The common prior assumption asserts that the beliefs of agents in different states of theworld are their posteriors based on a common prior and possibly some private signal. Commonpriors are pervasive in most economic models of incomplete information, oligopoly models withasymmetrically informed...

This paper analyzes vertical cross-shareholding, that is, the mutual holding of a minority of shares between vertically related firms. We investigate the conditions under which cross-shareholding improves efficiency. First, we explore the issue in a game-theoretic model and find that...

In this note we establish that rational demand expectations willtypically not evolve in an evolutionary model. In an evolutionarymodel beliefs act like a commitment device to more aggressive be-havior. This commitment effect has the same direction for strategicsubstitutes and complements and...

This paper analyses individual information acquisition in an ultimatum game with aprioriunknown outside options. We find that while individual play seems to accord reasonablywell with the distribution of empirical behavior, contestants seem to grossly overweighthe value of information. While...

In multi-party democracies, several parties usually have to join together in coalitionto form government. Many aspects of that process have been fairly fully investigated,others less so. Among the latter is the timing of the formation and announcement ofcoalitions.1While the dominant popular...

A firm with stochastic demand can rely on hired hands when demand is low and rent additionallabour when demand is higher. For high demand this implies the co-employmentof hired hands, paid directly by the firm, and of rented hands who are paid by a rentalagency. This may cause severe problems if...

The present research experimentally examines the ininfluence of groupidentity on trust behavior in an investment game. In one treatment,group identity is manipulated only through the creation of artificial(minimal) groups. In other treatments group members are additionallyrelated by outcome...

Fairness like other social norms is usually stabilized by punishing norm deviations. Reward uncertainty, however,questions whether norm deviations can be detected and thus punished. By investing in information acquisition, aresponder in an ultimatum experiment determines endogenously whether...

Bidding challenges learning theories since experiences with the same bid vary stochastically:the same choice can result in either a gain or a loss. In such an environment thequestion arises how the nearly universally documented phenomenon of loss aversion affectsthe adaptive dynamics. We analyze...

Taking seriously the philosophical foundations of classical strategic theories of choice-making we scrutinize to what extent planning on on equilibrium strategies can be justified "eductively" among rational players and how this can be utilized to analyze games by their "game-like"...