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...

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...

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”....

Society’s demands for individual and corporate social responsibility as an alternative response to market and distributive failures are becoming increasingly prominent. We first draw on recent developments in the “psychology and economics” of prosocial behavior to shed light on this trend,...

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...

We look at the effects of physical activity (PA) recommendation policies by considering a social multiplier model in which individuals differ in their concern for PA. The government can either observe this concern (and implement the First Best) or not (and implement a uniform policy). Whichever...

This paper presents a theoretical economic model assessing the effects of the level of mandatory genetically modified (GM) / non-GM coexistence regulations on market and welfare outcomes. We assume vertical differentiation of GM and non-GM goods on the consumer side. Producers are heterogeneous...

We consider the decentralized provision of a global public good with local external- ities in a spatially explicit model. Communities decide on the location of a facility that benefits everyone but exhibits costs to the host and its neighbors. They share the costs through transfers. We examine...