We design an experiment to examine welfare and behavior in a multi-level trust game representing a pass through investment in an intermediated market. In a repeated game, an Investor invests via an Intermediary who lends to a Borrower. A pre-experiment one-shot version of the game serves as a...

In the absence of enforceable contracts, many economic and personal interactions rely on trust and reciprocity. Research shows that although this reliance often works well, sometimes it breaks down. Simple rules mandating minimum standards on reciprocation prevent the most egregious trust...

We conduct an experimental analysis of a best-of-three Tullock contest. Intermediate prizes lead to higher efforts, while increasing the role of luck (as opposed to effort) leads to lower efforts. Both intermediate prizes and luck reduce the probability of contest ending in two rounds. The...

We conduct an experimental analysis of a best-of-three Tullock contest. Intermediate prizes lead to higher efforts, while increasing the role of luck (as opposed to effort) leads to lower efforts. Both intermediate prizes and luck reduce the probability of the contest ending in two rounds. The...

We experimentally investigate the effect of social identification and information feedback on individual behavior in contests. Identifying subjects through photo display decreases efforts. Providing information feedback about others’ effort does not affect the aggregate effort levels but it...

This study examines behavior of subjects in simultaneous and sequential multi-battle contests. In simultaneous contests, subjects make positive bids in each battle 80% of the time and bids fall within the predicted boundaries. However, 35% of the time subjects make positive bids in only two,...

In modern firms the use of contests as an incentive device is ubiquitous. Nonetheless, recent experimental research shows that in the laboratory subjects routinely make suboptimal decisions in contests even to the extent of making negative returns. The purpose of this study is to investigate if...

We study experimentally the effects of cost structure and prize allocation rules on the performance of rent-seeking contests. Most previous studies use a lottery prize rule and linear cost, and ?nd both overbidding relative to the Nash equilibrium prediction and signi?cant variation of efforts,...

We conduct an experimental analysis of a best-of-three contest. Intermediate prizes lead to higher efforts, while increasing the role of luck (as opposed to effort) leads to lower efforts. Both intermediate prizes and luck reduce the probability of contest ending in two rounds. The patterns of...