This paper presents a formal theory of reciprocity. Reciprocity means that people reward kind actions and punish unkind ones. The theory takes into account that people evaluate the kindness of an action not only by its consequences but also by the intention underlying this action. The theory...

The digital revolution of the information age and in particular the sweeping changes of scientific communication brought about by computing and novel communication technology, potentiate global, high grade scientific information for free. The arXiv for example is the leading scientific...

Standard equilibrium concepts in game theory find it difficult to explain the empirical evidence from a large number of static games, including the prisoner's dilemma game, the hawk-dove game, voting games, public goods games and oligopoly games. Under uncertainty about what others will do in...

Experimental studies show that the Nash equilibrium and its refinements are poor predictors of behavior in non-cooperative strategic games. Cooperation models, such as ERC and inequality aversion, yield superior predictions compared to the standard game theory predictions. However, those models...

This essay reviews new histories of the role of game theory and rational decision-making in shaping the social sciences, economics among them, in the post war period. The recent books "The World the Game Theorists Made" by Paul Erickson and "How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind" by Paul Erickson,...

Economics students have been shown to exhibit more selfishness than other students. Because the literature identifies the impact of long-term exposure to economics instruction (e.g., taking a course), it cannot isolate the specific course content responsible; nor can selection, peer effects, or...

In this paper we show that a simple model of fairness preferences explains major experimental regularities of common pool resource (CPR) experiments. The evidence indicates that in standard CPR games without communication and without sanctioning possibilities inefficient excess appropriation is...