Many economic interactions are characterized by “all or nothing” action spaces that may limit a demonstrable index of trust and, therefore, the propensity to reciprocate. In two experimental trust games, the action space governing investments was manipulated to examine the effects on...

We investigated whether 20 emotional states, reported by 170 participants after participating in a Trust game, were experienced in a patterned way predicted by the “Recalibrational Model” or Valence Models. According to the Recalibrational Model, new information about trust-based interaction...

A common finding in social sciences is that member change hinders group functioning and performance. However, questions remain as to why member change negatively affects group performance and what are some ways to alleviate the negative effects of member change on performance? To answer these...

In modern firms the use of contests as an incentive device is ubiquitous. Nonetheless, recent experimental research shows that in the laboratory subjects routinely make suboptimal decisions in contests even to the extent of making negative returns. The purpose of this study is to investigate if...

We study experimentally the effects of cost structure and prize allocation rules on the performance of rent-seeking contests. Most previous studies use a lottery prize rule and linear cost, and ?nd both overbidding relative to the Nash equilibrium prediction and signi?cant variation of efforts,...

We experimentally investigate the impact of recognizing contributors on public good contributions. We vary recognizing all, highest or lowest contributors. Consistent with previous studies, recognizing all contributors significantly increases contributions relative to the baseline. Recognizing...

We conduct an experimental analysis of a best-of-three contest. Intermediate prizes lead to higher efforts, while increasing the role of luck (as opposed to effort) leads to lower efforts. Both intermediate prizes and luck reduce the probability of contest ending in two rounds. The patterns of...

We study experimentally the effects of cost structure and prize allocation rules on the performance of rent-seeking contests. Most previous studies use a lottery prize rule and linear cost, and find both overdissipation relative to Nash equilibrium prediction and significant variation in...

We provide an overview of experimental literature on contests and point out the two main phenomena observed in most contest experiments- (i) overbidding relative to the standard Nash equilibrium prediction and (ii) heterogeneous behavior of ex-ante symmetric contestants. Based on the sample of...

Commitment problems are inherent to non-binding conflict resolution mechanisms, since an unsatisfied party can ignore the resolution and initiate conflict. We provide experimental evidence suggesting that even in the absence of binding contractual agreements individuals often avoid conflict by...