In a novel experimental design, we study how social immobility affects the choice among distributional schemes in an experimental democracy. We design a two-period experiment in which subjects first choose a distributional scheme by majority voting (“social contract”). Then subjects engage...

Several models of choice under uncertainty imply systematic violations of transitivity of preference. Our experiments explored whether people show patterns of intransitivity predicted by these models. To distinguish "true" violations from those produced by "error", a model was fit in which each...

In this paper, we document a “play-out” effect in preference reversal experiments. We compare data where preferences are elicited using (1) purely hypothetical gambles, (2) played-out, but unpaid gambles and (3) played-out gambles with truth-revealing monetary payments. We ask whether a...

Previous studies have shown that people believe in the existence of the “hot hand” effect: recent good performances make one more confident and lead to more good performances. However, economists have found little evidence that such an effect is present. Motivated by models of momentum from...

This paper reports an experiment designed to test whether prior consultation within a group affects subsequent individual decision making in tasks where demonstrability of correct solutions is low. In our experiment subjects considered two paintings created by two different artists and were...

To study switching behavior, an experiment mimicking the state of a driver on the road was conducted. In each trial participants were given a chance to switch lanes. Despite the fact that lane switching had no sound rational basis, participants often switched lanes when the speed of driving in...

Moral hazards are said to occur when one party makes decisions that have potential negative consequences that will either be fully or partially experienced by another party. The present experiment sought to explore moral hazard in a laboratory setting. Participants made choices between certain...

Using paper and pencil experiments administered in senior centers, we examine decision-making performance in multi-attribute decision problems. We differentiate the effects of declining cognitive performance and changing cognitive process on decision-making performance of seniors as they age. We...

This paper reports an experiment designed to test whether prior consultation within a group affects subsequent individual decision making in tasks where demonstrability of correct solutions is low. In our experiment subjects considered two paintings created by two different artists and were...