In this paper, we introduce a skewness-adjusted social-preferences functional, which models social preferences as a function of the skewness of the human capital distribution. We hypothesize that the “elite” of the society becomes more selfish with increasing skewness of the human-capital...

We review the vast literature on social preferences by assessing what is known about their fundamental properties, their distribution in the broader population, and their consequences for important economic and political behaviors. We provide, in particular, an overview of the empirically...

We review the vast literature on social preferences by assessing what is known about their fundamental properties, their distribution in the broader population, and their consequences for important economic and political behaviors. We provide, in particular, an overview of the empirically...

We study exchanges between three overlapping generations with non-dynastic altruism. The middleaged choose informal care provided to their parents and education expenditures for their children. The young enjoy their education, while the old may leave a bequest to their children. Within each...

This paper provides a simple model of repeated extortion. In particular, we ask whether corrupt government officials' ex post opportunism to demand more once entrepreneurs have made sunk investments entails further distortion in resource allocations. We show that the inability of government...

This paper provides a simple model of repeated extortion. In particular, we ask whether corrupt government officials' ex post opportunism to demand more once entrepreneurs have made sunk investments entails further distortion in resource allocations. We show that the inability of government...

Costly competitions between economic agents are modeled as contests. Researchers use laboratory experiments to study contests and test comparative static predictions of contest theory. Commonly, researchers find that participants' efforts are significantly higher than predicted by the standard...

In a heterogeneous population divided into two cultural groups, we investigate the intergenerational dynamics of norms, modeled as preferences over actions, as depending on strategic environments. We find that environments with strategic complementarity or substitutability lead to different...

I develop a game theoretic model where players use two different reasoning processes in strategic situations: cooperative and competitive. Players always consider cooperating at first: if they believe others will cooperate with enough probability, they will do so; otherwise they behave...