Economic loss to society due to dishonesty can be quite large. Policy makers use several international indices that characterize countries according to the quality of their institutions. However, no effort has been made to study how the honesty of citizens varies across sixteen countries. This...

We report the results of a meta-study of 118 Cognitive Reflection Test studies comprising of 44,558 participants across 21 countries. There is a negative correlation between being female and the overall,and individual, correct answers to CRT questions. Taking the test at the end of an experiment...

This paper analyzes the incentives for governments to impose export subsidies when firms invest in a cost saving technology before market competition. Governments first impose an export subsidy or a tax. After observing export policy, firms invest in cost reducing R&D and subsequently compete in...

This paper highlights the importance of product differentiation and endogenous R&D in determining the optimal R&D policy, in a model where investment in cost reducing R&D is committed before firms compete in a differentiated-goods third-country export market. R&D is always taxed in oligopolies...

It is well-known in evolutionary game theory that population clustering in Prisoner's Dilemma games allows some cooperative strategies to invade populations of stable defecting strategies. We adapt this idea of population clustering to a two-person trust game. Without knowing it, players are...

"Laboratory experiments have generally supported the fundamental theorem that, in classical property rights environments, noncooperative behavior in large group markets yields efficient social outcomes. Experiments, however, regularly fail to support the game theoretic prediction of...

The Protestant Reformation is a vivid example of how religious transformation could set in motion institutional changes, leading to profound consequences for economic and political development. Although economists and other social scientists agree that there is a strong relation between the...

Cooperation between individuals requires the ability to infer each other’s mental states to form shared expectations over mutual gains and make cooperative choices that realize these gains. From evidence that the ability for mental state attribution involves the use of prefrontal cortex, we...

We design an experiment to examine behavior and welfare in a multi-level trust game representing a pass through investment in an intermediated market. In a repeated game, an investor invests via an intermediary who lends to a borrower. A pre-experiment one-shot version of the game serves as a...