One may hope to capture the behavioral and emotional eects of downsizingthe labor force in rather abstract settings as an ultimatum game (see Fischeret al. (2008)), or try to explore downsizing in its more natural principalagentscenario with a labor market background. We pursue the latter...

We experimentally manipulate the efficiency of trust and reciprocity in a modified Investment Game. The aim of our manipulation is to test whether reciprocity is mainly affected by payoff consequences of trust or by intentions underlying it. We find that intentions matter and that consequences...

This article examines the nature of human behavior in a nested social dilemma referred to as the Spillover Game. Players are divided into two groups with positive production interdependencies. Based on theoretically derived opportunistic, local, and global optima, our experimental results...

Absentmindedness is a special case of imperfect recall which according to Piccione and Rubinstein (1997a) leads to time inconsistencies. Aumann, Hart and Perry (1997a) question their argument and show how dynamic inconsistencies can be resolved. The present paper explores this issue from a...

The provision of public goods regularly embodies interrelated spheres of influence on multiple scales. This article examines the nature of human behavior in a multilevel social dilemma game with positive provision externalities to local and global scales. We report experimental results showing...

We investigate to what extent genuine social preferences can explain observed other-regarding behavior. In a dictator game variant subjects can choose whether to learn about the consequences of their choice for the receiver. We find that a majority of subjects showing other-regarding behavior...

Numerous studies suggest that communication may be a universal means to mitigate collective action problems. In this study, we challenge this view and show that the communication structure crucially determines whether communication mitigates or intensifies the problem of collective action. We...

Recent research has cast some doubt on the general validity of outcome-based models of social preferences. We develop a model based on cognitive dissonance that focuses on the importance of self-image. An experiment (a dictator game variant) tests the model. First, we find that subjects whose...

Economic theory has evolved without paying proper attention to behavioral approaches,especially to social, economic, and cognitive psychology. This has recently changed byincluding behavioral economics courses in many doctoral study programs. Although thisnew development is most welcome, the...

Imitating the best strategy from the previous period has been shown to be an important heuristic, in particular in relatively complex environments. In this experiment we test whether subjects are more likely to use imitation if they are under stress. Subjects play a repeated Cournot oligopoly....