In line with the widely applied principle of just deserts, we assume that the severityof the penalty on a contract offender increases in the harm on the other. Whenthis principle holds, the influence of the efficiency of the agreement on the incentivesto abide by it crucially depends on whether...

We consider guilt averse agents and principals and study the effects ofguilt on optimal behavior of the principal and the agent in a moral hazardmodel.The principal’s contract proposal contains a target effort in addition tothe monetary incentive scheme. By accepting the agreement, the...

We exploit a controlled frameless laboratory experiment to study settlement negoti-ations and the plainti¤’s decision to raise a lawsuit in case of an impasse. We …nd thatgreater variance in court outcomes increases the litigation rate and lowers the settlementrate. This latter …nding goes...

The existing literature acknowledges that a mismatch between the experimenter'sand the subjects' models of an experimental task can adversely aect the interpretation ofdata from laboratory experiments. We discuss why the two common experimental designs(between-subjects and within-subjects) used...

We investigate whether Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator recommendations regarding improvements in environmental quality differ from citizen preferences. The scope and significance of the possible difference are assessed by conducting identical choice experiments on a...

We study two person-betting games with inconsistent commonly know beliefs, using an experimentalapproach. In our experimental games, participants bet against one another, each bettorchoosing one of two possible outcomes, and payoff odds are know at the time bets are placed.Bettors’ beliefs are...

We analyse pricing, e¤ort and tipping decisions in the online service GoogleAnswers. While users set a price for the answer to their question ex ante, theycan additionally give a tip to the researcher ex post.In line with the related experimental literature we …nd evidence that tippingis...

Unlike previous attempts to implement cooperation in a prisoners’ dilemma gamewith an infinite horizon in the laboratory, we focus on extended prisoners’ dilemmagames in which a second (pure strategy) equilibrium allows for voluntary cooperationin all but the last round. Our four main...

We analyze the effects of asymmetric information concerning thesize of a pie on proposer behavior in three different bargaining situations:the ultimatum game, the Yes-No-game and the dictator game.Our data show that (a) irrespective of the information condition, proposergenerosity increases with...

We study interaction effects between intra-firm conflicts and interfirm competitionon a duopolistic market with seller firms employing one or more agents and imple-menting tournament incentives. We show that inter-firm competition leads to higherincentive intensity, higher efforts and output...