In a world of imperfect information, reputations often guide the sequential decisions to trust and to reward trust. We consider two-player situations, where one player--the truster--decides whether to trust, and the other player--the temptee--has a temptation to betray when trusted. The strength...

In a world of imperfect information, reputations often guide the sequential decisions to trust and to reward trust. We consider two-player situations, where one player – the truster – decides whether to trust, and the other player – the temptee – has a temptation to...

In a world of imperfect information, reputations often guide the sequential decisions to trust and to reward trust. We consider two-player situations, where the players meet but once. One player – the truster – decides whether to trust, and the other player – the temptee...

Reputations often guide sequential decisions to trust and to reward trust. We consider situations where each player is randomly matched with a partner in every period. One player – the truster – decides whether to trust. If trusted, the other player – the temptee – has a temptation to...

In a world of imperfect information, reputations often guide the sequential decisions to trust and to reward trust. We consider two-player situations where the players meet but once. One player - the truster - decides whether to trust, and the other player - the temptee - has a temptation to...

Differences in ethical behavior between members of the upper and lower classes have been at the center of civic debates in recent years. This paper presents a framework for understanding how class affects ethical standards and behaviors. The framework is applied using data from a large Dutch...

A principal provides budgets to agents (e.g., divisions of a firm or the principal's children) whose expenditures provide her benefits, either materially or because of altruism. Only agents know their potential to generate benefits. We prove that if the more "productive" agents are also more...

A broad array of law enforcement strategies, from income tax to bank regulation, involve self-reporting by regulated agents and auditing of some fraction of the reports by the regulating bureau. Standard models of self-reporting strategies assume that although bureaus only have estimates of the...

Financial, managerial, and medical decisions often involve alternatives whose possible outcomes have uncertain probabilities. In contrast to alternatives whose probabilities are known, these uncertain alternatives offer the benefits of learning. In repeat-choice situations, such learning brings...

The audit policy of a tax authority can signal its audit effectiveness. We model this process and show that in limited circumstances an ineffective authority can masquerade as being effective. We show that high maximal penalties imply underreporting of income.