We design a laboratory experiment to identify whether a preference for randomization defines a stable type across different choice environments. In games and individual decisions, subjects face twenty simultaneous repetitions of the same choice. Subjects can randomize by making different choices...

We present a model of two-stage elections in which candidates can choose different platforms in primaries and general elections. Voters do not directly observe the chosen platforms, but infer the candidates' ideologies from signals made during the campaign (debates, speeches), where a larger...

One of the most robust phenomena in the experimental literature on multilateral bargaining is the failure of proposers to extract equilibrium rents. However, all previous experiments have overlooked the fact that outside the lab committee members are allowed to - and do - engage in sometimes...

We compare how well agents aggregate information in two repeated social learning environments. In the first setting agents have access to a public data set. In the second they have access to the same data, and also to the past actions of others. Despite the fact that actions contain no...

We explore the effect of income mobility and the persistence of redistributive tax policy on the level of redistribution in democratic societies. An infinite-horizon theoretical model is developed, and the properties of the equilibrium tax rate and the degree of after-tax inequality are...

We analyze a simple model of political competition, in which the uninformed median voter chooses whether to follow or ignore the advice of the informed elites. In equilibrium, information transmission is possible only if voters trust the elites’ endorsement of potentially biased candidates....

We study how people think others update their beliefs upon encountering new evidence. We find that when two individuals share the same prior, one believes that new evidence cannot systematically shift the other's beliefs in either direction (Martingale property). When the two have different...

This paper reports results from a laboratory experiment that investigates the Meltzer-Richard model of equilibrium tax rates, inequality, and income redistribution. We also extend that model to incorporate social preferences in the form of altruism and inequality aversion. The experiment varies...