When a series of individuals with private information announce public predictions, initial conformity can create an "information cascade" in which later predictions match the early announcements. This paper reports an experiment in which private signals are drawn from an unobserved urn. Subjects...

This chapter focuses on the information cascade experiments. The concept of an information cascade can be explained in the context of a specific numerical example that was used in initial laboratory experiments. The predictions are publicly announced as they are made, but individuals are not...

Multiperiod models of criminal enforcement based on the standard economic approach of Becker (1968) generally find that the optimal penalty structure is either flat or declining. We present the first experimental test of a two‐stage theoretical model that predicts decreasing penalty structures...