We show that a steeply increasing workload before a deadline is compatible with time-consistent preferences. The key departure from the literature is that we consider a stochastic environment where success of effort is not guaranteed

Rapid technological developments in online markets fundamentally change the relationship between consumers and sellers. Online platforms can now easily gather data about the consumer and his search behavior, that allow for price discrimination. Therefore the consumers' product search becomes a...

Customary law has been criticized from very different angles. Rational choice theorists claim that what looks like custom is nothing but self-interest. Positivists doubt that anything beyond consent assumes the force of law. In this paper, we adopt an experimental approach to test these claims....

Legal realists expect prosecutors to be selfish. If they get the defendant convicted, this helps them advance their careers. If the odds of winning on the main charge are low, prosecutors have a second option. They can exploit the ambiguity of legal doctrine and charge the defendant for vaguely...

From the perspective of competitors, competition may be modeled as a prisoner’s dilemma. Setting the monopoly price is cooperation, undercutting is defection. Jointly, competitors are better off if both are faithful to a cartel. Individually, profit is highest if only the competitor(s) is...

Over the last 25 years, more than a hundred dictator game experiments have been published. This meta study summarizes the evidence. Exploiting the fact that most experiments had to fix parameters they did not intend to test, in multiple regression the meta study is able to assess the effect of...

Public good provision is often local and also affects bystanders. Is provision harder if contributions harm bystanders, and is provision easier if outsiders gain a windfall profit? In an experiment we observe that both positive and negative externalities reduce provision levels whenever actors...

We run several experiments which allow us to compare cooperation under perfect and imperfect information and under a centralized and decentralized punishment regime. We find that (1) centralization by itself does not improve cooperation and welfare compared to an informal, peer-to-peer...

Apparently judges' decisions are not motivated by maximizing their own profit. The literature uses two strategies to explain this observation: judges care about the long‐term monetary consequences for themselves, or individuals who are more strongly motivated by the common good self‐select...

Originally, behavioral law and economics was an exercise in exploring the implications of key findings from behavioral economics (and psychology) for the analysis and reform of legal institutions. Yet as the new discipline matures, it increasingly replaces foreign evidence by fresh evidence,...