunkh, Tong Wang, and Dennie van Dolder)