This note studies the noncooperative foundations of von Neumann- Morgenstern (vN-M) stable sets in voting games. To do so, we study Markov perfect equilibria of a noncooperative legislative bargaining game, based on underlying simple games. The following result emerges from such an exercise:...

The evolutionary stability of payoff-maximizing preferences in the model of indirect evolution in symmetric games depends on the slope of the reaction function being zero at equilibrium. The application of this result to contests confirms that in two-player contests the optimal delegation...

Field evidence suggests that people belonging to the same group often behave similarly, i.e., behavior exhibits social interaction effects. We conduct a laboratory experiment that avoids the identification problem present in the field and allows us to study the behavioral logic of social...

We investigate the effects of pay comparison information (i.e. information about what coworkers earn) and effort comparison information (information about how co-workers perform) in experimental firms composed of one employer and two employees. Exposure to pay comparison information in isolation...

The game-theoretic assumption of ‘common knowledge of rationality’ leads to paradoxes when rationality is represented in a Bayesian framework as cautious expected utility maximization with independent beliefs (ICEU). We diagnose and resolve these paradoxes by presenting a new class of formal...

We compare the behaviour of students and professional traders from an influential German bank in an experiment involving financial options. The arbitrage free option price is independent of the probability distribution of the underlying asset. The experimental data uncover a probability...

We provide a direct test of the role of social preferences in voluntary cooperation. We elicit individuals’ cooperation preference in one experiment and make a point prediction about the contribution to a repeated public good. This allows for a novel test as to whether there are "types" of...

Power indices suggest that adding new members to a voting body may affect the balance of power between the original members even if their number of votes and the decision rule remain constant. Some of the original members may actually gain, a phenomenon known as the paradox of new members. We...

The paper considers the problems of interpreting subjects’ responses to laboratory intertemporal choice and matching tasks that arise from (i) the existence of capital markets outside the laboratory; (ii) the distinction between observable income and unobservable consumption. It distinguishes...

Due to betrayal aversion, people take risks less willingly when the agent of uncertainty is another person rather than nature. Individuals in six countries (Brazil, China, Oman, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States) confronted a binary-choice trust game or a risky decision offering the...