This paper tests the hypothesis that a (partial) reason why cartels - collective but costly and non-binding price agreements - lead to higher prices in a Bertrand oligopoly could be because of a selection effect: decision-makers who are willing to form price agreements are more likely to be less...

We study the effect of voting when insiders' public goods provision may affect passive outsiders. Without voting insiders' contributions do not differ, regardless of whether outsiders are positively or negatively affected or even unaffected. Voting on the recommended contribution level enhances...

We analyze a group contest in which n groups compete to win a group-specific public good prize. Group sizes can be different and any player may value the prize differently within and across groups. Players exert costly efforts simultaneously and independently. Only the highest effort (the...

In this paper, we extend the Fehr and Schmidt model of inequality aversion to a situation where the players differ with respect to their benefits and costs from contributions to a non-linear public good. A necessary condition for contributing to the public good is that the players’ benefit...

We compare communication about private information to communication about actions in a one-shot 2-person public good game with private information.The informed player, who knows the exact return from contributing and whose contribution is unobserved, can send a message about the return or her...

This paper examines countries' free-riding in international environmental agreements (IEA) when, first, the treaty is non-enforceable, and second, countries do not have complete information about other countries' noncompliance cost. We analyze a signaling model whereby the country leading the...

We isolate strategic and non-strategic motivations of sanctioning in a repeated public goods game. In two experimental treatments, subjects play the public goods game with the possibility to sanction others. In the STANDARD sanctions treatment, each subject learns about the sanctions received in...

We consider a two-stage public goods provision game: In the first stage, players simultaneously decide if they will join a contribution group or not. In the second stage, players in the contribution group simultaneously offer contribution schemes in order to influence the government's choice on...

In this paper, we discuss several issues related to public goods problems. Unlike many Austrians, we do not think that the concept of public goods - or of collective action - is an inherently flawed idea, even though we reject the alleged welfare implications of public goods theory, as proposed...

Research in behavioral economics suggests that in addition to their traditional incentive effects, formal control systems can influence psychological motivations. We extend this literature by demonstrating experimentally that formal controls directly influence people’s sense of what behaviors...