Although evidence accrues in biology, anthropology and experimental economics that homo sapiens is a cooperative species, the reigning assumption in economic theory is that individuals optimize in an autarkic manner (as in Nash and Walrasian equilibrium). I here postulate a cooperative kind of...

There is a potential free-rider problem when several siblings consider future provision of care for their elderly parents. Siblings can commit to not providing long- term support by living far away. If location decisions are made by birth order, older siblings may enjoy a first-mover advantage....

A common feature of the literature on the evolution of preferencesis that evolution favors nonmaterialistic preferences only if preferencetypes are observable at least to some degree. We argue that this resultis due to the assumption that in each state of the evolutionary dynam-ics some Bayesian...

We experimentally test the efficacy of indenture as a self-enforced contract device. In an indenture game, the principal signals the intention of payment-on-delivery, by tearing a banknote and giving the agent half of it as prepayment; the agent receives the completing half after delivering the...

Psychological game theory can provide rational-choice-based framing effects; frames influence beliefs, beliefs influence motivations. We explain this theoretically and explore empirical relevance experimentally. In a 2×2 design of one-shot public good games we show that frames affect subject's...

Guilt averse individuals experience a utility loss if they believe they let someone down. In particular, generosity depends on what the donor believes that the recipient expects to receive. In experimental work, several authors have identified a positive correlation between such second-order...

A distinctive feature of humans compared to other species is the high rate of cooperation with non-kin. One explanation is that humans are motivated by concerns for social esteem. In this paper we experimentally investigate the impact of anticipated verbal feedback on altruistic behavior. We...

Many previous experiments document that behavior in multi-person settings responds to the name of the game and the labeling of strategies. Usually these studies cannot tell whether frames affect preferences or beliefs. In this Dictator game study, we investigate whether social framing effects...

We run a public good experiment in the field and in the lab with (partly) the same subjects. The field experiment is a true natural field experiment as subjects do not know that they are exposed to an experimental variation. We can show that subjects' behavior in the classic lab public good...

The equilibrium outcome of a strategic interaction between two or more people may depend on the weight they place on each other's payoff. A positive, negative or zero weight represents altruism, spite or complete selfishness, respectively. Paradoxically, the real, material payoff in equilibrium...