Sacred values differ from material or instrumental values in that they incorporate moral beliefs that drive action in ways dissociated from prospects for success. Across the world, people believe that devotion to essential or core values – such as the welfare of their family and country, or...

This paper examines simultaneous versus sequential choice of effort in a twoplayer contest with a general contest success function. The timing of moves, determined in a pre‐play stage prior to the contest‐subgame, as well as the value of the prize is allowed to be endogenous. Contrary to...

In this study, we aim to investigate the impact of privatization on the degree of cooperation and competition in a mixed oligopoly market. We consider a duopoly market that comprises one semipublic firm and one private firm. Each firm is assumed to determine the level of two types of effort: the...

This paper combines ISSP survey data and experimental evidence from a gift-exchange game to determine the effect of status or relative income on work effort. We find a strong effect of others' incomes on individual effort decisions in both datasets. The individual's rank in the income...

We examine through an experimental design how rational and non-rational considerations affect the decision to vote or to abstain in First Past the Post and PR elections. We show that in both types of elections, but particularly so under PR, a majority of subjects do not make the "right"...

This paper presents the results of a laboratory experiment in which workers perform a real-effort task and supervisors report the workers' performance to the experimenter. The report is non verifiable and determines the earnings of both the supervisor and the worker. We find that not all the...

Using a two-stage Game of Chicken, Cabon-Dhersin and Ramani (2007) examine the impact of population heterogeneity on cooperative behaviour. For that purpose, they introduce two different types of agents, namely those who always cooperate and those who strategically cooperate. The aim of the...