Conventions can be narrowly interpreted as coordinated ways of equilibrium play, i.e., a specific convention tells all players in a game with multiple strict equilibria which equilibrium to play. In our view, coordination often takes place before learning about the games. Thus, one has to...

Why is it that well-intentioned actions can create persistent conflicts? While norms are widely regarded as a source for cooperation, this article proposes a novel theory in which the emergence of norms can be understood as a bargaining process in which normative conflicts explain the finally...

This paper aims to analize the role of personal identity in decision making. To this end, it starts by reviewing critically the growing literature on economics and identity. Considering the ambiguities that the concept of social identity poses, our proposal focuses on the concept of personal...

We perform an experimenta linvestigation using a dictator game in which individuals must make a moral decision - to give or not to give an amount of money to poor people in the Third World. A questionnaire in which the subjects are asked about the reasons for their decision shows that, at least...

This paper studies the response times of experimental subjects playing the Ultimatum game in a laboratory setting using monetary incentives. We find that proposals are not significantly correlated with response time, whereas responders' behavior is positively and significantly correlated. Hence,...

The study of gender differences in social preferences has shown mixed results, preventing economists and other social scientists from drawing definitive conclusions on this topic. Several original investigations and experimental reviews have hypothesized that the main reason of this...

Which inequalities among individuals are considered unjust? This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to study distributive choices dealing with arbitrarily unequal initial endowments. In a three-person distribution problem where subjects either know or do not know their...

This article defines in a precise manner three different mechanisms to achieve impartiality in distributive justice and studies them experimentally. We consider a first-person procedure, the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, and two third-party procedures, the impartial spectator and the ideal...

Why is it that well-intentioned actions can create persistent conflicts? While norms are widely regarded as a source for cooperation,this article proposes a novel theory in which the emergence of normscan be understood as a bargaining process in which normative conflicts explain the nally...