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作者：Chung, Hui-Kuan; Glimcher, Paul; Tymula, Agnieszka
作者单位：New York University; New York University; University of Sydney
摘要：Prospect theory, used descriptively for decisions under both risk and certainty, presumes concave utility over gains and convex utility over losses; a pattern widely seen in lottery tasks. Although such discontinuous gain-loss reference-dependence is also used to model riskless choices, only limited empirical evidence supports this use. In incentive-compatible experiments, we find that gain-loss reflection effects are not observed under riskless choice as predicted by prospect theory, even whi...
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作者：Bird, Daniel; Frug, Alexander
作者单位：Tel Aviv University; Pompeu Fabra University; Barcelona School of Economics
摘要：We study a principal-agent interaction where investments and rewards arrive stochastically over time and are privately observed by the agent. Investments (costly for the agent, beneficial for the principal) can be concealed by the agent. Rewards (beneficial for the agent, costly for the principal) can be forbidden by the principal. We ask how rewards should be used and which investments incentivized. We identify the unique optimal mechanism and analyze the dynamic investment and compensation p...
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作者：Haeringer, Guillaume; Iehle, Vincent
作者单位：City University of New York (CUNY) System; Baruch College (CUNY); Universite de Rouen Normandie
摘要：In a two-sided matching context we show how we can predict stable matchings by considering only one side's preferences and the mutually acceptable pairs of agents. Our methodology consists of identifying impossible matches, i.e., pairs of agents that can never be matched together in a stable matching of any problem consistent with the partial data. We analyze data from the French academic job market for mathematicians and show that the match of about 45 percent of positions (and about 60 perce...
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作者：Bigoni, Maria; Camera, Gabriele; Casari, Marco
作者单位：University of Bologna; Chapman University System; Chapman University
摘要：We show that monetary exchange facilitates the transition from small to large-scale economic interactions. In an experiment, subjects chose to play an intertemporal cooperation game either in partnerships or in groups of strangers where payoffs could be higher. Theoretically, a norm of mutual support is sufficient to maximize efficiency through large-scale cooperation. Empirically, absent a monetary system, participants were reluctant to interact on a large scale; and when they did, efficiency...
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作者：Adams, Brian; Williams, Kevin R.
作者单位：United States Department of Labor; Yale University
摘要：We quantify the welfare effects of zone pricing, or setting common prices across distinct markets, in retail oligopoly. Although monopolists can only increase profits by price discriminating, this need not be true when firms face competition. With novel data covering the retail home-improvement industry, we find that Home Depot would benefit from, finer pricing hut that Lowe's would prefer coarser pricing, Zone pricing softens competition in markets where firms compete, but it shields consumer...
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作者：Fahn, Matthias; Hakenes, Hendrik
作者单位：Johannes Kepler University Linz; University of Bonn
摘要：We show that team formation can serve as an implicit commitment device to overcome problems of self-control. If individuals have present-biased preferences, effort that is costly today but rewarded at some later point in time is too low from the perspective of an individual's long-run self If agents interact repeatedly and can monitor each other, a relational contract involving teamwork can help to improve performance. The mutual promise to work harder is credible because the team breaks up af...
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作者：Spiegler, Ran
作者单位：Tel Aviv University; University of London; University College London
摘要：Behavioral economics is widely perceived to be part of the profession's shift away from a culture that places abstract theory at its center. I present a critical discussion of the atheoretical style with which behavioral themes are often disseminated: a purely anecdotal style in popular expositions, simplistic cost-benefit modeling in pieces that target a wide audience of academic economists, and the practice of capturing psychological forces by distorting familiar functional forms. I argue th...
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作者：Friebel, Guido; Kosfeld, Michael; Thielmann, Gerd
作者单位：Goethe University Frankfurt
摘要：We conduct experimental games with police applicants in Germany to investigate whether intrinsically motivated agents self-select into this type of public service. Our focus is on trustworthiness and the willingness to enforce norms of cooperation as key dimensions of intrinsic motivation in the police context. We find that police applicants are more trustworthy than non-applicants, i.e., they return higher shares as second-movers in a trust game. Furthermore, they invest more in rewards and p...
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作者：Barron, Daniel; Powell, Michael
作者单位：Northwestern University
摘要：We consider how a firm's policies constrain its relational contracts. A policy is a sequence of decisions made by a principal; each decision determines how agents' efforts affect their outputs. We consider surplus-maximizing policies in a flexible dynamic moral hazard problem between a principal and several agents with unrestricted vertical transfers and no commitment. If agents cannot coordinate to punish the principal following a deviation, then the principal might optimally implement dynami...
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作者：Cheng, Chen; Li, Christopher
作者单位：Johns Hopkins University; Yale University
摘要：We develop a model of policy experimentation in which the policy decisions of local and national politicians are driven by career concerns. When politicians' payoffs are convex in their reputation and policymaking is opaque, local politicians experiment by introducing more diverse policies than national politicians do. The welfare implications of decentralization depend on homogeneity between districts. In particular, learning about policies is greater under decentralization if and only if the...
