Self-signaling theory argues that individuals partly behave prosocially to create or uphold a favorable self-image. To study self-signaling theory, we investigate whether increasing self-image concerns affects charitable giving. In our experiment subjects divide 20 euros between themselves and a...

Theory of mind and individual preferences are important determinants in social decision making. The current study examined in a large sample whether being a cooperative preference type is related with better theory of mind skills. Furthermore, by testing adolescents and adults, we examined the...

Centralized sanctioning institutions are of utmost importance for overcoming free-riding tendencies and enforcing outcomes that maximize group welfare in social dilemma situations. However, little is known about how such institutions come into existence. In this paper we investigate, both...

We study political competition in an environment in which voters have private information about their preferences. Our framework covers models of income taxation, public-goods provision or publicly provided private goods. Politicians are vote-share-maximizers. They can propose any policy that is...

We investigate the link between leadership, beliefs and pro-social behavior. This link is interesting because field evidence suggests that people’s behavior in domains like charitable giving, tax evasion, corporate culture and corruption is influenced by leaders (CEOs, politicians) and beliefs...

This paper considers the endogenous formation of an institution to provide a public good. If the institution governs only its members, players have an incentive to free ride on the institution formation of others and the social dilemma is simply shifted to a higher level. Addressing this...

We extend the standard public good provision model to allow players to either like or dislike the public characteristic. Those who dislike it are able to take actions to reduce its level. We present conditions under which the existence of a unique noncooperative equilibrium is retained, and...

Despite the growing concern about actual on-going climate change, there is little consensus about the scale and timing of actions needed to stabilise the concentrations of greenhouse gases. Many countries are unwilling to implement effective mitigation strategies, at least in the short-term, and...

We investigate situations in which players make costly contributions as group members in a group conflict, and at the same time engage in contest with fellow group members to appropriate the possible reward. We introduce within group power asymmetry and complementarity in members’ efforts, and...

We consider rules (strategies, commitments, contracts, or computer programs) that make behavior contingent on an opponent’s rule. The set of perfectly observable rules is not well defined. Previous contributions avoid this problem by restricting the rules deemed admissible. We instead limit...