Charness and Dufwenberg (American Economic Review, June 2011, 1211-1237) have recently demonstrated that cheap-talk communication raises efficiency in bilateral contracting situations with adverse selection. We replicate their finding and check its robustness by introducing competition between...

Recent field evidence suggests a positive link between overconfidence and innovative activities. In this paper we argue that the connection between overconfidence and innovation is more complex than the previous literature suggests. In particular, we show theoretically and experimentally that...

Recent field evidence suggests a positive link between overconfidence and innovative activities. In this paper we argue that the connection between overconfidence and innovation is more complex than the previous literature suggests. In particular, we show theoretically and experimentally that...

This paper reports results from a series of laboratory experiments designed to evaluate the impact of exposure risk on market performance. Exposure risk arises when there are complementarities between trades, e.g. when the purchase of a new house requires selling the old one. The continuous...

We use laboratory experiments to test for one of the foundations of the rational voter paradigm - that voters respond to probabilities of being pivotal. We exploit a setup that entails stark theoretical effects of information concerning the preference distribution (as revealed through polls) on...

Authority and power permeate political, social, and economic life, but empirical knowledge about the motivational origins and consequences of authority is limited. We study the motivation and incentive effects of authority experimentally in an authority- delegation game. Individuals often retain...

Traders' values and information typically consist of both private and common-value elements. In such environments, full allocative efficiency is impossible when the private rate of information substitution differs from the social rate (Jehiel and Moldovanu, 2001). We link this impossibility...

We employ laboratory methods to study stability of competitive equilibrium in Scarf's economy (International Economic Review, 1960). Tatonnement theory predicts that prices are globally unstable for this economy, i.e. unless prices start at the competitive equilibrium they oscillate without...

People's desire for fair transactions can play an important role in negotiations, organizations, and markets. In this paper, we show that markets can also shape what people consider to be a fair transaction. We propose a simple and generally-applicable model of path-dependent fairness...

Philosophers, psychologists, and economists have long argued that certain decision rights carry not only instrumental value but may also be valuable for their own sake. The ideas of autonomy, freedom, and liberty derive their intuitive appeal-at least partly-from an assumed positive intrinsic...