Why are some people more optimistic about their life than others? Literature on locus of control suggests that optimism is associated with the belief that one’s life outcomes are controlled by internal factors, such as ability, instead of external factors, such as powerful others or...

In this paper we attempt to compare theoretically and experimentally three models of strategic information transmission. In particular we focus on the models by Crawford & Sobel (1982), Lai (2010) and Ehses-Friedrich (2011). These three models differ in the information that the receiver...

We report the results of an original experiment that was designed to test the strength and robustness of the attraction effect. Rather than the usual simple tests for this effect, we consider a conceptually simple consumer purchasing task where alternatives are however difficult to evaluate. For...

The issue of the order-dependence of iterative deletion processes is well-known in the game theory community, and meanwhile conditions on the dominance concept underlying these processes have been detected which ensure order-independence (see e.g. the criteria of Gilboa et al., 1990 and Apt,...

In the market where inattentive buyers can fail to notice some feasible choices, the key role of marketing is to make buyers aware of products. However, the eective marketing strategy is often subtle since marketing tactics can make buyers cautious. This paper provides a framework to analyze an...

Consumers make mistakes when facing complex purchasing decision problems but if at least some consumers choose only among offers that are easy to compare with others then firms will adopt common ways to present their offers and thus make choice easier (Gaudeul and Sugden, 2011). We design an...

We identify the causal effect of cognitive abilities on economic behavior in an experimental setting. Using a forecasting task with varying cognitive load, we identify the causal effect of working memory on subjects' forecasting performance, while also accounting for the effect of other...

Whether friendship or competitive relationships deserve to be encouraged in the workplace is not obvious a priori. In this paper we derive the conditions under which a profit-maximizing employer finds it convenient to induce a rat race among workers exhibiting horizontal reciprocity in order to...