When an individual performs several tasks simultaneously, resources must be allocated to different brain systems to produce energy for neurons to fire. Following the evidence from neuroscience, we model the brain as an organization in which a coordinator allocates limited resources to the brain...

Should privately informed agents with diverging interests act independently or should they commit to a mechanism? This paper analyzes different communication and decision protocols when communication involves delay. It studies under which conditions agents should (i) choose their actions...

We study a class of representation mechanisms, based on reports made by a random subset of agents, called representatives, in a collective choice problem with quasi-linear utilities. We do not assume the existence of a common prior probability describing the distribution of preference types. In...

In this paper we combine a non-cooperative decision-making game in a federal structure with two levels of interest and an incomplete contract which sets the rules of the game. The question we pose is how to combine ex ante efficiency of the design with ex post efficiency of the outcomes in the...

The decision-making rules of the European Union (EU) are defined in an incomplete contract signed by 15 national governments. The design of the contract defines the set of policy issues where it applies – in decision-making rules i.e. the majority rules and the division of powers among the...

A team must select among competing projects that differ in their payoff consequences for its members. Each agent chooses a project and exerts costly effort affecting its random completion time. When one or more projects are complete, agents bargain over which one to implement. A consensus...

People with a self-control problem often seek relief through social interactions rather than binding commitments. Thus, in self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous etc, members are said to achieve better personal outcomes by mainly sharing their experiences. In other...

We investigate the outcome of bargaining when a player’s pay-off from agreement is risky. We find that a risk-averse player typically increases his equilibrium receipts when his pay-off is made risky. This is because the presence of risk makes individuals behave 'more patiently' in bargaining....

In this paper we characterize a situation in which non-calculative trust has to play a role in the decision to cooperate. We then analyse the given situation in game theoretical terms and distinguish those aspects of players’ decisions that are cooperative from those that may be interpreted as...

We experimentally examine the effects of flexible and fixed prices in markets for experience goods in which demand is driven by trust. With flexible prices, we observe low prices and high quality in competitive (oligopolistic) markets, and high prices coupled with low quality in non-competitive...