The main purpose of this paper is to estimate the probability of casting a decisive vote for a class or random electorate models encompassing the celebrated IC and IAC models. The emphasis is on the impact of correlation across votes on the order of magnitude of this event. Our proof techniques...

We show that once interfamily exchanges are considered, Becker?s rotten kids mechan- ism has some remarkable implications that have gone hitherto unnoticed. Specifically, we establish that Cornes and Silva's (1999) result of e¢fficiency in the contribution game amongst siblings extends to a...

We study the political determination of the level of social long-term care insurance when voters also choose private insurance and saving amounts. Agents di§er in income, probability of becoming dependent and of receiving family help. Social insurance redistributes across income and risk...

Testosterone administration appears to make individuals less trusting, and this effect was interpreted as an adaptive adjustment of social suspicion, that improved the accuracy of trusting decisions. Here we consider another possibility, namely that testosterone increases the subjective cost of...

Why do some dynasties maintain the fortune of their founders while others completely squander it in few generations? To address this question, we use a simple deterministic microfounded model based on two main elements: the “hunger for accumulation” and the “willingness to exert effort”....

What makes individuals conform or diverge after observing prosocial or selfish behavior by others? We study experimentally how social comparison (observing a peer’s behavior) interacts with identity motives for cooperation. Participants play two games. We increase the strength of the identity...

In this paper, we introduce a game-theoretical non-cooperative model of bargaining to analyse project funding in the French river basin com- mittees. After sorting out some of the main theoretical predictions, we proceed with an empirical application to the subsidy policy of French Wa- ter...

We provide an experimental test of the role of self-signaling in decisions to do- nate to charity. Our data strongly supports the theoretical prediction of a non- monotonic, hill-shaped relationship between self-confidence, proxied by the Social Potency personality trait, and prosocial behavior...