How should a group of people decide to allocate a task that has to be done but is not adequately rewarded? This paper finds an optimal mechanism for the private provision of a public service in an environment without monetary transfers. All members of the group have the same cost of providing...

We study persuasion effects in experimental ultimatum games and find that Proposers' payoffs significantly increase if, along with offers, they can send messages which Responders read before deciding. Higher payoffs are driven by both lower offers and higher acceptance rates

Many successful franchise chains directly own a positive fraction of stores - a structure referred to as plural form. We propose that this ownership structure is chosen as a commitment not to expropriate franchisees. The theoretical model is based on an empirical analysis of contract and...