This paper empirically analyzes how performance feedback and information on heterogeneity affect behavior in dynamic contests, using data on two-player-contests from a smartphone/tablet application called ``Wordblitz for Friends''. We find that players increase output as underdogs and decrease...

This paper tests social identity theory with respect to individuals' self-identification behavior. We report results from a laboratory experiment in which subjects choose their group membership, which is interpreted as decision to identify with the respective group. Inducing a trade-off between...

We study an exchange economy with overlapping generations of consumers who derive utility from consuming a non-durable commodity and housing. A banking sector offers loans to finance housing. We provide a complete characterization of the equilibrium dynamics which alternates between an expansive...

The paper introduces the assumption of costly information acquisition to the theory of mechanism design for matching allocation problems. It is shown that the assumption of endogenous information acquisition greatly changes some of the cherished results in that theory: in particular, the...

We study the problem of assigning indivisible goods to individuals where each is to receive one object. To guarantee fairness in the absence of monetary compensation, we consider random assignments and analyse various equity criteria for such lotteries. In particular, we find that sd-no-envy (as...

This paper analyzes within a two-region endogenous growth model how different types of public policies affect the equilibrium spatial distribution of economic activity. Integration is modeled as a continuum and enables firms to access the public input of the respective other region. Given a...

We investigate the formation of market prices in a new experimental setting involving multi-period asset markets with state-dependent fundamentals. We are particularly interested in two informational aspects: (1) the role of traders who are informed about the true state and (2) the provision of...

We allow a contest organizer to bias a contest in a discriminatory way; i.e., she can favor specific contestants by designing the contest rule in order to maximize total equilibrium effort (resp. revenue). The two predominant contest regimes are considered, all-pay auctions and lottery contests....

This paper provides the proofs to the analysis of a continuous time matching model with saving in Bayer and Wälde (2010a). The paper proves the results on consumption growth, provides an existence proof for optimal consumption and a detailed derivation of the Fokker-Planck equations.

Is welfare economics still possible, when preferences are endogenously determined? The answer is yes, if and only if the hypothesis of adaptive preferences is correct. If preferences satisfy the conditions of continuity, non-satiation and regularity, then adaptive preferences imply that...