In the Solidarity Game (Selten and Ockenfels, 1998), two "rich" persons can support a "poor" one. A strong positive correlation between one rich person's solidarity contribution and his expected contribution of the other is observed. This paper investigates the causality behind this correlation....

Social insurance such as unemployment insurance is in many countries mandatory for the majority of workers. The extent of such insurance is determined by a political process, i.e. ultimately by the workers themselves. If unemployment were purely accidental then all risk averse workers should...

In the Solidarity Game (Selten and Ockenfels, 1998), two "rich" persons can support a "poor" one. A strong positive correlation between one rich person's solidarity contribution and his expected contribution of the other is observed. This paper investigates the causality behind this correlation....

Based on two models of interdependent utilities [Becker, G., 1974. A theory of social interaction, Journal of Political Economy 82, 1064-1093; Fehr, E., Schmidt, K., 1999. A theory of fairness, competition, and cooperation, Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, 817-868] we derive a functional...