We present a definition of increasing uncertainty, independent of any notion of subjective probabilities, or of any particular model of preferences.Our notion of an elementary increase in the uncertainty of any act corresponds to the addition of an 'elementary bet' which increases consumption by...

The paper analyses a simple reinforcing dynamics. The dynamics can be interpreted as a learning dynamics with fixed aspiration level. All payoffs are assumed to be above this aspiration level, therefore all strategies are reinforcing. Different versions of the dynamics exhibit different...

In this paper we have presented arguments for heuristics on economics research. In particular, have been important aspects that show how the tradition of the theory, to make principle simplicity to represent many empirical data of experience or information, was one of the goals set by the...

We study the effect of dynamic and investment externalities in a one-sector growth model. In our model, two agents interact strategically in the utilization of capital for consumption, savings, and investment in technical progress. We consider two types of investment choices: complements and...

We study the effect of dynamic and investment externalities in a one-sector growth model. In our model, two agents interact strategically in the utilization of capital for consumption, savings, and investment in technical progress. We consider two types of investment choices: complements and...

We study if and how social preferences extend to risky environments. We provide experimental evidence from different versions of dictator games with risky outcomes and establish that preferences that are exclusively based on ex post or on ex ante comparisons cannot generate the observed...

This paper axiomatizes a utility function for social preferences under risk. In the model, a single parameter captures a preference for equality of opportunity (i.e., equality of exante expected payoffs) relative to equality of outcome (i.e., equality of ex-post payoffs). In a deterministic...

We study risk taking on behalf of others in an experiment on a large random sample. The decision makers in our experiment are facing high-powered incentives to increase the risk on behalf of others through hedged compensation contracts or with tournament incentives. Compared to a baseline...

Two wealth effects typically arise in any contest: i) wealth decreases the marginal cost of effort, but also ii) decreases the marginal benefit of winning the contest. In this paper, we introduce three types of strategic contest models depending on whether the first, second, or both wealth...

A minimal reduction in strategic voter’s knowledge about other voters’ voting patterns severely limits her ability to strategically manipulate the voting outcome. In this paper I relax the implicit assumption made in the Gibbard-Satterthwaite’s impossibility theorem about strategic...