Many important decisions are taken according to weighted majority rule. Power indices predict that enlargement of the voting body may affect the balance of power between the original members even if their number of votes and the decision rule remain constant. Some of the existing voters may...

We study experimentally two versions of a model in which a buyer and a seller bargain over the price of a good; however, the buyer can choose to leave the negotiation table to search for other alternatives. Under one version, if the buyer chooses to search for a better price, the opportunity to...

This article reports the results of a market experiment designed to test the predictions of the constant relative risk aversion model and to study the importance of information feedback in repeated first-price sealed-bid auctions. The data reveal that introduction of price information feedback...

Stimulus-response (SR) and belief-based learning (BBL) models are estimated with experimental data from sender-receiver games and compared using the Davidson and MacKinnon P-test for non-nested hypotheses. Depending on a certain adjustment parameter, the P-test favors the SR model, the BBL model...

Using a sample of established couples, we conduct an experiment on household decision-making. Individual partners first make a series of dichotomous choices between household goods and vouchers for experiences and then the couple jointly face the same choices. A random lottery device is used to...

Research in economics and psychology has established that informal sanctions,particularly expressions of negative emotion, can enforce fair economic exchange. However, scholars are only beginning to understand the reasons informal sanctions affect economic outcomes. Here we provide direct...

This laboratory experiment explores the extent to which impersonal exchange emerges from personal exchange with opportunities for long-distance trade. We design a three-commodity production and exchange economy in which agents in three geographically separated villages must develop multilateral...

In this paper we study the performance of an economic environment that can support specialization if the participants implement and develop some system of exchange. We define a closed economy in which the participants must discover the ability to exchange, implement it, and ascertain what they...

Based on an experimental analysis of a simple monetary economy we argue that a monetary system is more stable than one would expect from individual rationality. We show that positive reciprocity stabilizes the monetary system, provided every participant considers the feedbacks of his choice to...

We suggest a new micro-foundation of money in which markets are well-organized but consumers' preferences are stochastic. In this model, we solve for stationary equilibria and show that there is an optimum quantity of money. The rational solution of our model is compared with actual behavior in...