Experimental games turned out to be remarkably productive tools for examining the nature of social preferences and social norms. This paper describes the methods and tools of experimental game theory and provides a selection of games that have been useful. We also discuss the role of...

We consider symmetric rent-seeking contests with independent private valuations of the contest prize. For a two-parameter specification with continuous types, we fully characterize the Bayesian equilibrium, and study its basic properties. The willingness to waste is a hump-shaped function of the...

It is shown that rent-seeking contests with continuous and independent type distributions possess a unique pure-strategy Nash equilibrium.

This paper studies a large class of imperfectly discriminating contests, referred to as elastic contests, that induce players to either overbid a standing bid or to abstain from bidding altogether. Many common forms of contest are elastic. In any equilibrium of an elastic contest, there is...

A key ingredient of many popular asset pricing models is that investors exhibit countercyclical risk aversion, which helps explain major economic puzzles such as the strong and systematic variation in risk premiums over time and the high volatility of asset prices. There is, however,...

Extensive research in economics explores generosity in monetary allocations. However, generosity often involves the allocation of non-monetary goods or experiences. Existing evidence suggests that generosity may be higher in such contexts, though no direct comparison exists. Here, we compare...

The results of a new experimental study reveal highly systematic violations of expected utility theory. The pattern of these violations is exactly the opposite of the classical common ratio effect discovered by Allais (1953). Two recent decision theories— stochastic expected utility theory...

Previous experimental work provides encouraging support for some of the central assumptions underlying Hart and Moore (2008)’s theory of contractual reference points. However, existing studies ignore realistic aspects of trading relationships such as informal agreements and ex post...

Recent field evidence suggests a positive link between overconfidence and innovative activities. In this paper we argue that the connection between overconfidence and innovation is more complex than the previous literature suggests. In particular, we show theoretically and experimentally that...