Eberhard Feess
Biographic Data
| ID | 5738435 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eberhard Feess |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eberhard |
| FAMILY NAME | Feess |
| SIGNATURE | FEESS E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Frankfurt School of Finance & Management |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8365-8048 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Moral Accounting and Real Effort
Individuals who face consecutive decisions may engage in moral accounting - balancing moral consequences of initial decisions through behavior in subsequent decisions. Yet the evidence is mixed and studies vary in whether participants actively make morally questionable decisions or are passively assigned to moral conditions. Our experiment contributes to the literature by contrasting active and passive outcomes in the first stage, implementing a …
Regulating Product Return Policies
The proliferation of product returns entails substantial financial and environmental costs. Nonetheless, regulators typically restrict firms from charging consumers high fees for returning products, which facilitates returns. To analyze the consequences of such interventions, we consider a market in which consumers have private information about their expected consumption utility. We show that monopolistic sellers have an incentive to inefficient…
Optimal fine reductions for self-reporting
Differentiation and Risk Aversion in Imperfectly Competitive Labor Markets
We examine the effect of imperfect labor market competition on the efficiency of compensation schemes in a setting with moral hazard and risk-averse agents who have private information on their ability. Two heterogeneous firms compete for agents by offering contracts with fixed and variable payments. When competition is low, low-ability agents are underincentivized, exerting too little effort. When competition is high, high-ability agents are ove…
High‐powered Contracts, Self‐selection and Welfare in Settings with Externalities
We extend the experimental analysis of sorting and effort effects of high‐powered contracts on welfare to situations with negative externalities. Participants solve brainteasers from Raven's matrices. The difference between right and wrong answers represents our measure of welfare per capita. We compare two contract schemes: fixed‐wage and bonus contracts that reward subjects for the number of correct answers, regardless of the number of wrong an…
The Influence of Ability, Rank, and Gender on Risk-Taking in Contests
Based on a model for a sequential contest with heterogeneous participants, we investigate the influence of ability, rank, and gender on risk-taking behavior in the Ski World Cup. Risk-taking is defined as the dropout probability. In line with our theory, low-ability contestants take higher risk in the first race, while risktaking in the second race increases in the rank after the first race. Supporting the general literature on gender-specific ri…
Implementing Efficient Market Structures
We extend the literature on the implementation of efficient market structures to private information on marginal costs. We consider a setting with an incumbent and two potential entrants whose costs can be either high or low. By setting the license fee appropriately, the regulator can induce truth-telling by the potential entrants, and can then implement the welfare-maximizing market structure. We distinguish between a disclosure policy, where th…
Evidence Dependence of Fine Reductions in Corporate Leniency Programs
We analyze whether corporate leniency programs should grant full immunity to the first self-reporting firm regardless of the amount of evidence provided. We distinguish between two firms, one of them providing high and one only low evidence. We show that awarding full amnesty also to the low evidence provider is suboptimal. Distinguishing fines between the two firms leads to the same percentage of self-reporting and to a lower cartel frequency. F…
Revenue Sharing in Professional Sports Leagues
We employ a model of n heterogenous profit‐maximizing clubs to analyze the impact of revenue sharing in professional sports leagues on competitive balance. Revenues of each club depend on absolute quality, relative quality and on competitive balance itself so that our model captures much of the preceding literature as special cases. We show that revenue sharing always increases competitive balance if clubs differ only with respect to the impact o…
Heterogeneity and Optimal Self-Reporting
We consider a model of optimal law enforcement according to which self-reporting may be considered in mitigation. After committing a crime, individuals get a private update of their probability of apprehension. Hence, self-enforcing has an option value of self-reporting, since criminals can decide whether or not to come forward after they have learned their types. We show that the optimal fine reduction is decreasing in the heterogeneity of the c…
