Reliable institutions - i.e., institutions that live up to the norms that agents expect them to keep - foment cooperative behavior. We experimentally confirm this hypothesis in a public goods game with a salient norm that cooperation was socially demanded and corruption ought not to occur. When...

Attempts to curb illegal activity through regulation gets complicated when agents can adapt to circumvent enforcement. Economic theory suggests that conducting audits on a predictable schedule, and (counter-intuitively) at high frequency, can undermine the effectiveness of audits. We conduct a...

This paper extends theory and experimentation in the context of two parties in a group who contribute to a public good with a provision point. This study analyzes the voluntary contributions game in which a public good is provided if and only if the sum of contributions meets or exceeds a...