We study a classic mechanism design problem: How to organize trade between two privately informed parties. We characterize an optimal mechanism under selfish preferences and present experimental evidence that, under such a mechanism, a non-negligible fraction of individuals deviates from the...

We consider functions that assign to each evaluation profile a preference system or a list of menu dependent preferences. The rule by which such an assignment takes place is said to be a menu dependent preference functional (MDPFL). We extend the concepts of invariance under individual cardinal...

We study a classic mechanism design problem: How to organize trade between two privately informed parties. We characterize an optimal mechanism under selfish preferences and present experimental evidence that, under such a mechanism, a non-negligible fraction of individuals deviates from the...

Experimental research on generosity has focused predominantly on behavior in the monetary domain, although many real life decisions take place in the non-monetary domain. Investigating generosity preferences in the non-monetary domain is important to understand a large class of situations...

Fuzzy set theory has been explicitly introduced to deal with vagueness and ambiguity. One can also use probability theory or techniques borrowed from philosophical logic. In this chapter, we consider fuzzy preferences and we survey the literature on aggregation of fuzzy preferences. We restrict...

An anonymous social choice function for a large atomless population maps cross-section distributions of preferences into outcomes. Because any one individual is too insignificant to affect these distributions, every anonymous social choice function is individually strategy- proof. However, not...

The authors introduce a simple model of public preferences on poverty assistance. Their focus is on the roles played by the socioeconomic status of a potential welfare recipient and the stereotypes about his/her ethnic group in shaping taxpayers' preferences on appropriate assistance. The model...

Social norms are often posited as an explanation of differences in economic behavior and performance of societies that are difficult to explain by differences in endowments and technology. Economists are often reluctant to incorporate social aspects into their analyses when doing so leads to...

We measure the other-regarding behavior in samples from three related populations in the upper Midwest of the United States: college students, non-student adults from the community surrounding the college, and adult trainee truckers in a residential training program. The use of typical...

Different social contexts have been used when measuring distributional preferences. This could be problematic as contextual variance may inadvertently muddle the measurement process. We use a within-subjects design and measure distributional preferences in resource allocation tasks with role...