A novel experiment is used to show that the effect of a policy on the level of cooperation is greater when it is chosen democratically by the subjects than when it is exogenously imposed. In contrast to the previous literature, our experimental design allows us to control for selection effects...

We study the evolutionary robustness of strategies in innitely repeated prisoners' dilemma games in which players make mistakes with a small probability and are patient. The evolutionary process we consider is given by the replicator dynamics. We show that there are strategies with a uniformly...

Political dynasties have long been present in democracies, raising concerns that inequality in the distribution of political power may reflect imperfections in democratic representation. However, the persistence of political elites may simply reflect differences in ability or political vocation...

We offer a simple general equilibrium model to analyze how economy-wide forces (i.e. shocks to terms of trade, technology and endowments) will affect the intensity of social conflict over the distribution of resources. Examples of conflict activities range from crime to civil war. We show that...

While there is an extensive literature on the theory of infinitely repeated games, empirical evidence on how "the shadow of the future" affects behavior is scarce and inconclusive. I simulate infinitely repeated prisoner's dilemma games in the lab with a random continuation rule. The...