Suchergebnisse

Many communities rely upon ostracism to enforce cooperation: if an individual shirks in one relationship, her innocent neighbors share information about her guilt in order to shun her, while continuing to cooperate among themselves. However, a strategic victim may herself prefer to shirk, rather than report her victimization truthfully. If guilty players are to be permanently ostracized, then such deviations are so tempting that cooperation in any relationship is bounded by what the partners could obtain through bilateral enforcement. Ostracism can improve upon bilateral enforcement if tempered by forgiveness, through which guilty players are eventually readmitted to cooperative society. (JEL C73, D83, D85, O17, Z13)

We study two-player games where one-sided asymmetric information can lead to either adverse or advantageous selection. We contrast behavior in these games with settings where both players are uninformed. We find stark differences, suggesting that subjects do account for endogenous selection effects. Removing strategic uncertainty increases the fraction of subjects who account for selection. Subjects respond more to adverse than advantageous selection. Using additional treatments where we vary payoff feedback, we connect this difference to learning. We also observe a significant fraction of subjects who appear to understand selection effects but do not apply that knowledge. (JEL C92, D82, D91)

We model legislative decision-making with an agenda setter who can propose policies sequentially, tailoring each proposal to the status quo that prevails after prior votes. Voters are sophisticated, and the agenda setter cannot commit to future proposals. Nevertheless, the agenda setter obtains her favorite outcome in every equilibrium regardless of the initial default policy. Central to our results is a new condition on preferences, manipulability, that holds in rich policy spaces, including spatial settings and distribution problems. Our findings therefore establish that, despite the sophistication of voters and the absence of commitment power, the agenda setter is effectively a dictator. (JEL D71, D72, D78)