We study experimentally the protection of property in five widely distinct countries— Austria, Mexico, Mongolia, South Korea and the United States. Our main results are that the security of property varies with experimental institutions, and that our subject pools exhibit significantly...

We experimentally study the causal effects of different types of market experience on the efficiency levels attained in a subsequent social dilemma. Our motivation stems from the existence of contrasting views on the potential spillover effects of participation in markets on non-market...

As predicted by loss aversion, numerous studies find that penalties elicit greater effort than bonuses, even when the underlying payoffs are identical. However, loss aversion also predicts that workers will demand higher wages to accept penalty contracts. In six experiments I recruited workers...

This paper studies the stability of socially responsible behavior in markets. We develop a laboratory product market in which low-cost production creates a negative externality for third parties, but where alternative production with higher costs entirely mitigates the externality. Our data...

We study a classic mechanism design problem: How to organize trade between two privately informed parties. We characterize an optimal mechanism under selfish preferences and present experimental evidence that, under such a mechanism, a non-negligible fraction of individuals deviates from the...

Existing experimental research on behavior in weakest-link games shows overwhelmingly the inability of people to coordinate on the efficient equilibrium, especially in larger groups. We hypothesize that people will be able to coordinate on efficient outcomes, provided they have sufficient...