We modify the provision point mechanism by introducing reward money, which is distributed among the contributors in proportion to their contributions only when the provision point is not reached. In equilibrium, the provision point is always reached as competition for reward money and preference...

What determines risk-bearing capacity and the amount of leverage in financial markets? Using unique archival data on collateralized lending, we show that personal experience can affect individual risk-taking and aggregate leverage. When an investor syndicate speculating in Amsterdam in 1772 went...

The results of a new experimental study reveal highly systematic violations of expected utility theory. The pattern of these violations is exactly the opposite of the classical common ratio effect discovered by Allais (1953). Two recent decision theories— stochastic expected utility theory...

Well-functioning groups enforce social norms that restrain opportunism, but the social structure of a society may encourage or inhibit norm enforcement. Here we study how the exogenous assignment to different positions in an extreme social hierarchy – the caste system – affects...

The sum of a supermodular function, assumed nondecreasing in the choice variable, and of a 'concavely supermodularizable' function, assumed nonincreasing in the parameter variable, satisfies the Milgrom-Shannon (1994, Monotone comparative statics, Econometrica 62, 157-180) single crossing...

This paper describes and analyzes research on the dynamics of long-term care and suggests directions for the literature to make progress. We discuss sources and causes of dynamics including inertia/state dependence (confounded by unobserved heterogeneity); match-specific effects; and costs of...

We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of equilibria with only two active players in the all-pay auction with complete information and identity-dependent externalities. This condition shows that the generic equilibrium of the standard all-pay auction is robust to the...

This paper explores how extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits targeted to older workers affect early retirement and social welfare. The trade-off of optimal UI between consumption smoothing and moral hazard requires accounting for the entire early retirement system, which often includes...

We consider a standard social choice environment with linear utilities and independent, one-dimensional, private values. We provide a short and constructive proof that for any Bayesian incentive compatible mechanism there exists an equivalent dominant strategy incentive compatible mechanism that...

Temptation and self-control in intertemporal choice environments are receiving increasing attention in the theoretical economics literature. Nevertheless, there remains a scarcity of empirical evidence from controlled environments informing behavior under repeated temptations. This is...