Information and Externalities in Sequential Litigation
»Vielmehr bietet [der Kommentar] auf höchstem Niveau eine substantielle Auseinandersetzung mit den Hintergründen, den Zusammenhängen, der Theorie und der Praxis des Grundgesetzes. Besseres lässt sich von einem Verfassungskommentar nicht sagen.“ Herbert Günther Staaatsanzeiger für das Land Hessen 2018 (50), 1494–1495
Self‐reporting in Optimal Law Enforcement when there are Criminal Teams
We extend the analysis of self‐reporting schemes to criminal teams. When the violators behave non‐cooperatively, maximum deterrence can be reached at virtually no cost by designing a prisoners' dilemma. One drawback of such a scheme is that it might induce cooperative behaviour in the self‐reporting stage. If the cooperation rate is increasing the benefits from cooperation, it is optimal to impose less than the maximum fine if both individuals se…
Reciprocity-Induced Cooperation
Reciprocity-Induced Cooperation
Independent Safety Controls with Moral Hazard
We analyze the role of liability, insurance, and side payments for independent safety controls with unobservable care levels. By independent safety controls we mean that the accident probability depends on the care levels of two parties, and that the effects of the controls on the accident probability are stochastically independent. We show that efficiency can be reached for these kinds of double moral hazard through side payments if one agent de…
Auditor liability rules under imperfect information and costly litigation
This paper examines auditor liability rules under imperfect information, costly litigation and risk-averse auditors. A negligence rule fails in such a setting, because in equilibrium auditors will deviate with positive probability from any given standard. It is shown that strict liability outperforms negligence with respect to risk allocation and the probability that a desired level of care is met by the auditor if competitive liability insurance…
Revenue Sharing in Professional Sports Leagues
We employ a model of n heterogenous profit‐maximizing clubs to analyze the impact of revenue sharing in professional sports leagues on competitive balance. Revenues of each club depend on absolute quality, relative quality and on competitive balance itself so that our model captures much of the preceding literature as special cases. We show that revenue sharing always increases competitive balance if clubs differ only with respect to the impact o…
Self‐reporting in Optimal Law Enforcement when there are Criminal Teams
We extend the analysis of self‐reporting schemes to criminal teams. When the violators behave non‐cooperatively, maximum deterrence can be reached at virtually no cost by designing a prisoners' dilemma. One drawback of such a scheme is that it might induce cooperative behaviour in the self‐reporting stage. If the cooperation rate is increasing the benefits from cooperation, it is optimal to impose less than the maximum fine if both individuals se…
Auditor liability rules under imperfect information and costly litigation
This paper examines auditor liability rules under imperfect information, costly litigation and risk-averse auditors. A negligence rule fails in such a setting, because in equilibrium auditors will deviate with positive probability from any given standard. It is shown that strict liability outperforms negligence with respect to risk allocation and the probability that a desired level of care is met by the auditor if competitive liability insurance…
Independent Safety Controls with Moral Hazard
We analyze the role of liability, insurance, and side payments for independent safety controls with unobservable care levels. By independent safety controls we mean that the accident probability depends on the care levels of two parties, and that the effects of the controls on the accident probability are stochastically independent. We show that efficiency can be reached for these kinds of double moral hazard through side payments if one agent de…
Reciprocity-Induced Cooperation
Reciprocity-Induced Cooperation
Self‐reporting in Optimal Law Enforcement when there are Criminal Teams
We extend the analysis of self‐reporting schemes to criminal teams. When the violators behave non‐cooperatively, maximum deterrence can be reached at virtually no cost by designing a prisoners' dilemma. One drawback of such a scheme is that it might induce cooperative behaviour in the self‐reporting stage. If the cooperation rate is increasing the benefits from cooperation, it is optimal to impose less than the maximum fine if both individuals se…
Information and Externalities in Sequential Litigation
»Vielmehr bietet [der Kommentar] auf höchstem Niveau eine substantielle Auseinandersetzung mit den Hintergründen, den Zusammenhängen, der Theorie und der Praxis des Grundgesetzes. Besseres lässt sich von einem Verfassungskommentar nicht sagen.“ Herbert Günther Staaatsanzeiger für das Land Hessen 2018 (50), 1494–1495
