We use an experiment to test the hypothesis that groups consisting of like-minded cooperators are able to cooperate irrespective of punishment and therefore have a lower demand for a costly punishment institution than groups of like-minded free riders, who are unable to cooperate without...

I analyze the effects of ethnic divisions on the provision of public goods. Using OpenStreetMap data, I construct a new global dataset of locations of public amenities, such as schools, hospital and libraries. I allow for the possibility that the data may be systematically incomplete using two...

Social preferences for the punishment of free riders are critical for generating cooperative behavior in human society. Focusing on the receiving fees of Japan's public broadcaster, this study analyses how punishment of free riders, that is, the strengthening of legal responses against them,...

Why do people appear to forgo information by sorting into “echo chambers”? We construct a highly tractable multi-sender, multi-receiver cheap talk game in which players choose with whom to communicate. We show that segregation into small, homogeneous groups can improve everybody’s...

This paper examines efficiency in the provision and utilization of a congestible public input in a symmetric tax competition framework with wage rigidities. Despite the fact that also lump-sum taxation is available for regional governments, second-best efficiency emerges only as a special case...

The Paris Agreement aims at limiting the global average temperature increase to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels. A key component of the agreement are "nationally determined contributions" (NDC). For this, non-state actors such as civil society groups, economic actors, and subnational...

In sequential interactions, both the first mover's intention and the outcome of his choice may influence the second mover's action. While outcomes are typically observable, intentions are more likely to be hidden, leaving potential wiggle room for the second mover when deciding on a...

We develop a model of social preferences for network games and study its predictions in a local public goods game with multiple equilibria. The key feature is that players' social preferences are heterogeneous. This gives room for disagreement between players about the "right" payoff ordering....