The endowment effect is the seemingly irrationally tendency to immediately value a possessed item more than the opportunity to acquire the identical item when one does not already possess it. The phenomenon has broad legal implications, as it suggests a drag on trade, occasioned by inconsistent...

Hundreds of studies demonstrate human cognitive biases that are both inconsistent with “rational” decisionmaking and puzzlingly patterned. One such bias, the “endowment effect” (also known as “reluctance to trade”), occurs when people instantly value an item they have just acquired...

Cooperation has been vital to the evolution of all living things, including single-celled organisms (Velicer, 2005, 2003; Velicer and Stredwick, 2002; Crespi, 2001; Velicer et al., 2000; Boorman and Levitt, 1980), fish (Brosnan et al., 2003; Dugatkin, 1991, 1992, 1997; Milinski, 1987), birds (Brown and Brown, 1996; Faaborg...

Although the study of economic systems, such as free enterprise, is inherently entwined with human societies, studying the evolutionary roots of behaviors involved can tell us a great deal about ourselves. One of the values involved in free enterprise is a sense of fairness. A similar reaction,...

Increasing penalty structures for repeat offenses are ubiquitous in penal codes, despite little empirical or theoretical support. Multi-period models of criminal enforcement based on the standard economic approach of Becker (1968) generally find that the optimal penalty structure is either flat...

Increasing penalty structures for repeat offenses are ubiquitous in penal codes, despite little empirical or theoretical support. Multi-period models of criminal enforcement based on the standard economic approach of Becker (1968) generally find that the optimal penalty structure is either flat...

Simultaneity complicates the estimation of the causal effect of police on crime. We overcome this obstacle by focusing on a mass layoff of Oregon State Police in February of 2003. Due solely to budget cuts, 35 percent of the roadway troopers were laid off, which dramatically reduced citations....

The Coase theorem tells us that monetary damages and specific performance remedies for breach of contract have identical effects when transaction costs are zero. This has become a standard part of the literature on the economics of contract law. This note argues that the traditional view is...