We study whether leaders influence the unethical conduct of followers. To avoid selection issues present in natural environments, we use a laboratory experiment in which we form groups and assign leadership roles at random. We study an environment in which groups compete, with dishonest behavior...

We study how the willingness to enter long-term bilateral relationships affects cooperation even when parties have little information about each other, ex ante, and cooperation is otherwise unenforceable. We experimentally investigate a finitely-repeated Prisoner's Dilemma, allowing players to...

We use experiments to analyze what type of communication is most effective in achieving cooperation in a simple collusion game. Consistent with the existing literature on communication and collusion, even minimal communication leads to a short run increase in collusion. However, in a limited...

Linear altruism predicts the estimated preferences to be independent of the subject’s position in the game, if the role allocation is randomly determined, because subjects, in each role, have the same preferences ex ante. We test and reject this hypothesis.

Social life offers innumerable instances in which trust decisions involve multiple agents. Of particular interest is the case when a breach of trust is not profitable if carried out in isolation, but requires an agreement among agents. In such situations the pattern of behaviors is richer than...

We propose a methodology that is generalizable to a broad class of repeated games in order to facilitate operability of belief-learning models with repeated-game strategies. The methodology consists of (1) a generalized repeated-game strategy space, (2) a mapping between histories and...

In three experiments we examine the extent to which strategic sophistication (i.e., inductive reasoning, iterative dominance and level-k thinking) is determined by broader cognitive skills. In the first experiment we replicate previous results showing strong associations between cognitive...

I show how improper conditioning of beliefs can reduce contribution in public goods environments with interdependent values. I consider a simple model of a binary, excludable public good. In equilibrium, provision of the public good is good news about its value. Naive players who condition...

Many experimental studies and surveys have shown that women consistently display more risk-averse behavior than men when confronted with decisions involving risk. These differences in risk preferences, when combined with gender differences in other behavioral traits, such as fondness for...

This paper studies the stability of socially responsible behavior in markets. We develop a laboratory product market in which low-cost production creates a negative externality for third parties, but where alternative production with higher costs entirely mitigates the externality. Our data...