Liran Maymoni

This study investigates how behavioral interventions affect prosocial decision-making in dictator and trust games, examining immediate and persistent effects. We conducted a two-round experiment with five treatments (defaults, sanctions, social norms, anchoring, moral persuasion) vs control, separated by an unrelated task to measure persistence. We explored how self-efficacy and gender moderate treatment effectiveness. Sanctions were initially most effective for increasing prosocial behavior across both games. When interventions were removed in round two, sanctions continued influencing trust game participants but showed gender-specific patterns in the dictator game, with effects observed only among women. Social norms affected only women across both rounds, significantly in the Trust Game and marginally in the Dictator Game. Additionally, we found self-efficacy and moral persuasion interactions among women only: higher self-efficacy increased giving in the dictator game but decreased giving in the trust game, with effects persisting into round two. No significant relationships emerged for men. Our findings demonstrate important policy implications. While sanctions effectively promote immediate prosocial behavior, interventions affect demographic groups differently. Understanding these differential impacts is crucial for policymakers evaluating behavioral intervention outcomes, suggesting that effective regulatory design must account for individual characteristics rather than assuming universal responses across populations.

In December 2025, Israel mandated that public parking facilities charge by the minute rather than by the hour. The stated goal was to increase fairness for short-stay consumers by eliminating payment for unused parking time. Aggregate price data compiled by the Knesset Research Center from approximately 90 facilities show that 70% of operators raised first-hour prices, with an average increase of 30% (from 14.2 to 19.0 NIS). Daily rates, which were exempt from the mandate, rose by only 7%. The theoretical breakeven duration is approximately 45 minutes: consumers parking less pay less under the new system; those parking longer pay more. Drawing on the literatures on waterbed effects in regulated industries, billing-increment pricing, and consumer responses to tariff-structure reforms, this note interprets the outcome as a case of margin re-optimization: constraining the billing structure without capping the price level induced operators to recover lost increment-rounding revenue through higher per-unit rates.

Startups are typically concentrated in major urban centers, while their presence in peripheral regions remains limited, raising important questions about the spatial distribution of innovation and entrepreneurship. This study investigates how different types of startups respond to disparities in regional ecosystem factors, with a focus on the role of support mechanisms in shaping location decisions. We conducted a survey of 202 startups, including 157 located in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and 45 in the peripheral city of Be’er-Sheva. The survey assessed startup typologies such as innovation strategy, international orientation, and R&D intensity, alongside perceptions of the importance and availability of key ecosystem resources. Logistic regression analysis indicated that startups in peripheral regions rely more heavily on government financial support, pointing to a structural market failure that requires targeted policy intervention. In contrast, startups in central regions benefit from stronger proximity-based advantages, particularly collaboration with suppliers and consumers. Startups engaged in open innovation or with international links were especially dependent on external ecosystem resources. These findings highlight the need for differentiated, evidence-based policies to support entrepreneurial activity in peripheral regions, strengthen local innovation ecosystems, and promote more balanced patterns of regional economic development.