We study the functioning of informal value transfer systems (IVTS) with the example of Hawala. More precisely, we use computational experiments to study the roles of generalized trust and social control for the stability and efficiency of IVTS. Previous literature was ambiguous with regard to:...

We apply the dynamic stochastic framework proposed by recent evolutionaryliterature to the class of strict supermodular games when two simplebehavior rules coexist in the population, imitation and myopic optimization.We assume that myopic optimizers are able to see how well their payoff...

The so-called El Farol problem describes a prototypical situation of interacting agents making binary choices to participate in a non-cooperative environment or to stay by themselves and choosing an outside option. In a much cited paper Arthur (1994) argues that persistent on-converging...

The housing rental market offers a unique laboratory for studying price stickiness. This paper is motivated by two facts: 1. Tenants' rents are remarkably sticky even though regular and expected recontracting would, by itself, suggest substantial rent flexibility. 2. Rent stickiness varies...

Memory is biased. People, for instance, privilege recalling information that confirms preexisting beliefs. This paper examines how selective memory shapes how people search for information. I propose a bandit model, in which different signal are recalled at different rates of probability....

Two separate bodies of work have examined whether culture affects cooperation in economic games and whether cooperative or non-cooperative decisions occur more quickly. Here, we connect this work by exploring the relationship between decision time and cooperation in American versus Indian...

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...

Are cooperative decisions typically made more quickly or slowly than non-cooperative decisions? While this question has attracted considerable attention in recent years, most research has focused on one-shot interactions. Yet it is repeated interactions that characterize most important...

This work aims at filling a gap in the cognitive representation of institutions, starting from Aoki’s account of institutions as equilibria in a gametheoretical framework. We propose a formal model to explain what happens when different players hold different representations of the game they...

This paper uses reinforcement learning (RL) to approximate the policy rules of banks participating in a high-value payments system. The objective of the agents is to learn a policy function for the choice of amount of liquidity provided to the system at the beginning of the day. Individual...