Consider the problem of information disclosure for a planner who faces two agents interacting in a state-dependent multi-action prisoners?dilemma. We ?nd conditions under which the planner can make use of his superior information by disclosing some of it to the agents, and conditions under which...

Consider any investor who fears ruin facing any set of investments that satisfy no-arbitrage. Before investing, he can purchase information about the state of nature in the form of an information structure. Given his prior, information structure is more informative than information structure if...

We invited “residents” of a virtual world who vary in real-world age and occupation to play a trust game with stakes comparable to “in world” wages. In different treatments, the lab wall was adorned with an emotively suggestive photograph, a suggestive text was added to the instructions,...

If women marry younger than men, increased population growth causes a sur- plus of women in the marriage market. This paper introduces search frictions into a matching model with transferable utility and age-dependent match payos to study if this so-called marriage squeeze has caused a dowry \in...

We introduce and axiomatically characterize a model of status quo bias in which the status quo affects choices by both changing preferences and focusing attention. The resulting Limited Attention Status Quo Bias model can explain both the finding that status quo bias is more prevalent in larger...

People may be uncertain about future preferences, leading to both a preference for flexibility in choice between menus and stochastic choice from menus. This paper describes an experimental test of preference uncertainty in a realeffort task. We observe subjects’ preferences over menus of work...

Given any observed finite sequence of prices, wealth and demand choices, we characterize the relation between its underlying Slutsky matrix norm (SMN) and some popular discrete revealed preference (RP) measures of departures from rationality, such as the Afriat index. We show that testing...

The sanctioning of norm-violating behavior by an effective formal authority is an efficient solution for social dilemmas. It is in the self-interest of voters and is often favorably contrasted with letting citizens take punishment into their own hands. Allowing informal sanctions, by contrast,...

Entrusting the power to punish to a central authority is a hallmark of civilization. We study a collective action dilemma in which self-interest should produce a sub-optimal outcome absent sanctions for non-cooperation. We then test experimentally whether subjects make the theoretically optimal...

Ellsberg's experiment involved a gamble with no ambiguity (N) and a gam- ble where the prize that could be won is objectively known, but the winning probability depends on the (ambiguous) urn's composition (P). We extend this by including a gamble where the winning probability is objectively...