This paper reports results of an experiment designed to analyze whether reciprocal behavior survives in a more hostile environment than usually considered in the literature. In fact, positive reciprocity survives in a treatment favoring selfish behavior, although there is a decrease in the...

Since Jeremy Bentham, utilitarians have argued that happiness, not just income or wealth, is the maximand of individual and social welfare. By contrast, Rawls and followers argue that to share a common perception of living in a just society is the “ultimate good” and that individuals have a...

Public choice theory postulate that agents in a non-market setting are instrumentally rational and selfish. However, this approach creates some problems related to the raison d'etre of the normative public choice research programme. This paper considers interaction in two different environments,...

We analyze single binary-choice voting rules and identify the presence of the No-show paradox in this simple setting, as a consequence of specific turnout or quorum conditions that are included in actual rules. Since these conditions are meant to ensure a representative outcome, we try to...

The analysis of the political consequences of electoral laws has emphasized how individual characteristics of the electoral system (electoral formulas, district magnitude, ballot structure) affect the degree of parliament “fragmentation” and proportionality. This paper argues that the...