This paper studies the influence of shared guilt and diffused responsibility in institutions that may require the support of several actors to realize specific outcomes. Decision makers weigh supporting an immoral yet egoistically advantageous action to the detriment of a third party against...

We study the bilateral trade problem put forward by Myerson and Satterthwaite (1983) under the assumption that agents are loss-averse. We use the model developed by Koszegi and Rabin (2006, 2007) to find optimal mechanisms for the minimal subsidy, revenue maximization and welfare maximization...

In diesem Diskussionspapier werden die Ergebnisse einer im Mai/Juni 2007 durchgeführten Unternehmensbefragung im Raum Niedersachsen vorgestellt in Bezug auf die Fragestellung, ob sich Unternehmen, die Innovationsförderung erhalten, von nicht geförderten Unternehmen in Bezug auf generelle...

Activist NGOs increasingly oppose industrial projects that have nevertheless been approved by public regulators. To understand this recent rise in NGO activism, we develop a theory of optimal regulation in which a regulated industry seeks to undertake a project that may be harmful to society. On...

We relate the design of contract law to the process of development. In this paper, contract law defines which private agreements are enforceable (i.e. are binding and enforced by courts) and which are not. Specically, we consider an economy where agents face a hold-up problem (moral hazard in...

This theoretical paper explores the impact of gender diversity on team production. The key assumption is that men derive utility from signaling high ability to female colleagues. The analysis shows that some gender diversity maximizes expected team production if (i) men and women have similar...

This paper focuses on a major difference between markets for physical goods and for services. It is argued that dishonest sellers of physical goods are eventually identified and forced to leave the market. In contrast, dishonest sellers of services can effectively mimic honest competitors and...

We conduct a laboratory experiment with agents working on and principals benefiting from a real effort task in which the agents' effort/performance can only be evaluated subjectively. Principals give subjective performance feedback to agents and agents have an opportunity to sanction principals....

This paper uses mechanism design theory to analyze how elementary and secondary private schools decide which students to admit from their applicant pool when wealth is private information. The problem for an individual private school of who to admit and how much to charge in tuition, is...

This paper studies the optimal level of discretion in policymaking. We consider a fiscal policy model where the government has time-inconsistent preferences with a present-bias towards public spending. The government chooses a fiscal rule to trade off its desire to commit to not overspend...