We report experimental evidence on the effect of observability of actions on bank runs. We model depositors’ decision-making in a sequential framework, with three depositors located at the nodes of a network. Depositors observe the other depositors’ actions only if connected by the network....

This paper explores the motivations behind punishment from unaffected third parties and affected second parties using a within-subjects design in ten simple games. We apply a classification analysis and find that a parsimonious model assuming that subjects are either inequity averse or selfish...

Experimental evidence from dictator games and simple choice situations indicates concerns for fairness and social welfare in human decision making. At the same time, models of inequality averse agents fail to explain the experimental data of individuals who reduce their payoff below a fair split...

We conduct a laboratory experiment with a constant-sum sender–receiver game and a sequential game of matching pennies with the same payoff structure to investigate the impact of individuals’ first- and second-order beliefs on truth-telling. While first-movers in matching pennies choose an...

Empirical research suggests that – despite strengthening conventional incentives to put in effort – exerting control might reduce worker performance. The present paper shows that intention-based reciprocity can explain such hidden costs of control if individuals differ in their propensity...

We study the process of equilibrium selection in games when players have social preferences of the type discussed, among others, by Rabin (1993) and Segal and Sobel (2007). To this end, we employ a standard noisy version of the best response dynamics. We obtain several results concerning some...

We study the individual behavior of students and workers in an experiment where they repeatedly face the same cooperative task. The data show that clerical workers differ from college students in overall cooperation rates, strategy adoption and use of punishment opportunities. Students cooperate...

This paper investigates how outside ranking organizations such as U.S. News and World Report affect colleges’ admission decisions. To do this, we focus on a policy that has received criticism for being motivated by ranking concerns: optional reporting of SAT I scores. This policy allows...

Experimental evidence has accumulated highlighting the limitations of formal and explicit contracts in certain situations, and has identified environments in which informal and implicit contracts are more efficient. This paper documents the superior performance of explicit over implicit...

Trust is a central component of social and economic interactions among humans. While rational self-interest dictates that “investors” should not be trusting and “trustees” should not be trustworthy in one-shot anonymous interactions, behavioral experiments with the “trust game” have...