This paper presents an experimental test of a 2-player, one-shot game of conflict in which we vary the strength of property rights and the return on investment. Our results suggest that stronger property rights reduce conflict and increase investment. Contrary to intuition, we find increasing...

This paper reports further experimental results on exclusive dealing contracts. We extend Landeo and Spier's (2009) work by studying Naked Exclusion in a strategic environment that involves a four-player, two-stage game. In addition to the roles of seller and buyers, our experimental environment...

We report the results of an experimental study that compares voting mechanisms in the provision of public goods. Subjects can freely decide how much they want to contribute. Whether the public good is finally provided is decided by a referendum under full information about all contributions. If...

Punishment can lose its legitimacy if the enforcer can profit from delivering punishment. We examine how justification can promote the legitimacy of punishment in a one-shot sender-receiver game where an independent third party can punish the sender upon seeing whether the sender lied. Most...

This paper argues that the human species has two natural coordination mechanisms: leadership and fairness. A leader who ignores fairness when coordinating the behavior of a large organization risks creating the conditions for the emergence of a destabilizing subgroup that is able to coalesce...

We study the mechanics of leading by example in teams. Leadership is beneficial for the entire team when agents are conformists, i.e., dislike effort differentials. We also show how leadership can arise endogenously and discuss what type of leader benefits a team most.

To be effective, norm enforcement often requires the participation of unaffected third parties. The logic of third-party intervention has, however, proven elusive because the costs always seem to outweigh the benefits. Using an evolutionary game theoretic approach, we posit that the intervention...

Employees may care about the effect of their labor effort on output. When such care exists, this paper shows that nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are able to motivate their workers at lower cost than a standard profit-maximizing firm. Unlike previous explanations for NPOs, which depend on the...

"Men more easily renounce their interests than their tastes." (Rochefoucauld) Consistency and constancy are hallmarks of Odysseus' behavior with respect to the Sirens. The usual reading is that he is a general model of the way all self-control situations should be handled. The alternative...