We report the results from a series of experiments designed to investigate behavior in two settings that are frequently posited in the policy literature as generating different outcomes: private property and common property. The experimental settings closely parallel earlier experimental studies...

Social dilemmas characterize decision environments in which individuals' exclusive pursuit of their own material self-interest can produce inefficient allocations. Social dilemmas are most commonly studied in provision games, such as public goods games and trust games, in which the social...

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4284/0038-4038-2012.220

Face-to-face communication is investigated as an efficiency-enhancing mechanism in experimental common-pool resource environments in which the appropriation activities of outside appropriators create coordination and monitoring problems for the communicating group. We identify three distinct...

This article reports laboratory experiments investigating behavior in which players may make inferences about the intentions behind others' prior actions based on higher- or lower-accuracy information about those actions. We investigate a trust game with first mover trembling, a game in which...

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4284/0038-4038-2012.219

Familiar inefficiencies arise with competing interests over private goods in Stackelberg and investment games. Private good experiments reveal whether reciprocity enhances cooperative outcomes. Familiar social dilemmas arise with voluntary provision of public goods and voluntary appropriation...

Adam Smith’s two major works are based on apparently contradictory themes in human nature: noncooperative self-interest and other-regarding sympathy. These views are not contradictory if we distinguish impersonal market exchange and personal exchange. Noncooperative behavior in the former...