Research on moral cleansing and moral self-licensing has introduced dynamic considerations in the theory of moral behavior. Past bad actions trigger negative feelings that make people more likely to engage in future moral behavior to offset them. Symmetrically, past good deeds favor a positive...

We provide empirical evidence to support the claims that social diversity promotes prosocial behavior. We elicit a real-life social network and its members٠adherence to a social norm, namely inequity aversion. The data reveal a positive relationship between subjects٠prosociality and several...

This study addresses the issue of intergenerational transmission of democratic values embedded in social choice rules. We focus on a few rules which have been the focus of social choice theory: plurality, plurality with a runoff, majoritarian compromise, social compromise and Borda rule. We...

Also published as Working Paper DFAEII 2009-05 and as an article in: Games and Economic Behavior, 2010, vol. 69, issue 2, pages 249-257.

Loan mortgage interest rates are usually the result of a bank-customer negotiation process. Credit risk, consumer cross-buying potential, bundling, financial market competition and other features affecting the bargaining power of the parties could affect price. We argue that, since mortgage loan...

This paper analyzes auctions where bidders face nancial constraints that may force them to resell part of the property of the good (or subcontract part of a project) at a resale market. First we show that the ine¢ cient speculative equilibria of second- price auctions (Garratt and Tröger,...

The European Commission Report on Competition in Professional Services found that recommended prices by professional bodies have a significant negative effect on competition since they may facilitate the coordination of prices between service providers and/or mislead consumers about reasonable...

In July 2013, the government approved a major overhaul of the Spanish electricity sector to correct existing imbalances that have led to an exponential increase of regulated electricity costs and a huge tariff deficit. The reform addresses the problem of financial sustainability of the sector,...

Also published as Working Paper DFAEII 2003-01

Regulators and market participants have become increasingly concerned about the Spanish electricity tariff deficit due to its size and the difficulties to control its growth. The deficit can be traced to inefficiencies in market organization and solutions should be designed to mitigate those...