Credence goods markets are characterized by asymmetric information between sellers and consumers that may give rise to inefficiencies, such as under- and overtreatment or market break-down. We study in a large experiment with 936 participants the determinants for efficiency in credence goods...

Empirical work on Akerlof's theory of gift exchange in labor markets has concentrated on the fair wage-effort hypothesis. In fact, however, the theory also contains a social component that stipulates that homogenous agents that are employed for the same wage level will exert more effort,...

We solve an N 2 N player general-sum differential game. The optimization problem considered here is based on the Uzawa Lucas model of endogenous growth. Agents have logarithmic preferences and own two capital stocks. Since the number of players is an arbitrary fixed number N 2 N, the model?s...

A theory is said to be fully absorbable whenever its own acceptance by all of the individuals belonging to a certain population does not question its predictive validity. This accounts for strategic equilibria and can be related to the logic underlying convergence of behaviour and intentional...

Soll der gemeinsam erzeugte Output zwischen den Mitgliedern eines Teams aufgeteilt werden, so kann dies die Anreize aller Mitglieder vermindern, unbeobachtbare Anstrengung zu leisten. Weist die gemeinsame Produktionsfunktion darüber hinaus positive Kreuzableitungen auf, so ist Teamarbeit zwar...

Mutually beneficial agreements might fail if the parties fear contractual opportunism. Litigation is supposed to prevent this, but still leaves room for litigational opportunism: Even knowing that the opponent has fulfilled his obligations, a party might bring suit. We show that with positive...

Mutually beneficial agreements might fail if the parties fear contractual opportunism. Litigation is supposed to be a remedy, but gives scope for another kind of opportunistic behavior which we call litigational opportunism: Even knowing that the opponent has fulfilled his obligations, a party...

Helping somebody may undermine his incentives to work. What Buchanan identified more than 25 years ago as the Samaritan's dilemma is basically a time-inconsistency problem. The paper discusses possible solutions of the dilemma such as punishment within an iterated game, reshaping the game in the...

Mit Hilfe eines einfachen Vertrauensspiels wird die Bedeutung des Vertrauens als Verhaltensphänomen in der Ökonomie dargelegt und ein Vertrauenskonzept entwickelt, das dem Umstand eingeschränkt rationalen Verhaltens Rechnung trägt. Es wird gezeigt, daß trotz der Einbettung einer Transaktion...

The need for intra-firm incentive schemes allows remodeling the Cournot duopoly in wages (rather than in output levels). In both versions of the Cournot model, a cartel agreement is unstable. The new formulation, however, allows us to demonstrate that a collective wage agreement on minimum wages...