To what extent do imposed institutions shape preferences? We consider this issue by comparing the market-versus-state attitudes of respondents from a capitalist country, Finland, and an ex-communist group of Baltic countries, and by arguing that the period of communist rule can be viewed as an...

Declining general trust has become a serious social issue in China in recent years. This paper attempts to understand and analyze this social phenomenon from a social interaction perspective. Based on a repeated prisoners ́dilemma game on networks, it finds that the evolution of general trust...

If a seller delivers a good non-conforming to contract, European and US warranty law allows consumers to choose between some money transfer and termination. Termination rights are, however, widely criticized, mainly for fear that the buyer may use non-conformity as a pretext for getting rid of a...

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...

Entitlement programs have become an increasing component of total government spending in the US over the last six decades. To some observers, this growth of the welfare state is excessive and unwarranted. To others, it is a welcome counter-acting force to the rapid increase in income inequality....

We examine a chain of sequential losses: an agent causes a loss to another, which triggers a loss to a third, and so forth. Our objective is to redistribute the losses fairly, taking into account that the chain turns "victim" to "injurer" in its subsequent step. This opens up for many...

The present paper examines the stability of self-enforcing International Environmental Agreements (IEAs) among heterogeneous countries in a twostage emission game. In the first stage each country decides whether or not to join the agreement, while in the second stage the quantity of emissions is...

When losses caused by one agent onto another triggers losses to a third, "victim" turns into "injurer" in the chain's subsequent steps. Should agents be responsible for the direct loss they cause or also bear some of the indirect losses they trigger? Through an axiomatic approach, we...