We experimentally investigate information aggregation through majority voting when some voters are biased. In such situations, majority voting can have a dark side, that is, result in groups making choices inferior to those made by individuals acting alone. In line with theoretical predictions,...

Prior laboratory experiments have studied general equilibrium economies constructed from "induced preferences" for artificial goods. We introduce new methods that allow us to study economies constructed instead from subjects' actual, "homegrown" preferences. Our subjects reveal their preferences...

We design a laboratory experiment to study behavior in a multidivisional organization facing a trade-off between coordinating its decisions across the divisions and meeting division-specific needs that are known only to the division managers. The managers communicate their private information...

We use laboratory experiments to test for one of the foundations of the rational voter paradigm - that voters respond to probabilities of being pivotal. We exploit a setup that entails stark theoretical effects of information concerning the preference distribution (as revealed through polls) on...

We present a legislative bargaining model of the provision of a durable public good over an infinite horizion. In each period, there is a societal endowment which can either be invested in the public good or consumed. We characterize the optimal public policy, defined by the time path of...

This paper examines behavior (the oretically and experimentally) in a two-stage group contest where the fi rst stage comprises of intra - group contests, followed by an inter-group contest in the second stage. Rewards accrue only to the members of the winning group in the inter-group contest,...

While people on all sides of the political spectrum were amazed that Donald Trump won the Republican nomination this paper demonstrates that Trump's victory was not a crazy event but rather the equilibrium outcome of a multi-candidate race where one candidate, the buffoon, is viewed as likely to...

We investigate fairness preferences in matching mechanisms using a spectator design. Participants choose between the Boston mechanism or the serial dictatorship mechanism (SD) played by others. In our setup, the Boston mechanism generates justified envy, while the strategy-proof SD ensures...

This paper analyzes the role of narrowly selfish and other-regarding preferences for the median voter in a Meltzer-Richard (1981) framework. We use computerized and real human co-players to distinguish between these sets of motivations. Redistribution to real co-players has a negative effect on...

We demonstrate in a laboratory experiment in which subjects play a two-player Cournot-Tullock game over hundreds of periods of varying length that full accounts of subjects' learning requires the consideration of, both, 'period time' and 'physical time.'