We examine discrimination against outgroups in the context of the December 2008 riots in Greece after the killing of a 15-year-old student by a special police agent. We examine students’ allocations between themselves and others, including police, in modified Dictator games, allowing us to...

People exhibit group reciprocity when they retaliate, not against the person who harmed them, but against somebody else in that person's group. Group reciprocity may be a key motivation behind intergroup conflict. We investigated group reciprocity in a laboratory experiment. After a group...

In experiments, people behave more cooperatively when they are aware of an external threat, while in the field, we observe surprisingly high levels of cooperation and altruism within groups in conflict situations such as civil wars. We provide an explanation for these phenomena. We introduce a...

Previous theories of globalization have examined factor mobility’s effect on the political conflict between social classes. But factor mobility also increases competition between state rulers in providing services for citizens. I ask how this interstate competition affects the process of...

Why did representative politicians introduce direct democratic reforms, thus binding their own hands? This paper presents a formal model in which (1) voters are uncertain about their representative’s preferences; (2) direct and representative elections are substitute methods for voters to...

In existing models of direct democratic institutions, the median voter benefits, but representative politicians are harmed since their policy choices can be overridden. This is a puzzle, since representative politicians were instrumental in creating these institutions. I build a model of direct...

Voters in democracies can learn from the experience of neighbouring states: about policy in a direct democracy ("policy experimentation"), about the quality of their politicians in a representative democracy ("yardstick competition"). Learning between states creates spillovers from policy...

In an online survey, the honesty of residents of eight countries was measured in three ways: by the standard coin flip experimental paradigm, by a new experiment designed to resemble a test with the possibility of cheating, and by a questionnaire of integrity. While the coin flip paradigm...

In experiments, people behave more cooperatively when they are aware of an external threat, while in the field, we observe surprisingly high levels of within - group cooperation in conflict situations such as civil wars. We provide an explanation for these phenomena. We introduce a model in...

Human societies of all kinds solve a problem of order. That is what differentiates them from sets of isolated individuals. The problem may be solved in various ways: in particular, some societies possess a state which provides order, while others are stateless. However, the existence of a state...