We develop a new protocol, adapted from the Eckel and Grossman (2002, 2008) risk measure, to elicit skewness preferences. The new lottery choices have the same expected payoffs and risk (variance) as the original choices, but with increasing degrees of positive skewness. We find that our...

This paper investigates the persistence of gender stereotyping in the forecasting of risk attitudes. Subjects predict the gamble choice of target subjects in one of two treatments. First, based only on visual clues and then based on visual clues plus two responses by the target from a...

Behavioral research provides evidence consistent with individuals enjoying kind acts (Crumpler and Grossman, 2008) and with individuals enjoying harmful acts (Abbink and Herrmann, 2011). This paper reports on an experiment designed to test if kind or harmful acts are an artefact of the...

This dissertation develops an economic theory of leadership based on assignment of information.Common theories assume that organizations exist to reduce transaction costs by replacingimperfect markets with incomplete long term contracts that give managers the power to commandsubordinates. This...

This paper suggests that even if it is costless to inform all team members about the quality of a project, there are reasons to concentrate information in the hands of one person (a leader) and prevent full revelation to the rest. This deprives others of the information necessary for profitable...

An organization makes collective decisions through neither markets nor contracts. Instead, rational agents voluntarily choose to follow a leader. In many cases, incentive problems are solved: the unique nondegenerate equilibrium achieves the first best, even though every agent has incentives to...

Rational players, unconstrained by contracts or formal authority, choose to follow a better-informed leader, whose action reveals part of her information. If the leader satisfies a credibility condition, then the unique nondegenerate equilibrium solves distinct shirking and coordination problems...