In October 1956, the RAND Corporation established the Logistics Systems Laboratory (LSL) with the goal of using simulation to translate the broad findings of normative microeconomics into detailed, implementable procedures for US Air Force operations. The laboratory was housed in the training...

We report results from experiments designed to investigate the prevalence of turn-taking in three-person finitely repeated threshold public good games without communication. Individuals can each make a discrete contribution. If the number of contributors is at least equal to the threshold, a...

We investigate the interaction between friendship, social preferences, and deceptive behavior. We implement a sender- receiver game, in which senders choose from a distinct set of allocations that embodies a multi-dimensional set of potential lies. A novelty of our design is that it directly...

This paper theoretically and experimentally studies the role of two behavioral biases in all-pay auctions for charity. The theory is developed to predict the effect of loss aversion in the first-price all-pay auction and sunk cost sensitivity in the war of attrition. Using controlled laboratory...

A subject brackets two decisions if she "choose[s] an option in each case without full regard to the other." Although in most situations such behavior is unlikely to be optimal, it is well documented in experiments where subjects make decisions in the absence of strategic considerations. This...

What was once broadly viewed as an impossibility – learning from experimental data in economics – has now become commonplace. Governmental bodies, think tanks, and corporations around the world employ teams of experimental researchers to answer their most pressing questions. For their part,...

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 report an experiment comparing sequential and simultaneous contributions to a public good in a quasi-linear two-person setting (Varian, Journal of Public Economics, 1994). Our findings support the theoretical argument that sequential contributions result in lower overall provision than...

We examine the effects of social preferences and beliefs about the social preferences of others in a simple leader-follower voluntary contributions game. We find that groups perform best when led by those who are reciprocally oriented. Part of the effect can be explained by a false consensus...

What is the role of intuitive versus deliberative cognitive processing in human cooperation? The Social Heuristics Hypothesis (SHH) stipulates that (i) intuition favors behaviors that are typically advantageous (i.e. long-run payoff-maximizing), and that for most people cooperation is typically...