Applying an evolutionary framework, we investigate how a reputation mechanism and abuyer insurance (as used on Internet market platforms such as eBay) interact to promote trustworthinessand trust. Our analysis suggests that the costs involved in giving reliable feedbackdetermine the gains from...

Retributive responses do play a role in human behavior. Whether they are primarily triggered by supposed intentions or by observed consequences of actions is an important question. It can be addressed by experimental studies of retributive responses in situations in which the individual actor my...

Fairness is a strong concern as shown by dictator and ultimatum experiments. Efficiency, measured by the sum of individual payoffs, is a potentially competing concern in games such as the prisoners' dilemma. In our experiment participants can increase efficiency by gift giving. In the one-sided...

Whether incentive contracts perform better than trust in terms of productiveefficiency is usually explored by principal-agent experiments (mostinvolving only one agent). We investigate this issue in the context of athree-person ultimatum experiment, which is simpler and more neutrallyframed than...

We experimentally investigate whether individuals can reliably detect cooperators in an anonymous decision environment by allowing participants to condition their choices in an asymmetric prisoner's dilemma and a trust game (i) on their partner's donation share to a self-selected charity, and...

We report on a research program that employs the indirect evolutionary approach to analyze how the institutional environment drive the evolution of trust and trustworthiness through the evolution of moral preferences, and how in turn the evolution of preferences shapes the evolution of the...

In the experiment two bureaucrats independently can grant a permitwith the profit of the private party depending on when the permit is given.Whereas one bureaucrat can only veto the project, the second one hasadditional discretion in granting the permit earlier or later. We speakof greasing when...

We experimentally test overconfidence in investment decisions by offering participants the possibility to substitute their own for alternative investment choices.Overall, 149 subjects participated in two experiments, one with just one risky asset, the other with two risky assets. Overconfidence...

This paper focuses on egocentric biases in financial decisions. Subjects first designa portfolio, whereby each combination of assets yields the same expected returnand variance of returns. They are then confronted with two alternative portfolios;the average portfolio and the portfolio of one’s...

In this paper we study the robustness of the deadline effect in bargaininggames using constant and slowly decreasing pies, different time horizons,and both constant and alternating role modes. With decreasing pies efficiency requires early agreements while constant pies allow for efficient late...