Applying an indirect evolutionary approach with endogenous preference formation, we show that a legal system can induce players to reward trust even if material incentives dictate to exploit trust. By analyzing the crowding out or crowding in of trustworthiness implied by various verdict rules,...

A great deal of late bidding has been observed on internet auctions such as eBay, which employ a second price auction with a fixed deadline. Much less late bidding has been observed on internet auctions such as those run by Amazon, which employ similar auction rules, but use an ending rule that...

Procedures are the area where fairness arguably has its largest influence on modern societies. The experiments we report provide an initial characterisation of that influence and suggest new interpretations for some well-known results. We find that procedural fairness is conceptually distinct...

Procedural fairness plays a prominent role in the social discourse concerning the marketplace in particular, and social institutions in general. Random procedures are a simple case, and they have found application in several important social allocation decisions. We investigate random procedures...

Standard economic theory does not capture trust among anonymous Internet traders. But when traders are allowed to have social preferences, uncertainty about a seller's morals opens the door for trust, reward, exploitation and reputation building. We report experiments suggesting that sellers'...

Experimental sealed bid first price auctions with private values in which feedback on the losing bids is provided yield lower revenues than auctions where this feedback is not given. Furthermore, bids tend to be above the equilibrium predictions for risk neutral bidders. While the latter...

Retributive responses do play a role in human behavior. Whether they are primarily triggered by supposed intentions or by observed consequences of actions is an important question. It can be addressed by experimental studies of retributive responses in situations in which the individual actor...

Applying an evolutionary framework, we investigate how a reputation mechanism and a buyer insurance (as used on Internet market platforms such as eBay) interact to promote trustworthiness and trust. Our analysis suggests that the costs involved in giving reliable feedback determine the gains...