Similar Search Results

The Value of Commitment in Contests and Tournaments when Observation is Costly

Várdy, Felix; Morgan, John - EconWPA - 2005

We study the value of commitment in contests and tournaments when there are costs for the follower to observe the … entirely in sequential and endogenous move contests, regardless of the size of the observation cost. By contrast, in …

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005408421

Sons of Something: Taxes, Lawsuits and Local Political Control in Sixteenth Century Castile

Drelichman, Mauricio - EconWPA - 2005

The widespread ennoblement of the Spanish bourgeoisie in the sixteenth century has been traditionally considered one of the main causes of Iberian decline. I document and quantify the surge in ennoblement through a new time series of nobility cases preserved in the Archive of the Royal Chancery...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005125846

Endogenous Games and Mechanisms: Side Payments Among Players

Jackson, Matthew O.; Wilkie, Simon - EconWPA - 2002

We characterize the outcomes of games when players may make binding offers of strategy contingent side payments before the game is played. This does not always lead to efficient outcomes, despite complete information and costless contracting. The characterizations are illustrated in a series of...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005134969

The Indirect Evolutionary Approach to Explaining Fair Allocations

Huck, Steffen; Oechssler, Joerg - EconWPA - 1995

Experimental results on the ultimatum game show clearly that (1) large fractions of players offer a 'fair' allocation and (2) that unfair (but positive) offers are systematically rejected. We offer an explanation of this behavior using the 'indirect evolutionary approach' which is based on the...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005407564

Punishment and Counter-punishment in Public Goods Games: Can we still govern ourselves?

Nikiforakis, Nikos - EconWPA - 2004

possibility of counter-punishment occurring. We design a public goods experiment based on Fehr and Gaechter (2000) where we allow … group when antisocial behavior is observed. In many circumstances, however, we can not allow for punishment and exclude the … for both punishment and counter-punishment. We find that in both Partner and Stranger treatments average contributions …

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005408219

Altruistic Punishment in Humans

Fehr, Ernst; Gaechter, Simon - EconWPA - 2003

show experimentally that the altruistic punishment of defectors is a key motive for the explanation of cooperation …. Altruistic punishment means that individuals punish, although the punishment is costly for them and yields no material gain. We … show that cooperation ¯ourishes if altruistic punishment is possible, and breaks down if it is ruled out. The evidence …

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005413255

Strong Reciprocity, Human Cooperation and the Enforcement of Social Norms

Fehr, Ernst; Fischbacher, Urs; Gächter, Simon - EconWPA - 2003

This paper provides strong evidence challenging the self-interest assumption that dominates the behavioral sciences and much evolutionary thinking. The evidence indicates that many people have a tendency to voluntarily cooperate, if treated fairly, and to punish non-cooperators. We call this...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005413263

Creating and Enforcing Norms, With Special Reference to Sanctions

Posner, Richard; Rasmusen, Eric - EconWPA - 1999

Two central puzzles about social norms are how they are enforced and how they are created or modified. The sanctions for violation of a norm can be categorized as automatic, guilt, shame, informational, bilateral- costly, and multilateral-costly. Problems in creating and enforcing norms are...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005076640

Social norms and human cooperation

Fehr, Ernst; Fischbacher, Urs - EconWPA - 2004

The existence of social norms is one of the big unsolved problems in social cognitive science. Although no other concept is invoked more frequently in the social sciences, we still know little about how social norms are formed, the forces determining their content, and the cognitive and...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005076756

When Punishment Fails: Research on Sanctions, Intentions and Non- Cooperation

Houser, Daniel; Xiao, Erte; McCabe, Kevin; Smith, Vernon - EconWPA - 2005

People can become less cooperative when threatened with sanctions, and researchers have pointed to both 'intentions' and incentives as sources of this effect. This paper reports data from a novel experimental design aimed at determining the relative importance of intentions and incentives in...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005556667