Recently, it has been argued that the evidence in social science research suggests that deceiving subjects in an experiment does not lead to a significant loss of experimental control. Based on this assessment, experimental economists were counseled to lift their de facto prohibition against...

The trust building process is basic to social science. We investigate it in a laboratory setting using a novel multi-stage trust game where social gains are achieved if players trust each other in each stage. And in each stage, players have an opportunity to appropriate these gains or be...

This paper presents the results of an experiment performed to test the properties of an innovative bargaining mechanism (called automated negotiation) used to resolve disputes arising from Internet-based transactions. Automated negotiation is an online sealed-bid process in which an automated...

The Hayek Hypothesis holds that prices contain enough information to direct the resources in the economy to their most efficient use. In a series of experiments, Vernon Smith [1987] found that with the right trading institutions, a market with agents that know only their own valuations of a good...

We examine how social preferences affect behavior and surplus in relational contracts. Experimental subjects participate in a contracting environment similar to Brown, Falk, and Fehr [Brown, M., Falk, A. & Fehr, E., “Relational Contracts and the Nature of Market Interactions, Econometrica, 72...

We experimentally test for the effect of an additional alternative on the measured risk preferences of farmers in rural Peru. In our experiment, subjects revealed their risk preferences with a series of choices between two gambles. We added a third gamble, which was always dominated by one of...

It is well-known in evolutionary game theory that population clustering in Prisoner Dilemma games allows some cooperative strategies to invade populations of stable defecting strategies. We adapt this idea of population clustering to a two-person trust game. Players are typed based on their...

We experimentally test whether a class of monetary policy decision rules describes decision making in a population of inexperienced central bankers. In our experiments, subjects repeatedly set the short-term interest rate for a computer economy with inflation as their target. A large majority of...

Recent studies have focussed on the characteristics and policies of the state to explain the extent and causes of corruption, with little attention paid to the role played by firms. Consequently, the links between corporate governance and national governance have been unexplored. This paper...

The richer a country, the higher its expenditure on health care. The increase in health spending which compared to the overall growth had taken place at a rather rapid pace experienced a worldwide slow-down during the 90s. In relation to overall economic growth and the expansion of other...