We implement a trust game in which the trustee can write a free-form pre-play message for the trustor. The main twist in our design is that there is a 50% probability that the message is delivered to the trustor and a 50% probability that the message is replaced by an empty sheet. We find that...

This paper reports on a series of signaling game experiments in which an informed sender can send a costly message in order to persuade an uninformed responder. We compare the behavior of two subjects pools: 143 undergraduate students and 30 public affairs officials that are professionally...

A well-documented anomaly in racetrack betting is that the expected return per dollar bet on a horse increases with the probability of the horse winning. This so-called favorite- longshot bias is at odds with the presumptions of market efficiency. We show that the bias is consistent with betters...

Lobbying is studied in a series of signaling game experiments. Students as well as professional lobbyists are used as subjects. In contrast with some earlier studies, comparing students and professionals, we find significant differences in the behavior of the two subject pools. Professional...

On an increasing scale auctions are used to allocate the licenses to operate on markets which are thought not suited for free entry. According to standard economic arguments, the license fees paid at the auction will not affect consumer prices since they constitute a sunk cost. This standard...

We study an overlapping-generations experiment with multiple families in which redistributional transfers can take the form of support to the elderly or grants to children. Supporting the old is a purely inter-generational (intra-family) transfer, whereas grants to children also involve an...

The effectiveness of relative performance evaluation schemes, such as yardstick competition, can be undermined by collusion. The degree to which the regulated agents manage to collude will be affected by the particulars of the scheme. We hypothesize that in a repeated game setting schemes will...

We employ a price setting duopoly experiment to examine whether buyer confusion increases market prices. Each seller offers a good to buyers who have homogeneous preferences. Sellers decide on the number of attributes of their good and set prices. The number of attributes bears no cost to the...

An informed advisor may have incentives to send a biased advice to an uninformed decisionmaker. We set up an experiment to study whether disclosure of the advisor's interests can foster truthfulness and trust. A key feature of our experiment is that we measure how advisors expect decisionmakers...

Redistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes and economic experiments have revealed that most people have a preference for redistribution that is not merely inspired by self-interest. Interestingly, little is known on how these preferences interact with preferences for...