Better forecasts of decisions in conflict situations, such as occur in business, politics, and war, can help protagonists achieve better outcomes. It is common advice to “stand in the other person’s shoes” when involved in a conflict, a procedure we refer to as “role thinking.” We...

This study reports an experiment that examines whether groups can better comply with theoretical predictions than individuals in contests. Our experiment replicates previous findings that individual players significantly overbid relative to theoretical predictions, incurring substantial losses....

In their seminal work, The Calculus of Consent (1962), Buchanan and Tullock develop a decision model which embodies fundamental relation­ships relevant to institutional choices. However, the Buchanan-Tullock model remains "general," thus inviting others to specify details and to develop...

Tax authorities utilize the audit process, imposing penalties on tax evaders, as their primary means of enforcement. In recent years, a “service” paradigm, whereby tax authorities provide information about correct tax reporting to taxpayers, has shown the potential to further “encourage”...

People’s attachment to a subsidy creates difficulties for the government to phase out, and eventually eliminate, the subsidy. Elimination of fuel subsidy scheme in Indonesia is a perfect example of such occurrence. The subsidy has been implementing to commodity as opposed to households, thus...

Experimental economics methods were used to assess public understanding of information in weather forecasts and test whether the participants were able to make better decisions using the probabilistic information presented in table or bar graph formats than if they are presented with a...

Abstract Firms can exploit consumers' mistakes when facing complex purchasing decision problems but Gaudeul and Sugden (2012) argue that if at least some consumers disregard offers that are difficult to compare with others then firms will be forced into adopting common ways to present their...

The seminal work of Smith Suchanek and Williams (1988) finds price bubbles are frequently observed in an experimental asset market where a single asset with a finite lifetime is traded. Ever since, many studies have been carried out to understand the reason why bubbles occur in such an...

The rise in mega-retailers has contributed to a growing literature on buyer power and large-buyer discounts. According to Rotemberg and Saloner (1986) and Snyder (1998), large buyers' ability to obtain price discounts depends on their relative (rather than absolute) size and the degree of...

In this paper we conduct two proper tests of overconfidence. We reject the hypothesis "the data cannot be generated by a rational model" in both experiments.