Alchian and Demsetz’s (1972) influential explanation of the classical business firm argues that there is need for a concentrated residual claim in the hands of a central agent, to motivate the monitoring of workers. We model monitoring as a way to transform team production from a collective...

Economic interactions often take place in open communities, in which agents are free to leave a community to join a more preferred one. Tiebout (1956) conjectured that “voting with feet” might generate considerable efficiency gains since individuals with different preferences sort themselves...

Most organizational theories argue that formal organizational tructures determine or at least influence individual behavior and herewith are crucial for the performance and survival capability of the organization. This thesis contributes to the research on cooperation in organizations by...

Cooperation problems are at the heart of many everyday situations. In this paper, we propose a very simple and light-handed mechanism to sustain cooperation and test its performance in a rich laboratory environment. The mechanism moderates cooperation by controlling experiences, more...

If two players of a simultaneous symmetric one-shot prisoner's dilemma hold standard prefer-ences, the fact that choosing the cooperative move imposes harm on a passive outsider is imma-terial. Yet if participants hold social preferences, one might think that they are reticent to impose harm on...