In March 2005, riots erupted in South Korea against Japan for claiming sovereignty over two small uninhabitable rocky islets (0.23 km2) which are equidistanced from South Korea and Japan. In February 2005, riots did not erupt in South Korea against North Korea for announcing it has nuclear...

The dominant view regards weakness of will an anomaly facing the standard theory of rationality. The paper argues the opposite: What is anomalous is that weakness of will is not pervasive enough. In a simple model, the paper shows that weakness of will is the dominant strategy in a game between...

This paper traces temptations to biased beliefs—instead of the standard approach that traces temptations to biased tastes. The proposed theory affords, in two ways, a more general framework than what is afforded by the standard approach: First, to start with biased beliefs can simultaneously...

Third-party institutions (judges, real-estate agents, referees, mediators, and arbiters) are designed to avoid mis-coordination among potential cooperators. They differ from first-party institutions (lobbyists) who act as rent-seekers in bargaining. They also differ from second-party...

Routines and instincts are similar in terms of function and structure: 1) With respect to function, they economize on scarce decision-making resources, such as cognitive faculties, by making actions, within limits, inflexible vis-à-vis fluctuating environmental stimuli. As inflexible patterns,...