Techniques such as neuroimaging and molecular genetics are increasingly used to investigate economic theory, decision making behavior and personality traits related to economic behavior (e.g., risk attitudes, reward dependence). The generalizability of this research is ultimately limited,...

We examine how social preferences affect behavior and surplus in relational contracts. Experimental subjects participate in a contracting environment similar to Brown, Falk, and Fehr [Brown, M., Falk, A. & Fehr, E., “Relational Contracts and the Nature of Market Interactions, Econometrica, 72...

We use economic experiments to investigate how different contract enforcement regimes affect efficiency and the distribution of surplus in a vertically coordinated market with buyer concentration. We find that if a third party (e.g., government) perfectly enforces contracts, social efficiency is...

We use economic experiments to investigate how different contract enforcement regimes affect efficiency and the distribution of surplus in a vertically coordinated market with buyer concentration. We find that if a third party (e.g., government) perfectly enforces contracts, social efficiency is...

Using experimental economics, we compare the efficiency and welfare effects of tournament and fixed standards contracts. Our findings suggest that economic agents are generally better off under fixed standard contracts unless they face substantial common shocks. Administrators of contracts...

Experimental economics is used to compare tournaments (T) and fixed performance contracts (F) when agents have heterogeneous costs. Our primary findings were: (1) There is no statistical difference in average pooled effort (effort by high ability and low ability subjects are pooled together to...

We develop a model of strategic contractual incompleteness that identifies conditions under which principals might omit even costlessly verifiable terms. We then use experiments to test comparative statics predictions of the model. While it is well known that verifiability imperfections can...

Two well-known hypotheses from the literature on tournaments are that (1) tournaments can filter out common shocks thereby reducing agents risk exposure; and (2) disincentive effects can arise when a tournament scheme is administered on a group of mixed ability agents. While handicapping and/or...

The form and regulation of contracts is of increasing importance to agricultural economists as farmers and agribusinesses increasing rely on contracts rather than markets to acquire inputs and sell outputs. We focus on the differences between the joint and individual surplus achievable under...

This paper reports the results of an economic experiment investigating human subjects' preferences for two types of contracts tournaments and fixed performance standard contracts. Willingness to pay data was elicited through an auction and results suggest that subjects prefer fixed performance...