How can behavioral scientists incorporate tools from machine learning (ML)? We propose that ML models can be used as upper bounds for the “explainable” variance in a given data set and thus serve as upper bounds for the potential power of a theory. We demonstrate this method in the domain of...

Economic theories of punishment focus on determining the levels that provide maximal social material payoffs. In calculating these levels several parameters are key: total social costs, total social benefits and the probability that offenders are apprehended. However, levels of punishment often...

The literature on proper scoring rules has mostly studied the case of risk neutral agents. We analytically investigate how risk averse, expected utility maximizing forecasters behave when presented with risk neutral proper scoring rules. If the state variable is binary, risk averse agents shade...

Costly third party punishment has been interpreted as a tool for studying the enforcement of social norms. Experiments on this topic typically involve a third party observer who can pay to decrease the payoff of a player who has behaved selfishly (or generously) toward another. We investigate...

Institutional punishment plays a central role in human societies. Yet research in evolutionary game theory has focused almost exclusively on peer punishment. Here we present a model for the evolution of institutional punishment. We consider a set of states ('kingdoms'), each consisting of a...