Substantial academic interest and public policy debate centers on campaign finance reform. Campaign resources can provide benefits to constituencies if candidates use them to fund the distribution of useful information. On the other hand, voters can potentially be harmed if candidates trade...

People can become less cooperative when threatened with sanctions, and previous research suggests both "intentions" and incentives underlie this effect. We report data from an experiment aimed at determining the relative importance of intentions and incentives in producing non-cooperative...

We use laboratory experiments to investigate the effect that assuming rational expectations has on structural inference in a dynamic discrete decision problem. Our design induces preferences up to the subjective rate of time preference, leaving unrestricted both this parameter and subjects'...

Cooperation between individuals requires the ability to infer each other’s mental states to form shared expectations over mutual gains and make cooperative choices that realize these gains. From evidence that the ability for mental state attribution involves the use of prefrontal cortex, we...

The literature on pro-social behavior shows that older children are more generous than younger children; however, the level of individual generosity is heterogeneous even between children of the same age. This paper investigates whether a child’s popularity affects a child’s generosity. Our...

Using a field experiment in China, we study whether migration status is correlated with attitudes toward risk, ambiguity, and competitiveness. Our subjects include migrants and non-migrants. We find that, migrants exhibit no differences from non-migrants in risk and ambiguity preferences...

We present evidence from a laboratory experiment showing that individuals who believe they were treated unfairly in an interaction with another person are more likely to cheat in a subsequent unrelated game. Specifically, subjects first participated in a dictator game. They then flipped a coin...

Why is there no Milton Friedman today? The new structure of things—or lack of structure—makes it hard for someone to emerge as a focal representative of classical liberalism. But every day, innumerable souls breathe new vitality into the cogent perspective that Friedman and others gave to...

Recent research suggests that while betrayal aversion may have negative effects, the presence of betrayal-averse agents is beneficial in reducing trustees’ willingness to betray trust. In light of this, many common knowledge institutions may have adopted rules and features which mitigate the...