In this paper we assess the effectiveness of suicide attacks and targeted killings in the Second Intifada. We find evidence that the targeted killings of Palestinian leaders by Israel reduce realized Palestinian violence. We find, however, that intended Palestinian violence is increasing at low...

The paper studies, in a repeated interaction setting, how the presence of cooperative agents in a heterogeneous community organized in groups affects efficiency and group stability. The paper expands on existing literature by assuming that each type can profitably mimic other types. It is shown...

This paper considers the problem of allocating N indivisible objects among N agents according to their preferences when transfers are not allowed, and studies the tradeoff between fairness and efficiency in the class of strategy-proof mechanisms. The main finding is that for strategy-proof...

We provide a short proof for the following characterization of the core in housing markets first proved by Ma (1994): the core is the only rule that satisfies strategy-proofness, Pareto efficiency and individual rationality.

We study efficiency and fairness properties of the equal cost sharing with maximal participation (ECSMP) mechanism in the provision of a binary and excludable public good. According to the maximal welfare loss criterion, the ECSMP is optimal within the class of strategyproof, individually...

The division problem under constraints consists of allocating a given amount of an homogeneous and perfectly divisible good among a subset of agents with single-peaked preferences on an exogenously given interval of feasible allotments. We characterize axiomatically the family of extended...

We consider a mechanism design problem in economies with increasing returns. We construct a new class of rules, called w-hybrid rules, and characterize them by strategy-proofness, anonymity, envy-freeness, consumer sovereignty, and non-bossiness. We show that w-hybrid rules improve the supremal...

I show how improper conditioning of beliefs can reduce contribution in public goods environments with interdependent values. I consider a simple model of a binary, excludable public good. In equilibrium, provision of the public good is good news about its value. Naive players who condition...

Mechanism design theory strongly relies on the concept of Nash equilibrium. However, studies of experimental games show that Nash equilibria are rarely played and that subjects may be thinking only a finite number of iterations. We study one of the most influential benchmarks of mechanism design...

Nonprofit organizations in transition countries experience low trust and consequently low income from donations. The study introduces one particular solution to the problem, ¨ certification, and examines its impact on the quality of the nonprofit organizations in the market. The situation is...