In an overlapping generations-experiment with multiple families participants caneither support their parents directly and thereby reduce their tax burden or hopefor tax-financed old age support. State productivity is captured by the factor withwhich total tax revenues are multiplied to determine...

The variable threat-bargaining model of Nash (1953) assumes that threats in the senseof binding commitments as to what one will do if bargaining ends in conflict, are chosenbefore bargaining. By comparison, late threats to be chosen after bargaining end in conflict,appear more natural and would...

Are commonly known beliefs essential for bidding behavior in asymmetric auctions? Our experimental results suggest that not informing participants how values are randomly generated does not change behavior much and may even make it appear more rational.

This paper focuses on the uneasy alliance of rational choice and evolutionary explanations in modern economics. While direct evolutionary explanations of "optimality" rule out "purposeful" rational choice by assuming zero-intelligence and pure rational choice explanations leave no room for...

The indirect evolutionary approach integrates forward-looking evaluation of opportunitiesand adaptation in the light of the past. Subjective motivation determines behavior,but long-run evolutionary success of motivational types depends on objective factors only.This can justify intrinsic...

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...

In diesem Beitrag lassen wir herkömmliche Kritikpunkte an der ökonomischen Neo-Klassik Revue passieren und untersuchen, inwieweit die heutige experimentelle Ökonomik diesen durch gesteigerte Realwissenschaften entgeht. Eine induktive Vorgehensweise, bei der im Labor Ergebnisse unter...

Whether incentive contracts perform better than trust in terms of productiveefficiency is usually explored by principal-agent experiments (mostinvolving only one agent). We investigate this issue in the context of athree-person ultimatum experiment, which is simpler and more neutrallyframed than...

Economists usually treat human behavior as being determined by the shadow of the future, while most other social scientists point to the shadow of the past. This paper considers experimental evidence relevant to the controversy and tries to reconcile both explanations of human behavior with each...

We experimentally investigate whether individuals can reliably detect cooperators in an anonymous decision environment by allowing participants to condition their choices in an asymmetric prisoner's dilemma and a trust game (i) on their partner's donation share to a self-selected charity, and...