We investigate experimentally whether the protégés' reaction to paternalism depends on the consequences of the paternalistic action to their well-being. We find that protégé punish a paternalist restricting their freedom of choice. Yet, this negative reaction is not based on principled...

Absentmindedness is a special case of imperfect recall which according to Piccione and Rubinstein (1997a) leads to time inconsistencies. Aumann, Hart and Perry (1997a) question their argument and show how dynamic inconsistencies can be resolved. The present paper explores this issue from a...

This paper provides a new way to identify conditional cooperation in a real-time version of the standard voluntary contribution mechanism. Our approach avoids most drawbacks of the traditional procedures because it relies on endogenous cycle lengths, which are defined by the number of...

This paper provides a new way to identify conditional cooperation in a real-time version of the standard voluntary contribution mechanism. Our approach avoids most drawbacks of the traditional procedures because it relies on endogenous cycle lengths, which are defined by the number of...

We study first- and second-price private value auctions with sequential bidding where second movers may discover the first movers bids. There is a unique equilibrium in the first-price auction and multiple equilibria in the second-price auction. Consequently, comparative statics across price...

The Aumann (1990) conjecture states that cheap-talk messages do not necessarily help to coordinate on efficient Nash equilibria. In an experimental test of Aumann’s conjecture, Charness (2000) found that cheap-talk messages facilitate coordination when they precede the action, but not when...

Pre-play face-to-face communication is known to facilitate cooperation. Various explanations exist for this effect, varying in their dependence on the strategic content of the communication. Previous studies have found similar communication effects regardless of whether strategic communication...

Transparency in teams can facilitate cooperation. We study contribution decisions by agents when previous decisions can be observed. We find that an information chain, in which each agent directly observes only the decision of her immediate predecessor, is at least as effective as a...

Using a representative survey of the German population, this paper studies individual consumption responses to a recent payroll tax reduction. Our results show that 55% of the respondents spend the extra money, indicating considerable potential for tax changes to affect consumption and economic...

We study the influence of taxation on labour supply using a specifically designed representative survey of the German population. First, we investigate whether taxes generally matter for the labour supply decisions of our respondents. Around 41 per cent report taking taxes into consideration,...