We report experimental results on a series of ten one-shot two-person 3x3 normal form games with unique equilibrium in pure strategies played by non-economists. In contrast to previous experiments in which game theory predictions fail dramatically, a majority of actions taken coincided with the...

This paper uses subjects’ diverse self-reported justifications to explain discrepancies between observed heterogeneous behavior and the unique equilibrium prediction in a one-shot traveler's dilemma experiment. Principal components analysis suggests that iterative reasoning, aspiration levels,...

We report evidence from a large field experiment that compares the effectiveness of contingent and noncontingent incentives in eliciting costly effort for a large range of payment levels. The company with which we worked sent 7,250 letters asking customers to complete a survey. Some letters...

We study the mechanics of leading by example in teams. Leadership is beneficial for the entire team when agents are conformists, i.e., dislike effort differentials. We also show how leadership can arise endogenously and discuss what type of leader benefits a team most.

We present evidence from an experiment in which groups select a leader to compete against the leaders of other groups in a real-effort task that they have all performed in the past. We find that women are selected much less often as leaders than is suggested by their individual past performance....

First we discuss how extrinsic incentives may come into conflict with other motivations. For example, monetary incentives from principals may change how tasks are perceived by agents, with negative effects on behavior. In other cases, incentives might have the desired effects in the short term,...

This paper uses subjects' diverse self-reported justifications to explain discrepancies between observed heterogeneous behavior and the unique equilibrium prediction in a one-shot traveler's dilemma experiment. Principal components analysis suggests that iterative reasoning, aspiration levels,...