We study product market competition between firm owners (principals) where workers (agents) decide on their efforts and, hence, on output levels. Two worker compensation schemes are compared: a piece rate compensation as a benchmark when workers' output performance is verifiable, and a...

Bilateral bargaining situations are often characterized by informational asymmetries concerning the size of what is at stake: in some cases, the proposer is better informed, in others, it is the responder. We analyze the effects of both types of asymmetric information on proposer behavior in two...

We investigate whether tournament prizes that depend on joint output ("variable prize tournaments") can alleviate the sabotage problem which is otherwise inherent in tournament struc- tures. In a game-theoretical model with three contestants, we compare fixed-prize tournaments with tournaments...

To commit credibly in bargaining is crucial: In the ultimatum game with its one–sided early commitment power the “proposer” gets (nearly) the whole pie while the“responder” is left with (almost) nothing. When both parties commit simultaneouslythe (a)symmetric Nash(1950)–bargaining...

It has been claimed that people often prefer equity-like considerations and tend to ignore strategic aspects in fair division problems. Here, this is explored by analyzing whether or not such behavioral disposition is evolutionary stable. The answer however is ambiguous: Both, reacting to and...

Tournaments represent an increasingly important component of organizational compensation systems. While prior research focused on fixed-prize tournaments, i.e., on tournaments where the prize or prize sum to be awarded is set in advance, we introduce a new type of tournament into the literature:...

We confront allocator participants with different sharing games in a within subjects design: the Nash demand game, the ultimatum game, the yes-no-game and the impunity game. We allow participants to opt out rather than play the game under consideration. Beside choice data we also collect belief...

To commit credibly in bargaining is crucial: In the ultimatum game with its one-sided early commitment power the “proposer” gets (nearly) the whole pie while the “responder” is left with (almost) nothing. When both parties commit simultaneously the (a)symmetric Nash(1950)-bargaining...