We analyze the behavior of game-show contestants who play a one-shot game called Friend or Foe. While it is a weakly dominant strategy not to cooperate, almost half the contestants on the show choose to play "friend." Remarkably, the behavior of contestants remains unchanged even when stakes are...

We study compliance dynamics generated by a large set of behavioral rules describing social interaction in a population of agents facing an enforcement authority. When the authority adjusts the auditing probability every period, cycling in cheating-auditing occurs: Intensive monitoring induces...

Many countries have dormant anticorruption systems, which could be activated by accountability pressures. The problem identified in the literature is that reforms are implemented and undermined amidst a power struggle. Brazil has been in this kind of a perverse equilibrium. The anticorruption...

We use the nation-wide policy of randomly allocating village council headships to women to identify the impact of female political leadership on the governance of projects implemented under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India. Using primary survey data, we find more program...