Experiments are used to examine the effects of social comparisons in ultimatum bargaining. We inform responders about the average offer before they decide whether to accept or reject their specific offer. This significantly increases offers and offer-specific rejection probabilities. For...

Survey respondents assessed the risks of terrorist attacks and their consequences, and were asked how their assessments changed after 9/11/2001. This paper analyzes those risk assessments, and then uses respondents' patterns of risk assessments to explain their willingness to sacrifice civil...

Willingness to pay (WTP), most economists believe, is an appropriate benefits metric for government expenditure and regulatory policies that reduce risks to human life. It depends, however, on the distribution of risk and wealth. Currently, society's expenditures overemphasize concentrated...

We study the classic divide-and-choose method for equitably allocating divisible goods between two players who are rational, self-interested Bayesian agents. The players have additive private values drawn from common priors. We characterize the structure of optimal divisions in the...

Using experiments, we examine whether the decision to trust a stranger in a one-shot interaction is equivalent to taking a risky bet, or if a trust decision entails an additional risk premium to balance the costs of trust betrayal. We compare a binary-choice Trust game with a structurally...

Our survey results demonstrate that targeted screening of airline passengers raises conflicting concerns of efficiency and equity. Support for profiling increases if there is a substantial reduction in avoided delays to other passengers. The time cost and benefit components of targeting affect...

We analyze the risk level chosen by agents that have private information regarding their quality. We show that even risk-neutral agents will choose risk strategically to enhance their reputation in the market, in a manner determined by the risk choices of other agents. Our model employs the...

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill highlighted the glaring weakness in the current liability and regulatory regime for oil spills and for environmental catastrophes more broadly. This article proposes a new liability structure for deep sea oil drilling and for catastrophic risks generally. It...

This paper experimentally examines the effect of social comparisons in ultimatum bargaining. While previous experiments and the theoretical models on fairness focus on the two bargaining counterparts, we address a new reference group - others in like circumstances. We inform responders on how...

People seriously misjudge accident risks because they routinely neglect relevant information about exposure. Such risk judgments affect both personal and public policy decisions, e.g., choice of a transport mode, but also play a vital role in legal determinations, such as assessments of...