We test the robustness of behavior in dictator games by offering allocators the choice to play an unattractive lottery. With this lottery option, mean transfers from allocators to recipients substantially decline, partly because many allocators now keep the entire endowment for themselves...

Local opposition to many projects makes it increasingly difficult to find sites for socially desirable facilities. As has been widely documented, compensation for local disamenities does not increase the level of support. An empirical analysis of the Swiss search for a nuclear waste repository...

In this paper, the authors empirical]y test for the influence of fairness considerations on the willingness to redistribute income in private and in democratic decisions. In contrast to standard explanations of income redistribution, the authors' theory takes into account that prices shift...

Political outcomes are well understood to depend on the spatial distribution of citizen preferences. In this paper, we document that the same holds for the individual decision to be politically active. Using both cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence on turnout, we show that citizens are...

Since the dawn of broadcasting, and especially in the past decade, Americans have turned their attention from local to more distant sources of news and entertainment. While the integration of media markets will raise the private welfare of many consumers, a globalized information and...

We analyze the behavior of game-show contestants who play a one-shot game called Friend or Foe. While it is a weakly dominant strategy not to cooperate, almost half the contestants on the show choose to play friend.' Remarkably, the behavior of contestants remains unchanged even when stakes are...

For industries ranging from software to pharmaceuticals and entertainment, there is an intense debate about the appropriate level of protection for intellectual property. The Internet provides a natural crucible to assess the implications of reduced protection because it drastically lowers the...

It is often difficult for donors to predict the value of charitable giving because they know little about their recipients. This concern is particularly acute when making contributions to organizations that serve heterogeneous populations. Prior research shows that donors are more generous if...

Policymakers tend to adopt too narrow a view of the creative industries when determining the desirability of copyright protection. In these industries, authors will often create new works despite weak protection. As recent developments in the music industry illustrate, markets for complements...