This paper puts three of the most prominent specifications of ‘other-regarding’ preferences to the experimental test, namely the theories developed by Charness and Rabin, by Fehr and Schmidt, and by Andreoni and Miller. In a series of experiments based on various dictator and prisoner’s...

This paper explores the question whether boundedly rational agents learn to behave optimally when asked to voluntarily contribute to a public good. The decision process of individuals is described by an Evolutionary Algorithm. We find that the contribution level converges towards the Nash...

Dieser Beitrag bietet eine Einführung in eine Gruppe moderner Algorithmen, den sogenannten evolutionären Optimierungsverfahren. Anhand eines einfachen Beispiels wird die grundsätzliche Funktionsweise dieser Algorithmen skizziert. Darüberhinaus wird ein Überblick über die...

The paper analyzes a Cournot model with two types of firms: Maximizers of profits and maximizers of relative payoffs. It is shown that the equilibrium is located somewhere between the regular Cournot-Nash equilibrium and the competitive Walrasian (or Bertrand-) equilibrium.

This paper explores the question whether boundedly rational agents learn to behave optimally when asked to voluntarily contribute to a public good. The decision process of individuals is described by an Evolutionary Algorithm. We analyze the learning process of purely and impurely altruistic...

This article tries to connect two separate strands of literature concerning genetic algorithms. On the one hand, extensive research took place in mathematics and closely related sciences in order to find out more about the properties of genetic algorithms as stochastic processes. On the other...

In this paper, we analyse if individual inequality aversion measured with simple experimental games depends on whether the monetary endowment in these games is either a windfall gain (“house money”) or a reward for a certain effort-related performance. We then examine whether the way of...

This paper provides a critical re-examination of Rubinstein's survey (Rubinstein; Economic Journal 2006), in which he questions the way economics is taught. The observations obtained in our new survey cast some doubts on the original findings, and, in particular, question Rubinstein's conjecture...

We use modified dictator games in which the productivity of taking or giving is varied. Subjects have to decide which of the different games will be payoff relevant in the end. We can show that the behavior of dictators does not depend on the productivity of their gifts, but that their behavior...