Publications in peer-reviewed journals

  1. Capraro, V., Di Paolo, R., Pizziol, V. (2025). A publicly available benchmark for assessing Large Language Models’ ability to predict how humans balance self-interest and the interest of others. Scientific Reports. (Forthcoming).
  2. Catola, M., D’Alessandro, S., Guarnieri, P., Pizziol, V. (2025). Norms and Efficiency in a Multi-Group Society: An Online Experiment. Journal of Public Economic Theory, 27(1), e70010.  
  3. Catola, M., Guarnieri, P., Pizziol, V., Rapallini, C. (2024). Measuring the attitude towards a European public budget: A cross-country experiment. Journal of Comparative Economics, 52(4), 963-979. [ DATA & MATERIALS ]
  4. Pizziol, V., & Tavoni, A. (2024). From niches to norms: the promise of social tipping interventions to scale climate action. npj Climate Action, 3(1), 1-8.
  5. Capraro, V., Di Paolo, R., Perc, M., Pizziol, V. (2024). Language-based game theory in the age of artificial intelligence. Journal of the Royal Society Interface,  21, 20230720. [ DATA & MATERIALS ]
  6. Bilancini, E., Boncinelli, L., Nardi, C., Pizziol, V. (2024). Cooperation is unaffected by the threat of severe adverse events in public goods games. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 108, 102145.
  7. Pizziol, V., Demaj, X., Di Paolo, R., Capraro, V. (2023). Political ideology and generosity around the globe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120 (15), e2219676120. [ DATA & MATERIALS ]
  8. Catola, M., D’Alessandro, S., Guarnieri, P., Pizziol, V. (2023). Multilevel Public Goods Game: Levelling up, Substitution and Crowding-in Effects. Journal of Economic Psychology, 97, 102626. [ DATA & MATERIALS ]
  9. Di Paolo, R., & Pizziol, V. (2023). Gamification and Sustainable Water Use: The Case of the BLUTUBE Educational Program. Simulation & Gaming, 10468781231181652.
  10. Bilancini, E., Boncinelli, L., Di Paolo, R., Menicagli, D., Pizziol, V., Ricciardi, E., Serti, F. (2022). Prosocial behavior in emergencies: Evidence from blood donors recruitment and retention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Science & Medicine, 314, 115438.
  11. Catola, M., D’Alessandro, S., Guarnieri, P., Pizziol, V. (2021). Personal norms in the online public good game. Economics Letters, 207, 110024.
pnas2023
JPET
econ letters 2021
joep 2023
scirep
JCE
SSM 2022
JBEE
JournalRoyalSocietyInterface2
npjclimateaction
s&g 2023

Work in progress

Research Projects
  • Authority (with Fehr, E., Larreguy, H., Schunk, D.)
    What type of leader promotes higher efficiency and compliance within a group? Using a laboratory experiment, we examine how leader selection methods (Democratic vs. Random) and leadership’s powers nature (Formal vs. Informal) affect group outcomes and behavior in a minimum effort game.
  • The Role of Individual, Structural, and Mixed Solutions on Climate Action (with Constantino, S., Kim, J., Casari, M., Tavoni, A.)
    Current literature dichotomizes framings of climate change solutions as individually-framed (“Individual”) or systems-framed (“Structural”), frequently presenting the two as contentious. However, in reality, individual change depends on systems change and vice versa. Using two large-scale samples from the U.S. and U.K., this online experiment tests how different framings of climate change—focused on individual, structural, or mixed solutions—impact engagement and support for climate action.
  • Cooperation and Reciprocity in Environmental Dilemmas (with Bilancini, E., Boncinelli, L., Celadin, T.)
    In an online experiment, we study cooperative and reciprocal behavior in environmental games where participants are randomly assigned to a Provision Public Good, a Maintenance Public Good (Gächter et al., 2017), or two versions of a Public Bad game.
  • A Multilevel Public Goods Game with Risky Marginal Returns: Theory and Experimental Evidence (with Cerniglia, F., Longaretti, R., Nardi, C.)
    Global challenges like climate change often require cooperation across multiple levels of governance. This project uses a multilevel public goods game (Catola et al., 2023) to study theoretically and experimentally how risk affects contribution behavior, extending earlier work on risk in standard public good games (Levati & Morone, 2013).
  • The Role of Source of Power in the Public Bad Game (with Bilancini, E., Scarparo, F.)
    Who should guide behavior in environmental dilemmas? In an online experiment, we test four authority selection methods (Random, Meritocratic, Consensus-based, and Competitive) in the context of the Public Bad game (Moxnes & van der Heijden, 2003). We analyze the behavior of both group members and the authorities, who are tasked with recommending the group with a strategy.
  • Sharing Energy Resources (with Llerena, D., Roussillon, B., Rouchouze, O., Wieczorek, B., Fadhuile, A., et al.)
    This project investigates how sharing renewable energy—such as solar-generated electricity—affects household energy use. Through a combination of lab and field experiments in France, we examine the emergence of energy-sharing communities in the absence of physical constraints.

Conference papers, editorial articles, book chapters, reports

  1. Di Paolo, R., Bisanti, M., Chiarello, F., Di Guida, S., Pizziol, V. (2024). Games-based learning for social change. Frontiers in Education, 9, 1403695.
  2. 3 chapters in New Frontiers in Gaming (2022).
  3. Bisanti, M., Di Paolo, R., Pizziol, V., Accardi, S., Maggi, F., Paladino, G., Ricciardi, E., Bilancini, E. (2022). Digital Escape Games in Educational Programs for Financial Literacy. European Conference on Games Based Learning. Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 666-674.