This paper examines the occurrence and fragility of information cascades in laboratory experiments.One group of low informed subjects make predictions in sequence. In a matchedpairs design, another set of high informed subjects observe the decisions of the first group andmake predictions....

We present an experimental test of a shirking model where monitoring intensityis endogenous and effort a continuous variable. Wage level, monitoring intensityand consequently the desired enforceable effort level are jointly determined bythe maximization problem of the firm. As a result,...

This paper reports two laboratory studies designed to study the impact of public informationabout past departure rates on congestion levels and travel costs. Our experimental design isbased on a discrete version of Arnott, de Palma, and Lindsey’s (1990) bottleneck model wheresubjects have to...

This paper examines simple parimutuel betting games under asymmetric information,with particular attention to differences between markets in which bets are submittedsimultaneously versus sequentially. In the simultaneous parimutuel betting market, all(symmetric and asymmetric) Bayesian-Nash...

Economics has devoted little attention so far as to whether the type of decision maker matters for economic decisions. However, many important decisions like those on monetary policy or a company’s business strategy are made by (small) groups rather than an individual. We compare behaviour of...

Many decisions in economics and finance have to be made under severe time pressure. Furthermore, payoffs frequently depend on the speed of decision-making, like, for instance, when buying and selling stocks. In this paper, we examine the influence of time pressure and time-dependent incentive...

We examine the degree of trust and reciprocity in an experimental trust game with 662 participants from six different age groups, ranging from 8 year old primary school children to retired persons in their late sixties. Although both trust and reciprocity have been identified as fundamental...

We study the behavior of football (soccer) agents in the German Bundesliga. Referees are requested to act as impartial agents. However, they may be tempted to allocate benefits and rewards in a biased way. Agency theory has long neglected this form of malfeasance of economic agents,but has...

We test for behavioral differences between groups and individuals in gift-exchange experiments. Related studies establish group behavior as typically closer to the game-theoretic equilibrium. We show that this result my depend crucially on the decision making procedure within groups. A novel...