This paper introduces and studies the Network Dilemma, which embeds a social dilemma within a network formation game. The game models the voluntary provision of a costly public good that is locally non-excludable within an endogenously formed network of agents. In this environment, all...

Present bias is the inclination to prefer a smaller present reward to a larger later reward, but reversing this preference when both rewards are equally delayed. Such behavior violates stationarity of temporal choices, and hence exponential discounting. This paper provides a weakening of the...

In prosocial decisions, decision-makers face interpersonal uncertainty - uncertainty about how their choices impact others' utility. We use three approaches to show how it shapes classic patterns of prosocial behavior like ingroup favoritism, merit-based fairness, and self-favoring behavior....

We design and implement the first real-effort experiment that can jointly estimate present bias (β) and sophistication (bβ), with separate preference parameters for money (βm, bβm) and effort (βe, bβe). In our study, participants chose to (and predicted to) complete 14% (and 10%) fewer...

We study the value of and the demand for instrumentally-valuable information in a simple decision environment where signals are transparently polarized. We find that in both information aggregation and acquisition, subjects use sophisticated heuristics to counter the polarization in signals....

We hypothesize that broad contact, involving brief interactions with multiple outgroup members, and deep contact, meaning longer interactions with a single outgroup member, play distinct roles in shaping intergroup relations. We set up a factory in India and recruited Hindu and Muslim men to...