Power indices are mappings that quantify the influence of the members of a voting body on collective decisions a priori. Their nonlinearity and discontinuity makes it difficult to compute inverse images, i.e., to determine a voting system which induces a power distribution as close as possible...

We derive distributional effects for a non-cooperative alternative to the unitary model of household behaviour. We consider the Nash equilibria of a voluntary contributions to public goods game. Our main result is that, in general, the two partners either choose to contribute to different public...

The need for efficient coordination is ubiquitous in organizations and industries. The literature on the determinants of efficient coordination has focused on individual decision-making so far. In reality, however, teams often have to coordinate with other teams. We present an experiment with...

We show that a rational expectations equilibrium need not be incentive compatible, need not be implementable as a perfect Bayesian equilibrium and may not be fully Pareto optimal, unless the utility functions are state independent. A comparison of rational expectations equilibria with core...

Analysis of the Constitutional Treaty of the European Union shows that there is a serious discrepancy between the voting power gradient of Member States computed by the Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf indices. Given the lack of compelling arguments to choose between these indices on purely axiomatic...

The consequences of consolidating EU representation at the IMF Executive Board by regrouping the 27 Member States into two EU constituencies, euro area and non-euro area, are discussed. In particular we contrast voting power as proposed by Penrose-Banzhaf (PBI) and Shapley-Shubik (SSI), and...

We show that the level of trust and reciprocity in an intercultural trust game experiment between Austrian and Japanese subjects differs from the results of an intracultural experiment run in the respective countries among compatriots. Austrian subjects show significantly higher levels of trust...

Using James Buchanan's "Samaritan's Dilemma" as a basic example, this paper analyses the problems that have to be solved if strategic behavior is necessary to escape from dilemma situations by changing the opponents' incentives. These problems are addressed within one-shot games as well as...

This paper examines the perspectives of Russian gas exports to Western Europe and the strategic options of the CIS gas transiting countries, namely Ukraine and Belarus. The development of a new transit corridor through Belarus (the Yamal-Europe pipeline), depriving Ukraine of its former...

This paper analyzes the recent mergers in the oil industry. Oil is assumed to be a homogeneous good which is produced by a small number of firms with different unit costs. Merger formation is endogenously explained as a result of cooperative decisions. We show that the mergers are amongst very...