Loss aversion can occur in riskless and risky choices. Yet, there is no evidence whether people who are loss averse in riskless choices are also loss averse in risky choices. We measure individual-level loss aversion in riskless choices in an endowment effect experiment by eliciting both WTA and...

Psychological game theory can provide a rational choice explanation of framing effects; frames influence beliefs, and beliefs influence motivations. We explain this point theoretically, and explore its empirical relevance experimentally. In a 2×2-factorial framing design of one-shot public good...

We analyze voting in private and public committees whose members care about the selected decision and the rewards which outsiders pay for representing their interests. If the agenda is binary or outsiders are symmetric then a private committee reaches decisions which better serve organizational...

Power indices suggest that adding new members to a voting body may increase the power of an existing member, even if the number of votes of all existing members and the decision rule remain constant. This phenomenon is known as the paradox of new members. This paper shows that the paradox has...

We replicate the experiment introduced by Fischbacher, Gächter and Fehr (2001) measuring the level of conditional cooperation in a one-shot public goods game. We collected data of 160 students from four different locations in urban and rural Russia. Like Fischbacher et al. we can classify about...

Philosophers and economists write about collective action from distinct but related points of view. This paper aims to bridge these perspectives. Economists have been concerned with rationality in a strategic context. There, problems posed by “coordination games” seem to point to a form of...

This paper investigates fundraising mechanisms for the private provision of a public good which utilize competition as an incentive device for contributions. Theory predicts that “all-pay” competition is particularly effective for fundraising. Within this class of mechanisms different types...