An “information cascade” occurs when initial decisions coincide in a way that it is optimal for each of the subsequent individuals to ignore her or his private signals and follow the established pattern. Moscarini et. al (1996) developed a social learning model hitherto unexplored in an...

We show experimentally that fairness concerns may have a decisive impact on both the actual and the optimal choice of contracts in a moral hazard context. Explicit incentive contracts that are optimal according to self-interest theory become inferior when some agents value fairness. Conversely,...

We provide evidence that long-term relationships between trading parties emerge endogenously in the absence of third party enforcement of contracts and are associated with a fundamental change in the nature of market interactions. Without third party enforcement, the vast majority of trades are...

One possible conclusion from recent experimental research on decision making under risk is that observed behaviour can be reasonable accommodated by expected utility plus an error term. This conclusion implies that the violation rate of expected utility should decrease if errors are excluded....

We show experimentally that a principal?s distrust in the voluntary performance of an agent has a negative impact on the agent?s motivation to perform well. Before the agent chooses his performance, the principal in our experiment decides whether he wants to restrict the agents? choice set by...

Substantial academic interest and public policy debate centers on campaign finance reform. Campaign resources can provide benefits to constituencies if candidates use them to fund the distribution of useful information. On the other hand, voters can potentially be harmed if candidates trade...

What is the motivational effect of imposing a minimum effort require- ment? Agents may no longer exert voluntary effort but merely meet the requirement. Here, we examine how such hidden costs of control change when control is considered legitimate. We study a principal- agent model where control...

Die Theorie des Wettbewerbs als Entdeckungsverfahren behauptet, daß die Ergebnisse des Wettbewerbes nicht vorhergesagt werden können, weil hierzu Tatsachen benötigt würden, die durch ihn erst entdeckt werden sollen. Dann wäre es allerdings unmöglich, Aussagen über Wettbewerb empirisch zu...

In our model, an agent produces an outcome by a costly effort and then distributes it among heterogeneous users. The agent's payoff is the weighted sum of the users? shares and the coefficient reflecting their heterogeneity. When the agent neglects users? heterogeneity the game leads to an...

This paper models the Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP), a controlled randomized experiment concerning welfare. The model of household behavior includes stochastic labor market skill, job opportunities, and value of non-labor market time. All the variation within and between treatment groups,...