Where such behaviors as risk-taking and hard work are not subject to complete contracts, some distributions of assets (for instance the widespread use of tenancy) may preclude efficient contractual arrangements. In particular, the distribution of wealth may affect: (a) residual claimancy over...

Small-scale human societies range from foraging bands with a strong egalitarian ethos to more economically stratified agrarian and pastoral societies. We explain this variation in inequality using a dynamic model in which a population's long-run steady-state level of inequality depends on the...

Understanding Capitalism provides an introduction to economics with extensive attention to the global economy, inequality, the information revolution, the exercise of power and the historical evolution of economic institutions and individual preferences. Its three dimensional approach focuses on...

What motives underlie the ways humans interact socially? Are these the same for all societies? Are these part of our nature, or influenced by our environments? Over the last decade, research in experimental economics has emphatically falsified the textbook representation of Homo economicus....

We study equilibrium selection in stochastic evolutionary bargaining games in which idiosyncratic play is intentional instead of random. In contract games, the stochastically stable state selected by intentional idiosyncratic play is the Nash bargain, rather than the usual Kalai-Smorodinsky...

Laws and policies designed to harness self-regarding preferences to public ends may fail when they compromise the beneficial effects of pro-social preferences. Experimental evidence indicates that incentives that appeal to self interest may reduce the salience of intrinsic motivation,...

This study assesses some of the more highly publicized and controversial conclusions of Equality of Educational Opportunity by James S. Coleman et al. The Coleman Report, published by the U.S. Office of Education in 1966, concluded that per-pupil expenditures and school facilities show very...

al behavior better explained statistically by individuals' attributes such as their sex, age, or relative wealth, or by the attributes of the group to which the individuals belong? Are there cultures that approximate the canonical account of self-regarding behavior? Existing research cannot...