Studying evolutionarily successful behavior we show in a general framework that when individuals maximizing payoff differentials invest resources in punishing others. Interestingly, these investments are increasing in individuals, own wealth and decreasing in the wealth of others.

This article investigates whether decision makers intuitively optimize close to the normative prediction in entrepreneurial decision situations where their time must be allocated between a wage job and a newly formed venture. We offer an analytical model based on maximizing expected utility, and...

In this note we study a very simple trial & error learning process in the context of a Cournot oligopoly. Without any knowledge of the payoff functions players increase, respectively decrease, their quantity by one unit as long as this leads to higher profits. We show that despite the absence of...

The endowment effect describes the fact that people demand much more to give up an object than they are willing to spend to acquire it. The existence of this effect has been documented in numerous experiments. We attempt to explain this effect by showing that evolution favors individuals whose...

In this experiment, we analyze strategic delegation in a Cournot duopoly. Owners can choose among two different contracts which determine their managers' salaries. One contract simply gives managers incentives to maximize firm profits, while the second contract gives an additional sales bonus....

On the basis of a real high stakes insurance experiment with small probabilities of losses, we demonstrate that concern is a more important driver of WTP for insurance than subjective probability estimates when there is ambiguity surrounding the estimate. Concern is still important when...

In this paper, we experimentally investigate the extended game with action commitment of Hamilton and Slutsky (1990). In their duopoly game, firms can choose their quantities in one of two periods before the market clears. If a firm commits to a quantity in period 1 it does not know whether the...

This note contributes to the discussion of decision problems with imperfect recall from an empirical point of view. We argue that, using standard methods of experimental economics, it is impossible to induce (or control for) absent-mindedness of subjects. Nevertheless, it is possible to test...

To be represented by more than one contestant in a contest has advantages and disadvantages. This paper determines the conditions under which it is favorable to send several agents into the contest.

We report on an experiment designed to compare Stackelberg and Cournot duopoly markets with quantity competition. For each market we implement both a random matching and fixed-pairs version. Stackelberg markets yield, regardless of the matching scheme, higher outputs than Cournot markets. Under...