The evolution of large-scale cooperation among genetic strangers is a fundamental unanswered question in the social sciences. Behavioral economics has persuasively shown that so called ‘strong reciprocity’ plays a key role in accounting for the endogenous enforcement of cooperation. Insofar...

This paper examines characteristics of cooperative behavior in a repeated, n-person, continuous action generalization of a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. When time preferences are heterogeneous and bounded away from one, how “much” cooperation can be achieved by an ongoing group? How does group...

We study a stochastic model of influence where agents have “yes” or “no” inclinations on some issue, and opinions may change due to mutual influence among the agents. Each agent independently aggregates the opinions of the other agents and possibly herself. We study influence processes...

Persistent and significant privately-held stockpiles of crude oil have long been an important empirical regularity in the United States. Such stockpiles would not rationally be held in a traditional Hotelling-style model. How then can the existence of these inventories be explained? In the...

A government bargains a mutually convenient agreement with a multinational corporation to extract a natural resource. The corporation bears the initial investment and earns as a return a share on the profits. The host country provides access and guarantee conditions of operation. Being the...

In this paper we analyze the relative importance and mutual behavior of two competing base-load electricity generation options that each are capable of contributing significantly to the abatement of global CO2 emissions: nuclear energy and coal-based power production complemented with CO2...

The important role of friends, neighbors and colleagues in shaping individual choices has been brought out in a number of studies over the years. The presence of significant ‘local’ influence in shaping individual behavior suggests that firms, governments and developmental agencies should...

Using a unique set of data and exploiting a large-scale natural experiment, we estimate the effect of real-time usage information on residential electricity consumption in Northern Ireland. Starting in April 2002, the utility replaced prepayment meters with “smart” meters that allow the...

Governments contracting with private agents for the provision of an impure public good must contend with agents who would potentially supply the good absent any payments. This additionality problem is centrally important in the use of carbon offsets as part of climate change mitigation....

This paper develops and tests a dynamic optimization model of fishermen’s investment behavior in a limited-entry fishery. Because exit from limited-entry fisheries may be irreversible, the fisherman has an incentive to maintain the right to fish (whether by actually fishing or by purchasing an...