In line with the widely applied principle of just deserts, we assume that the severity of the penalty on a contract offender increases in the harm on the other. When this principle holds, the influence of the efficiency of the agreement on the incentives to abide by it crucially depends on...

We study the nature of dominance violations in three minimalist dominance-solvable guessing games, featuring two or three players choosing among two or three strategies. We examine how subjects' reported reasoning translates into their choices and beliefs about others' choices, and how reasoning...

Global environmental protection is characterized as a public good. In contrast to the national level where the state is able to regulate external effects, there is a lack of supranational institutions which have enough power to force countries to reduce pollution levels. In spite of the...

The paper extends the Nash equilibrium concept to account for arbitrary behavioral heuristics. Players are allowed not only to choose strategies, but also to select behavioral rules how to choose strategies. It is argued that behavioral profiles are in equilibrium if no player can benefit from...

There is robust experimental evidence that in the ultimatum game real players often prefer a fair allocation which seems to be in contrast to rational decision making. In this paper rational maximizing behavior as well as norm-guided fair behavior are two possible behavioral rules. It is argued...

One of the most controversial parts of F. A. Hayek's work is his theory of cultural evolution. By starting with current discussions on biological and cultural selection theories we bring individual, kin and group selection aspects together and shed some light on Hayek's thoughts on the Theory of...

Which inequalities among individuals are considered unjust? This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to study distributive choices dealing with arbitrarily unequal initial endowments. In a three-person distribution problem where subjects either know or do not know their...

Facing a stochastic market wage, which is independent of their own hiring policy, employers offer contracts specifying ï¬xed wage, revenue share and employment duration. In ongoing employment relations it depends on the treatment whether ï¬xed wages can be only increased or also decreased....

We report on an experiment designed to explore whether allowing individuals to voice their anger prevents costly punishment. For this sake, we use an ultimatum minigame and distinguish two treatments: one in which responders can only accept or reject the other, and the other in which they can...

This paper aims to analize the role of personal identity in decision making. To this end, it starts by reviewing critically the growing literature on economics and identity. Considering the ambiguities that the concept of social identity poses, our proposal focuses on the concept of personal...