We study how reelection concerns affect reciprocity by elected leaders to the voters who elected them. If showing kindness to past voters reduces the chances of reelection, will an elected leader reduce or eliminate such intrinsic reciprocity? We present a signalling model of candidate behavior,...

In SIR models, infection rates are typically exogenous, whereas individuals adjust their behavior in reality. City-level data across the globe suggest that mobility falls in response to fear, proxied by Google searches. Incorporating experimentally validated measures of social preferences at the...

The Constitution of 1787 was designed to give Congress powers over trade policy that it lacked under the Articles of Confederation. The Washington administration was split over whether to use these powers to raise revenue or to retaliate against Britain's discriminatory trade policies. Obsessed...

This paper studies the global variation in economic preferences. For this purpose, we present the Global Preference Survey (GPS), an experimentally validated survey dataset of time preference, risk preference, positive and negative reciprocity, altruism, and trust from 80,000 individuals in 76...

Theorists and policy analysts have convincingly argued that greater trust makes a more efficient society by eliminating costly contracts or expensive reputations. Concurrently, experiments suggest that reciprocity is a potent substitute for law when compliance with contracts is imperfectly...

What does economics have to say about the design of international trade agreements? We review a literature on this question, providing detailed coverage on three key design features of the GATT/WTO: reciprocity, nondiscrimination as embodied in the MFN principle, and tariff bindings and binding...

We design a model-based field experiment to estimate the nature and magnitude of workers' social preferences towards their employers. We hire 446 workers for a one-time task. Within worker, we vary (i) piece rates; (ii) whether the work has payoffs only for the worker, or also for the employer;...

In many cultures and industries gifts are given in order to influence the recipient, often at the expense of a third party. Examples include business gifts of firms and lobbyists. In a series of experiments, we show that, even without incentive or informational effects, small gifts strongly...

We investigate gift exchange relationships in real jobs, making use of a field quasi-experiment associated with the exercise of stock options for roughly 4500 managers in a large public company. In this company, option grants are set equally for all employees within occupational categories, and...

Under what conditions does intergroup contact lead to conflict? We provide a novel answer to this question by highlighting the role of reputation mechanisms in sustaining cooperation. Reputational concerns can deter defection in one-time interactions within a group, but the informational content...