Heterogeneity and Optimal Self-Reporting
We consider a model of optimal law enforcement according to which self-reporting may be considered in mitigation. After committing a crime, individuals get a private update of their probability of apprehension. Hence, self-enforcing has an option value of self-reporting, since criminals can decide whether or not to come forward after they have learned their types. We show that the optimal fine reduction is decreasing in the heterogeneity of the c…
Revenue Sharing in Professional Sports Leagues
We employ a model of n heterogenous profit‐maximizing clubs to analyze the impact of revenue sharing in professional sports leagues on competitive balance. Revenues of each club depend on absolute quality, relative quality and on competitive balance itself so that our model captures much of the preceding literature as special cases. We show that revenue sharing always increases competitive balance if clubs differ only with respect to the impact o…
Evidence Dependence of Fine Reductions in Corporate Leniency Programs
We analyze whether corporate leniency programs should grant full immunity to the first self-reporting firm regardless of the amount of evidence provided. We distinguish between two firms, one of them providing high and one only low evidence. We show that awarding full amnesty also to the low evidence provider is suboptimal. Distinguishing fines between the two firms leads to the same percentage of self-reporting and to a lower cartel frequency. F…
Implementing Efficient Market Structures
We extend the literature on the implementation of efficient market structures to private information on marginal costs. We consider a setting with an incumbent and two potential entrants whose costs can be either high or low. By setting the license fee appropriately, the regulator can induce truth-telling by the potential entrants, and can then implement the welfare-maximizing market structure. We distinguish between a disclosure policy, where th…
The Influence of Ability, Rank, and Gender on Risk-Taking in Contests
Based on a model for a sequential contest with heterogeneous participants, we investigate the influence of ability, rank, and gender on risk-taking behavior in the Ski World Cup. Risk-taking is defined as the dropout probability. In line with our theory, low-ability contestants take higher risk in the first race, while risktaking in the second race increases in the rank after the first race. Supporting the general literature on gender-specific ri…
High‐powered Contracts, Self‐selection and Welfare in Settings with Externalities
We extend the experimental analysis of sorting and effort effects of high‐powered contracts on welfare to situations with negative externalities. Participants solve brainteasers from Raven's matrices. The difference between right and wrong answers represents our measure of welfare per capita. We compare two contract schemes: fixed‐wage and bonus contracts that reward subjects for the number of correct answers, regardless of the number of wrong an…
Differentiation and Risk Aversion in Imperfectly Competitive Labor Markets
We examine the effect of imperfect labor market competition on the efficiency of compensation schemes in a setting with moral hazard and risk-averse agents who have private information on their ability. Two heterogeneous firms compete for agents by offering contracts with fixed and variable payments. When competition is low, low-ability agents are underincentivized, exerting too little effort. When competition is high, high-ability agents are ove…
Optimal fine reductions for self-reporting
Regulating Product Return Policies
The proliferation of product returns entails substantial financial and environmental costs. Nonetheless, regulators typically restrict firms from charging consumers high fees for returning products, which facilitates returns. To analyze the consequences of such interventions, we consider a market in which consumers have private information about their expected consumption utility. We show that monopolistic sellers have an incentive to inefficient…
Moral Accounting and Real Effort
Individuals who face consecutive decisions may engage in moral accounting - balancing moral consequences of initial decisions through behavior in subsequent decisions. Yet the evidence is mixed and studies vary in whether participants actively make morally questionable decisions or are passively assigned to moral conditions. Our experiment contributes to the literature by contrasting active and passive outcomes in the first stage, implementing a …
Economics (10 works) · Business (8 works) · Microeconomics (8 works) · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems (7 works) · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Incentive (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Auction Theory and Applications (3 works) · Industrial organization (3 works)