Personality questionnaires have been used and can be used to predict behavior in economic settings. Using two sets of state-of-the-art measures from personality psychology (the Big Six) and social psychology (Social Value Orientation), we find that the behavior of men is predictable in the first...

How can a principal (an agent) ensure that an agent (a principal) will work (pay up), ifpayment (work) precedes work (payment)? When a banknote is torn in two, each part is byitself worthless. A principal can pre-commit to payment-on-delivery, by tearing a banknoteand giving the agent the first...

For many people "solidarity" has become a meaningless word used in slogans - too often used without leading to any economic consequences. We show in this paper conditions under which solidarity can be a powerful instrument. In a solidary action, an individual in a group contributes to a series...

We investigate the relationship between religion and trust. Using a questionnaire, we measure: i) general religiosity, and; ii) the extent of religious beliefs, experience, and ritual. These are then analyzed with behaviour in a trust game (Berg et al., Games and Economic Behaviour, 1995), which...

How can a principal (an agent) ensure that an agent (a principal) will work (pay up), if payment (work) precedes work (payment)? When a banknote is torn in two, each part is by itself worthless. A principal can pre-commit to payment-on-delivery, by tearing a banknote and giving the agent the...

When voting takes place in democratic institutions, we find (either explicitly or implicitly) that there is an agenda setter or a formateur. Such players are uniquely able to make substantive proposals for given topics. Their statuses remain intact even after rejection of proposals, but they...

We analyze vertical structures where a regulated network operator serves n network users, and the network users compete in quantities for customers. We distinguish two cases: (i) none of the network users are related to the network operator (ownership unbundling), (ii) one of the network users...

European and national cartel authorities have required dominant national gas pipelines to auction off certain quantities (typically about 10 % of their sales) to competitors. Do such auctions really improve the competitiveness of the wholesale market? Based on a model where oligopolistic...

Li (2017) supports his theoretical notion of obviousness of a dominant strategy with experimental evidence that bidding is closer to dominance in the dynamic ascending-clock than the static second-price auction (private values). We replicate his experimental study and add three intermediate...

Experimenters have to make theoretically irrelevant decisions concerning user interfaces and ordering or labeling of options. Such presentation decisions affect behavior and cause results to appear contradictory across experiments, obstructing utility estimation and policy recommendations. The...