A taboo is an "unthinkable" action, that is, even the thought of violating it triggers social punishment. Taboos are the social "thought police," discouraging individuals from considering certain type of actions. We consider a simple model in which taboos are part of the definition of one's...

A taboo is an "unthinkable" action. Even the thought of violating a taboo triggers a punishment. We consider a model in which taboos are part of the definition of one's identity. Deliberating over breaking the taboo changes the individual's choice set, and provides information on possible...

One of the most robust findings in experimental economics is that individuals in one-shot ultimatum games reject unfair offers. Puzzlingly, rejections have been found robust to substantial increases in stakes. By using a novel experimental design that elicits frequent low offers and uses much...

This paper proposes an experimental approach to studying different aspects of discrimination. We let participants play various games with opponents of distinct ethnic affiliation. Strategies based upon such ethnic affiliation provide direct evidence of ethnic discrimination. This approach was...

We develop an experimental test to distinguish between discrimination against and nepotism. The experiment compares the behavior toward individuals of different groups with the behavior toward anonymous individuals (those having no clear group affiliation). Not only is the distinction between...

Inequity aversion models have dominated the behavioral economics landscape in the last decade. This study uses variants of dictator and trust games to provide empirical content to these models. We manipulate market features—such as competition over resources—to demonstrate that extant models...