This paper investigates the implications of different prize structures on effort provision in dynamic (two-stage) elimination contests. Theoretical results show that, for risk-neutral participants, a structure with a single prize for the winner of the contest maximizes total effort, while a...

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

In markets for credence goods sellers are better informed than their customers about the quality that yields the highest surplus from trade. This paper studies second-degree price-discrimination in such markets. It shows that discrimination regards the amount of advice offered to customers and...

We examine the effectiveness of three democratically chosen rules that alleviate the coordination and cooperation problems inherent in collectively managed common-pool resources. In particular we investigate how rule effectiveness and rule compliance depends on the prevailing local norms and...

Empirical literature on moral hazard focuses exclusively on the direct impact of asymmetric information on market outcomes, thus ignoring possible repercussions. We present a field experiment in which we consider a phenomenon that we call second-degree moral hazard - the tendency of the supply...

We estimate the impact of climate change on agricultural production in a panel of 127 countries from 1961 to 2002. In contrast to the existing literature we account for cross-sectional dependence and technology heterogeneity. We find no significant impact of climate change on agricultural...

We study portfolio diversification in an experimental decision task, where asset returns depend on a draw from an ambiguous urn. Holding other information identical and controlling for the level of ambiguity, we find that labeling assets as being familiar or from the homeland of subjects...

Arad and Rubinstein (2012a) have designed a novel game to study level-k reasoning experimentally. Just like them, we find that the depth of reasoning is very limited and clearly different from equilibrium play. We show that such behavior is even robust to repetitions, hence there is, at best,...

The sovereign’s intention to issue inflation-linked bonds (ILB) is to save money. More than 15 years’ experience with this financial instrument in the United States and in several other countries has led to the conclusion that these bonds are costly and basically characterized by low...

We study the development of bank lending in the U.S. after four large jumps in uncertainty using an event study approach. We find that more liquid banks reduce lending less than banks with smaller liquidity ratios after a surge in uncertainty. Lending by smaller banks is also less responsive to...