Social preferences have been shown to be an important determinant of economic decision making for many adults. We present a largescale experiment with 883 children and adolescents, aged eight to seventeen years. Participants make decisions in eight simple, oneshot allocation tasks, allowing us...

We study antisocial preferences in simple money-burning tasks. A decision maker can choose whether or not to reduce another person's payoff at an own cost. We vary across tasks the initial endowment of the decider and the victim. We find that most conventional expectations are refuted: Subjects...

Game theory predicts that players make strategic commitments that may appear counter-intuitive. We conducted an experiment to see if people make a counter-intuitive but strategically optimal decision to avoid information. The experiment is based on a sequential Nash demand game in which a...

Standard economic analysis assumes that preferences are independent of markets. However, there is evidence suggesting that price information can influence preferences. We investigate the hypothesis that markets do not simply allow agents to reveal their preferences, but actually help to shape...

We report an experimental test of level-k theory, applied to three simple games with non-neutral frames: Coordination, Discoordination and Hide and Seek. Using the same frame for all three games, we derive hypotheses that apply across the games and are independent of prior assumptions about...

We devise a new experimental game by nesting a voluntary contributions mechanism in a broader spectrum of incentive schemes. With it, we study tensions between egalitarianism, equity concerns, self-interest, and the need for incentives. In a 2x2 design, subjects either vote on or exogenously...

Teams often suffer from a free rider problem with respect to individual contributions. That putting teams into competition with each other can mitigate this problem is an important recent insight. However, we know little about how inequality in endowment between teams might influence this...

In a repeated public goods setting, we explore whether individuals, acting unilaterally, will provide an effective sanctioning institution. Subjects first choose unilaterally whether they will participate in a sanctioning stage that follows a contribution stage. Only those who gave themselves...

Abundant evidence suggests that high levels of contributions to public goods can be sustained through self-governed monitoring and sanctions. This experimental study investigates the effectiveness of decentralized sanctioning institutions in alternative punishment networks. Our results show that...

At least since Adam Smith, economists have recognized the beneficial effects of competition in markets. The possible positive influence of competition between teams on the free rider problem within teams is a more recent discovery. It is important because the free rider problem exists to some...