Ex-post opportunistic behavior, commonly present in bilateral trade relationships, is a key element of the transaction cost economics. Investment in outside options is a prime example of such opportunism and often leads to inefficiency, for example by exerting effort to search for alternative...

How does job assignment affect fairness concerns between coworkers? We experimentally examine agents’ horizontal fairness concerns in a three-person ultimatum game in which all agents are asked to complete a general knowledge quiz before being assigned to a high productivity or low...

How does group identity influence promotion decisions and what impact does it have on the performance of organizations through promotions? We provide answers based on two experiments in which we identify the effect of group identity on the employers’ preferences regarding whom to promote,...

How does job assignment to positions with different surplus affect fairness concerns? We experimentally examine agents’ fairness concerns in a three-person ultimatum game in which all agents are asked to complete a general knowledge quiz before being assigned to a high-stake or low-stake...

We contribute to the theory of the firm by experimentally investigating a bilateral trade relationship in which standard theory assuming self-regarding preferences predicts that the seller will be better off by investing in the outside option to improve his bargaining position. The seller’s...

We study whether group identity helps mitigate inefficiencies associated with appropriable quasi-rents, which are often created by relationship-specific investments in bilateral trade relationships. Based on previous findings that group identity strengthens other-regarding preferences, we...

The hold-up problem has played a central role in the study of firm boundaries, which is a fundamental element of the economic study of organizations. We study a previously unex-plored mechanism by which integration between two parties could resolve the problem. Based on the social identity...

The hold-up problem has played a central role in the study of firm boundaries, which is a fundamental element of the economic study of organizations. We study a previously unexplored mechanism by which integration between two parties could mitigate the problem. Based on the social identity...

Groups, companies, and organizations identify themselves via symbols. Symbols have the potential to create group identity and at the same time create group boundaries, thus allowing for achieving the benefits of cooperation by ingroup members. We use a laboratory experiment to study the role of...