It is well-known that subjects can exhibit a preference for increasing payments. Smith (2009a) makes a related prediction that the difference between the preference increasing wage payments and the preference for increasing non-wage payments will be largest for intermediate payments. We find...

This paper presents evidence which challenges the view that techniques which are designed to measure the social preferences of subjects can always be accomplished in a nonintrusive manner. We find evidence that such measurements can influence the preferences which they are designed to measure....

We find that differences in the ability to devote cognitive resources to a strategic interaction imply differences in strategic behavior. In our experiment, we manipulate the availability of cognitive resources by applying a differential cognitive load. In cognitive load experiments, subjects...

Prior studies have found that subjects prefer an improving sequence of income over a constant sequence, even if the constant sequence offers a larger present discounted value. However, little is known about how these preferences vary with the size of the wage payments. In each of our three...

Language is an imperfect and uneven means of communicating information about a complex and nuanced world. We run an experimental investigation of a setting in which the messages available to the sender imperfectly describe the state of the world, however the sender can improve communication, at...

Measures of preferences are primarily useful in that they are helpful in predicting behavior. We perform an experiment which demonstrates that the timing of the measurement of social preferences can affect such a measure. Researchers often measure social preferences by posing a series of...

Language is an imperfect and coarse means of communicating information about a complex and nuanced world. We run an experimental investigation of a setting in which the messages available to the sender imperfectly describe the state of the world, however the sender can improve communication, at...

We find that differences in the ability to devote cognitive resources to a strategic interaction imply differences in strategic behavior. In our experiment, we manipulate the availability of cognitive resources by applying a differential cognitive load. In cognitive load experiments, subjects...