Recoveries after recent earthquakes in the U.S. and Japan have shown that large welfare gains can be achieved by reshaping current emergency plans as incentive-compatible contracts. We apply tools from the mechanisms design literature to show ways to integrate economic incentives into the...

We study the effects of different rules of evidence and liability in con- tract litigation. When a contracting firm fails to perform, it may blame the buyer for withholding private information. We show that the evidentiary and liability rules used by the Supreme Court in General Dynamics v. U.S....

Delipalla and O'Donnell (2001) contains a formula for the incidence of specific and ad valorem taxes in a conjectural variation oligopoly model with potentially asymmetric firms. The formula is incorrect. We derive the correct formula and provide a discussion of the error and its implications...

We find clear demographic and ability effects on bidding in common value auctions: inexperienced women are much more susceptible to the winner's curse than men, controlling for SAT/ACT scores and college major; economics and business majors substantially overbid relative to other majors; and...

Common-pool resources create a well known social dilemma, and to solve the problem the recent literature in economics has focused on how repeated interaction can promote informal cooperation without the need for formal legal or political institutions. This paper examines a particular example of...

In an open economy with common property resources at the community level, marriage and migratory decisions crucially depend on inheritance rules on the commons. Motivated by the traditional management of the commons in the Italian Alps, we present a model that fits the evolution of property...

We study social dilemmas in (quasi‐) continuous‐time experiments, comparing games with different durations and termination rules. We discover a stark qualitative contrast in behavior in continuous time as compared to previously studied behavior in discrete‐time games: cooperation is easier...

In an experiment, a group of strangers was randomly divided in pairs to play a prisoners’ dilemma; this process was indefinitely repeated. Cooperation did not increase when subjects could send public messages amounting to binding promises of future play.

We study the individual behavior of students and workers in an experiment where they repeatedly face the same cooperative task. The data show that clerical workers differ from college students in overall cooperation rates, strategy adoption and use of punishment opportunities. Students cooperate...