The provision of public goods often relies on voluntary contributions and cooperation. While most of the experimental literature focuses on individual contributions, many real-world problems involve the formation of institutions among subgroups (coalitions) of players. International agreements...

Given the ubiquitous scarcity of resources an economic approach is necessary in order to determine an optimal strategy of adaptation to climate change. In this paper we develop an economic framework for the study of adaptation which allows us to distinguish between decentralized adaptation by...

In this paper, we analyse if individual inequality aversion measured with simple experimental games depends on whether the monetary endowment in these games is either a windfall gain (“house money”) or a reward for a certain effort-related performance. Moreover, we analyse whether the way of...

Opponents of the voluntary labeling scheme for genetically modified (GM) food products often argue that consumers have the right to knowʺ and therefore advocate mandatory labeling. In this paper we argue against this line of reasoning. Using experimental auctions conducted with a sample of the...

We present a simple two-steps procedure for a within-subject test of the inequity aversion model of Fehr and Schmidt (1999). In the first step, subjects played modified ultimatum and dictator games and were classified according to their preferences. In the second step, subjects with specific...

We present a simple two-steps procedure for a within-subject test of the inequity aversion model of Fehr and Schmidt (1999). In the first step, subjects played modified ultimatum and dictator games and were classified according to their preferences. In the second step, subjects with specific...

This paper investigates in how far equity preferences may matter for climate negotiations. For this purposes we conducted a simple experiment with people who have been involved in international climate policy. The experiment, which was run via the Internet, consisted of two simple non-strategic...

We investigate how burden sharing rules may impact the voluntary provision of a public good which generates heterogeneous benefits to agents. We compare different rule-based contribution schemes that are based on the principle of the smallest common denominator: all agents can suggest a minimum...

We experimentally test different rule-based contribution mechanisms in a repeated 4-player public goods game with endowment heterogeneity and compare them to a VCM, distinguishing between a random- and an effort-based allocation of endowments. We find that endowment heterogeneities limit the...