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"As societies progress, old generations of social agents die and are replaced by new ones. This book explores what happens in this transition as the old guard instructs the new arrivals about the wisdom of their ways. Do new entrants listen and follow the advice of their elders or dismiss it? Is intergenerational advice welfare-improving or can it be destructive? Does such advice enhance the stability of social conventions or disrupt it? Using the concept of an intergenerational game and the tools of game theory and experimental economics, this study delves into the process of social learning created by intergenerational advice passed from generation to generation. This book presents a unique theoretical and empirical study of the dynamics of social conventions not offered elsewhere"--

The main purpose of rational choice theory is to lay out in clear and transparent terms what conditions are necessary and/or sufficient for the validity of statements about consistent human behavior. Strong criteria for rationality are 'wrong' if understood as a positive description. However, their very strength provides a sharp guide for experimental social science's project of mapping the properties of individual behavior.

The main purpose of rational choice theory is to lay out in clear & transparent terms what conditions are necessary &/or sufficient for the validity of statements about consistent human behavior. Strong criteria for rationality are 'wrong' if understood as a positive description. However, their very strength provides a sharp guide for experimental social science's project of mapping the properties of individual behavior. Figures, References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2006.]

This paper presents a new view of the arbitration process in which the arbitrator is depicted as a random device to generate arbitration decisions. The conflicting parties must decide whether to send their dispute to the arbitrator, based on their subjective probability beliefs concerning the arbitration's outcome. If their beliefs are "sufficiently divergent," we can expect both to agree to arbitration. As similar disputes are arbitrated and precedent is set, however, these divergent beliefs can be expected to vanish. Using some game theoretical results of Aumann and Rosenthal, we demonstrate that such convergence will ruin the incentive to arbitrate for conflicts that are zero (or constant) sum in nature, and for games that are non-constant sum but "best responsive equivalent" to zero sum games. It will not do so in general for conflicts that are non-zero sum. We then examine the welfare implications of these results and point out a paradox that arises in this context.