The paper presents a complete information model of bidding in second price sealed-bid and ascending-bid (English) auctions, in which potential buyers know the unit valuation of other bidders and may spitefully prefer that their rivals earn a lower surplus. Bidders with spiteful preferences...

Motivated by problems of coordination failure observed in weak-link games, we experimentally investigate behavioral spillovers for minimum- and median-effort coordination games. Subjects play these coordination games simultaneously and sequentially. The results show that successful coordination...

The paper presents a complete information model of bidding in second price sealed-bid and ascending-bid (English) auctions, in which potential buyers know the unit valuation of other bidders and may spitefully prefer that their rivals earn a lower surplus. Bidders with spiteful preferences...

Costless pre-play communication has been found to effectively facilitate coordination and enhance efficiency in games with Pareto-ranked equilibria. We report an experiment in which two groups compete in a weakest-link contest by expending costly efforts. Allowing intra-group communication leads...

Experimental evidence has accumulated highlighting the limitations of formal and explicit contracts in certain situations, and has identified environments in which informal and implicit contracts are more efficient. This paper documents the superior performance of explicit over implicit...

Auctions allow regulators to identify land management changes with substantial environmental benefit and low opportunity cost. This paper reports an experiment in which seller subjects compete in sealed-offer auctions to obtain part of a fixed budget allocated by the experimenter-regulator to...

Evidence suggests that individuals often comply with regulations even though the frequency of inspections and audits is low. We report a laboratory experiment based on the dynamic model suggested by Harrington (1988) to explain this puzzle in which participants move between two inspection groups...

The paper presents a complete information model of bidding in second price sealed-bid and ascending-bid (English) auctions, in which potential buyers know the unit valuation of other bidders and may spitefully prefer that their rivals earn a lower surplus. Bidders with spiteful preferences...