Modeling the incentive effects of competitions among employees for promotions or financial rewards, economists have largely ignored the effects of competition on effort provision once the competition is finished. In a laboratory experiment, we examine how competition outcomes affect the...

Modeling the incentive effects of competitions among employees, economists have largely ignored the potential for such competition to affect effort provision once the competition has finished. In a laboratory experiment, we examine how competition outcomes affect the provision of...

While economists recognize the important role of formal institutions in the promotion of trade, there is increasing agreement that institutions are typically endogenous to culture, making it difficult to disentangle their separate contributions. Lab experiments that assign institutions...

In laboratory asset markets, subjects trade shares of a firm whose profits in a linked product market determine dividends. Treatments vary whether dividend information is revealed once per period or in real-time and whether the firm is controlled by a profit-maximizing robot or human subject....

We study a dynamic common pool resource game in which current resource stock depends on resource extraction in the previous period. Our model shows that for a sufficiently high regrowth rate, there is no commons dilemma: the resource will be preserved indefinitely in equilibrium. Lower growth...

This paper introduces a simple application of contest theory that neatly captures how Boulding’s “Loss of Strength Gradient” determines the geographic extent of territory. We focus on the “supply side” of territorial conflict, showing how the costs of initiating and escalating conflict...

When making political and economic decisions (e.g. voting, donating money to a cause), individuals consider the expectations of groups with which they identify. These expectations are injunctive norms, shared beliefs about appropriate behavior for identity group members, and individuals' choices...