The present book adds to the broad field of investigations concerning what affects and determines human cooperation. It provides new insights into internal and external factors that influence such decisions. Rather than presenting a closed and universal examination, this book should be seen as...

Standard theoretical prediction is that rational economic agents participating in rent-seeking contests should engage in socially inefficient behavior by exerting costly efforts. Experimental studies find that the actual efforts of participants are significantly higher than predicted and that...

Gender differences in overconfidence have been extensively documented in the empirical literature, but the implications for labor market outcomes are not well understood. In this paper, we analyze how men's relatively higher overconfidence, combined with competitive job incentives, affects...

Using a promotion signaling model in which wages are realistically shaped by market forces, we analyze how male overconfidence combined with competitive workplace incentives affects gender equality in the labor market. Our main result is that overconfident workers exert more effort to be...