We consider a two-period model. In the first period, individuals consume two goods: one is sinful and the other is not. The sin good brings pleasure but has a detrimental effect on second period health and individuals tend to underestimate this effect. In the second period, individuals can...

A key open question in economics is the practical, portable modeling of bounded rationality. In this short note, I report on ongoing progress that is more fully developed elsewhere. I present some results from a new model with boundedly rational features in which the decision-maker (DM) builds a...

This paper analyses the incentives to participate in and the stability of international climate coalitions. Using the integrated assessment model WITCH, the analysis of coalitions’ profitability and stability is performed under alternative assumptions concerning the pure rate of time...

We use randomized program offers and multiple follow-up survey waves to examine the effects of entrepreneurship training on a broad set of outcomes. Training increases short run business ownership and employment, but there is no evidence of broader or longer run effects. We also test whether...

We survey the literature on social networks by putting together the economics, sociological and physics/applied mathematics approaches, showing their similarities and differences. We expose, in particular, the two main ways of modeling network formation. While the physics/applied mathematics...

In this Paper we provide a strategic explanation for the spontaneous convergence of legal rules, which nevertheless falls short of harmonization across jurisdictions. We identify a free-riding problem and discuss its implications for legal culture, integration, and harmonization. It is argued...

This note argues that a rigorous application of simple game theory may provide unambiguous yet non-trivial theoretical insights about the behaviour of players in simple games. This contrasts with a commonly held view that many predictions in applied game theory are either obvious or...

This paper provides a general review of recent developments in the application of control theory to macroeconomic policy design. It starts by highlighting the crucial difference between the engineering and economic control problem, in that the latter, unlike the former, is concerned with the...

This Paper presents a formal theory of reciprocity. Reciprocity means that people reward kind actions and punish unkind ones. The theory takes into account that people evaluate the kindness of an action not only by its consequences but also by the intention underlying this action. The theory...

In this Paper we show that a simple model of fairness preferences explains major experimental regularities of common pool resource (CPR) experiments. The evidence indicates that in standard CPR games without communication and without sanctioning possibilities inefficient excess appropriation is...