The paper presents experimental evidence on the impact of managers and their incentives on the behavior of group members in intergroup contests. I find that members follow the nonbinding investment recommendations of their group manager in particular if the managers payoff does not depend on the...

This paper investigates how heterogeneity in contestants' investment costs affects the competition intensity in a dynamic elimination contest. Theory predicts that the absolute level of investment costs has no effect on the competition intensity in homogeneous interactions. Relative cost...

This paper empirically analyzes how performance feedback and information on heterogeneity affect behavior in dynamic contests, using data on two-player-contests from a smartphone/tablet application called ``Wordblitz for Friends''. We find that players increase output as underdogs and decrease...

This paper investigates the effects of different prize structures on the effort choices of participants in two-stage elimination contests. A format with a single prize is shown to maximize total effort over both stages, but induces low effort in stage 1 and high effort in stage 2. By contrast, a...

In a fair division game an indivisible object with an unknown common value is owned by a group of individuals and should be allocated to one of them while the others are compensated monetarily. Implementing fair division games in the lab, we find many occurrences of the winner's curse under the...

Economists have a long tradition in identifying the evolution of cooperation in large, unstructured societies as a puzzle. We suggest a new explanation for cooperation which avoids restrictions of most previous attempts. Our explanation deals with the role of internalized norms for cooperation...

We experimentally investigate the relevance of (asymmetric) outside options in ultimatum bargaining. Building on the generalized equity principle formulated by Selten (1978) we derive three different equity rules. These equity rules can explain 43% of all o ers. Our within-subject design allows...