We elicit time preferences of a representative sample of 1,102 Dutch individuals and also confront them with a series of incentivized investment decisions. There are two treatments which di¤er by the frequency at which individuals decide about the invested amount. The low frequency treatment...

Entrusting the power to punish to a central authority is a hallmark of civilization. We study a collective action dilemma in which self-interest should produce a sub-optimal outcome absent sanctions for non-cooperation. We then test experimentally whether subjects make the theoretically optimal...

The sanctioning of norm-violating behavior by an effective formal authority is an efficient solution for social dilemmas. It is in the self-interest of voters and is often favorably contrasted with letting citizens take punishment into their own hands. Allowing informal sanctions, by contrast,...

Revealed preference theory o¤ers a criterion for decision-making quality: if decisions are high quality then there exists a utility function that the choices maximize. We conduct a large-scale ?eld experiment that enables us to test subjects?choices for consistency with utility maximization and...

Incentivized methods for eliciting subjective probabilities in economic experiments present the subject with risky choices or bets that encourage truthful reporting. We discuss the most prominent elicitation methods and their underlying assumptions, provide theoretical comparisons, and propose...

Using a group identity manipulation we examine the role of social preferences in an experimental one-shot centipede game. Contrary to what social preference theory would predict, we fnd that players continue longer when playing with outgroup members. The explanation we provide for this result...

This paper presents a generalised framework to understand mixed-strategy sales behaviour with informative advertising. By introducing competition in the utility space into a clearinghouse sales model, we oer a highly tractable framework that can i) provide a novel welfare analysis of...

We explore in an equilibrium framework whether games with multiple Nash equilibria are easier to play when players can communicate. We consider two variants, modelling talk about future plans and talk about past actions. The language from which messages are chosen is endogenous, messages are...

The well-known double marginalization problem understates the inefficiencies arising from vertical relations in consumer search markets where consumers are uninformed about the wholesale prices charged by manufacturers to retailers. Con- sumer search provides a monopoly manufacturer with an...

We study vertical relations in markets with consumer and retailer search. Retailers search to learn manufacturers' prices. We obtain three important new results. First, we explain why empirical distributions of retail prices are bi- modal, with a regular price and a sales price. Second, under...