The paper presents some of the ideas underlying the current research program of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG). It begins with a discussion of how the institute's programmatic orientation has evolved since it was founded in 1984. Programmatic change over the years...

Explaining how political institutions shape human behavior is one of the big challenges of social sciences. This thesis uses game theory, behavioral economics and the tools of experimental economics to study two topics in particular: information aggregation and legitimacy of institutions. While...