It is commonly assumed that friendship should decrease strategic uncertainty in games involving tacit coordination. However, this has never been tested on two "opposite poles" of coordination, namely, games of strategic complements and substitutes. We present an experimental study having...

We introduce the concept of "group cohesion" to capture the economic consequences of ubiquitous social relationships in group production. We measure group cohesion, adapting the "oneness scale" from psychology. A comprehensive program of new experiments reveals the considerable economic impact...

We introduce the concept of "group cohesion" to study the economic consequences of social relationships in team production. We measure group cohesion, adapting the "oneness scale" from psychology to group level. A series of experiments, including a pre-registered replication, reveals that higher...

We measure the social norms of sharing income with kin and neighbors in villages in Kenya. We find a plurality of norms: from a strict norm prohibiting wealth accumulation to a norm facilitating saving. Several individual and social network characteristics predict the norms upheld; the pro-saving...

Friendship is commonly assumed to reduce strategic uncertainty and enhance tacit coordination. However, this assumption has never been tested across two opposite poles of coordination involving either strategic complementarity or substitutability. We had participants interact with friends or...

Previous studies have shown that individuals are less likely to help a person in need when there are "bystanders" present who can also offer help. We designed an experiment to re-examine this "bystander effect" using modified dictator games. We find lower giving rates in the presence of...

It is commonly assumed that friendship should generally benefit agents' ability to tacitly coordinate with others. However, this has never been tested on two "opposite poles" of coordination, namely, games of strategic complements and substitutes. We present an experimental study in which...