In recent years, many social scientists have claimed that trust plays an important role in economic and social transactions. Despite its proposed importance, the measurement and the definition of trust seem to be not fully settled, and the identification of the exact role of trust in economic...

We analyze a game in which a group of agents exert costly effort over time to make progress on a project. The project is completed once the cumulative efforts reach a pre-specified threshold, at which point it generates a lump sum payoff. We characterize a budget balanced mechanism that induces...

The purpose of this paper is to identify learning in games in experimental economic settings, and apply their results to real multilateral trade negotiations, such as the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) in the World Trade Organizations (WTO). This paper argues that the structure of games including...

Group contests are ubiquitous. Some examples include warfare between countries, competition between political parties, team-incentives within firms, group sports, and rent-seeking. In order to succeed, members of the same group have incentives to cooperate with each other by expending individual...

The purpose of this paper identifies learning in games in the experimental economic settings, and applies their results on real multilateral trade negotiations. This paper argues that structure of games including a veto player (Veto games) are similar to real multilateral trade negotiations in...

We formulate and solve the problem of optimal mechanism-design by a principal facing adverse selection and moral hazard from different sources. The parties' decision problem is comprised of a publicly observable collective choice and a partially private social choice. As in agency with pure...

We report an experimental test of alternative rules in innovation contests when success may not be feasible and contestants may learn from each other. Following Halac et al. (forthcoming), the contest designer can vary the prize allocation rule from Winner-Take-All in which the first successful...

Extensive cooperation among unrelated individuals is unique to humans, who often sacrifice personal benefits for the common good and work together to achieve what they are unable to execute alone. The evolutionary success of our species is indeed due, to a large degree, to our unparalleled...

This paper reports the results of laboratory test of the performance of a non-point source (NPS) water pollution abatement scheme suggested by Pushkarskaya and Randall (2006). The scheme is based on voluntary participation in the non-point source pollution control program, and ties individual...

We analyze the optimal timing problem of an agenda setter who can propose a project that is then voted on by a committee. The payoff consists of a common stochastic component and an idiosyncratic component that differs among committee members. The agenda setter may be biased for or against the...