We find that contrary to common perception, cooperation as equilibrium of the infinitely repeated discounted prisoner's dilemma is in many relevant cases not very plausible, or at least questionable: for a significant subset of the payoff-discount factor parameter space cooperation equilibria...

We model networks of relational (or implicit)contracts, exploring how sanctioning power and equilibrium conditions change under different network configurations and information transmission technologies. In our model, relations are the links, and the value of the network lies in its ability to...

The minimum effort coordination game uncovers the prevalence of a major economic problem, coordination failure. Involved in a game of imperfect information that displays a number of Pareto ranked equilibria, players (in laboratory experiments) do not choose the efficient, but the inefficient but...

This paper explores the question whether boundedly rational agents learn to behave optimally when asked to voluntarily contribute to a public good. The decision process of individuals is described by an Evolutionary Algorithm. We find that the contribution level converges towards the Nash...

The problem of coordination failure, particularly in "team production" situations, is central to a large number of mircroeconomic as well as macroeconomic models. As this type of inefficient coordination poses a severe economic problem, there is a need for institutions fostering efficient...

Most of the literature on monetary policy delegation assumes that the government can credibly commit to the delegation contract, an assumption criticized by McCallum. This paper provides foundations for the assumption that renegotiating a delegation contract can be costly by illustrating how...

We study the consequences of 'leniency' - reduced legal sanctions for wrongdoers who spontaneously self-report to law enforcers - on corruption, drug dealing, and other forms of sequential, bilateral, illegal trade. We find that when not properly designed, leniency may be highly...