Theory absorption, a notion introduced by Morgenstern and Schwödiauer (1972)and further elaborated by Güth and Kliemt (2004), discusses the problem whether atheory can survive its own acceptance. Whereas this holds for strategic equilibria accordingto the assumptions on which they are based,...

In a stochastic duopoly market, sellers must form state-specific aspirationsexpressing how much they want to earn given their expectationsabout the other's behavior. We define individually and mutually satisficingsales behavior for given individual beliefs and aspiration profiles. In afirst...

There is robust field data showing that a frequent and successful way of looking fora job is via the intermediation of friends and relatives. Here we want to explore thisexperimentally. Participants first play a simple public good game with two interactionpartners ("friends"), and share whatever...

We use a two-person linear voluntary contribution mechanism with stochastic marginal benefits from the public good to examine the effect of imperfect information on contributions levels. To assess prior risk attitudes, individual valuations of several risky prospects are elicited via a...

Experiments suggest that communication increases the contribution topublic goods (Ledyard, 1995). There is also evidence that, when contemplatinga lie, people trade off their private benefit from the lie with theharm it inflicts on others (Gneezy, 2005). We develop a model of bilateralpre-play...

Several division rules have been proposed in the literature regarding how anarbiter should divide a bankrupt estate. Different rules satisfy different sets ofaxioms, but all rules satisfy claims boundedness which requires that no contributorbe given more than her initial contribution. This paper...

We experimentally explore individual and interactive decision making ina sequential search task and test whether generally accepted principles ofbounded rationality (aspiration formation, satisficing, and aspiration adjustment)adequately explain the observed search behavior. Subjects can, at...

We present an experimental test of a shirking model where monitoring intensityis endogenous and effort a continuous variable. Wage level, monitoring intensityand consequently the desired enforceable effort level are jointly determined bythe maximization problem of the firm. As a result,...

In the Yes/No game, like in the ultimatum game, proposer and respondercan share a monetary reward. In both games the proposer suggests a rewarddistribution which the responder can accept or reject (yielding 0-payoffs). Thegames only differ in that the responder does (not) learn the suggested...

This paper reports two laboratory studies designed to study the impact of public informationabout past departure rates on congestion levels and travel costs. Our experimental design isbased on a discrete version of Arnott, de Palma, and Lindsey’s (1990) bottleneck model wheresubjects have to...