A cyclical network of indirect reciprocity is derived organizing 3- or 6-person groups into rings of social interaction where the first individual can help the second, the second the third, and so on till the last, who in return can help the first. Mutual cooperation is triggered by assuming...

We conducted a laboratory study with a public goods game in which contributions are not submitted all at once but incrementally as coordinated in real time by a clock. Individuals press a button as soon as the clock equals their willingness to contribute. This public goods institution exploits...

We adopt an evolutionary approach to investigate whether and when conditional cooperation can explain the voluntary contribution phenomenon often observed in public goods experiments and real life. Formally, conditional cooperation is captured by a regret parameter describing how much an...

In the experiment two bureaucrats independently can grant a permit with the profit of the private party depending on when the permit is given. Whereas one bureaucrat can only veto the project, the second one has additional discretion in granting the permit earlier or later. We speak of greasing...

In this paper we report an experimental study of the ultimatum game in which subjects bargain for constant and slowly decreasing pies, over 3 and 11 rounds with either constant or alternating offers. With decreasing pies efficiency requires early agreements, whereas constant pies allow for late...

Similar to Levati and Neugebauer (2001), a clock is used by which participants can vary their individual contributions for voluntarily providing a public good. As time goes by, participants either in(de)crease their contribution gradually or keep it constant. Groups of two poorly and two richly...

To explain why pre-play communication increases cooperation in games, one refers to a) strategic causes such as efficient communication or reputation effects, and b) changes in the utilities due to social processes. Hitherto experimental support for both explanations is mixed and confounded. Our...

The goal of this paper is to provide an overview on the Virtual Laboratory infrastructure for online economic experiments. We summerize our experience gained from performing serveral economic experiments on the Internet. The experiments we have run range from electronic markets to individual...