In this paper, we investigate individuals' investment in status in an environment where no monetary return can possibly be derived from reaching a better relative position. We use a real-effort experiment in which we permit individuals to learn and potentially improve their relative position in...

Afforestation is a cost-effective way for some countries to meet part of their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol and its eventual extensions. Credits for carbon sequestration can be mediated through markets for emissions permits. Both new and old forests are subject to pestilence and fire,...

It is possible to make a current valuation of the effects of carbon dioxide which tracks a valuation done under the metric of expected present value and also tracks realized values. The implementation of a carbon credit scheme based on green accounting could go as follows: L'évaluation des...

We develop a model that accounts for the decay of the average contribution observed in experiments on voluntary contributions to a public good. The novel idea is that people's moral motivation is "weak"". Their judgment about the right contribution depends on observed contributions by group...

We alter who gets the last word on the outcome in three different types of trust games: the first mover, the second mover, or, a committee comprised of first and second movers. The committee functions in a manner similar to a peer review process, in which experienced subjects pass judgment on...

The World Trade Center attack has shed light on the urgent need to implement preventing measures against terrorism and to enhance cooperation in the global security system for all countries. However, international coordination cannot be taken for granted. It is often ineffective and likely to...

We provide an experimental analysis of competitive insurance markets with adverse selection. Our parameterized version of the lemons' model (Akerlof 1970) in the insurance context predicts total crowding out of low-risks when insurers offer a single full insurance contract. The therapy proposed...

We evaluate the impact of three auction mechanisms the BeckerDeGrootMarschak (BDM) mechanism, the second-price auction, and the random nth-price auction in the measurement of private willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept for a pure public good. Our results show that the endowment effect...

We elicit subjects' willingness to pay to reduce future risk. In our experiments, subjects are given a cash endowment and a risky lottery. They report their willingness to pay to exchange the risky lottery for a safe one. Subjects play the lottery either immediately, eight weeks later, or...

We experimentally test whether risk aversion or ambiguity aversion can explain decisions in a learning-by-doing game. We first measure subjects' preferences toward risk and ambiguity, and then use these measures to predict behavior in the game. We find that ambiguity averse subjects pay more...