Tacit Lobbying Agreements: An Experimental Study
Jens Großer, Ernesto Reuben and Agnieszka Tymula
2010. Working Paper.
We experimentally study the common wisdom that money buys political influence. In the game, one lobbyist has the opportunity to influence redistributive tax policies in her favor by transferring money to two competing candidates. The success of the lobbying investment depends on whether or not the candidates are willing to respond and able to collude on low?tax policies that do not harm their relative chances in the elections. In the experiment, we find that lobbying is never successful when the lobbyist and candidates interact just once. By contrast, it yields substantially lower redistribution in about 40% of societies with finitely?repeated encounters. However, lobbying investments are not always profitable, and profit?sharing between the lobbyist and candidates depends on prominent equity norms. Our experimental results shed new light on the complex process of buying political influence in everyday politics and help explain why only relatively few corporate firms do actually lobby.
Tacit Lobbying Agreements: An Experimental Study - Online Supply Material
Tacit Lobbying Agreements: An Experimental Study
Rational und Fair
Axel Ockenfels and Werner Raub
2010. In: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Gert Albert and Steffen Sigmund (eds.), 119-136. Köln: Sonderheft 50.
Preface
Axel Ockenfels and Abdolkarim Sadrieh
2010. In: The Selten School of Behavioral Economics, A. Ockenfels and A. Sadrieh (eds.), v-vi. Heidelberg: Springer.
Social Behavior in Economic Games
Gary E. Bolton, Werner Güth, Axel Ockenfels and Alvin E. Roth
2010. In: The Selten School of Behavioral Economics, A. Ockenfels and A. Sadrieh (eds.), 185-202. Heidelberg: Springer.
Who is the Best at Making Decisions?
Gary Bolton, Axel Ockenfels and Ulrich W. Thonemann
2010. International Commerce Review ECR Journal, 9, 49-58.
It goes without saying that senior managers with lots of experience tend to make better decisions than novices. Or does it? New research shows that managers make, and repeat, the same mistakes as novices - and often don't learn as fast.
Rationale Modelle - Eine Antwort auf den Kommentar von Sigmund Steffen
Axel Ockenfels und Werner Raub
2010. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Gert Albert, and Steffen Sigmund (eds.), 147-153. Köln: Sonderheft 50.
In unserer Antwort auf den Kommentar von Steffen Sigmund skizzieren wir verschiedene Möglichkeiten der Modellierung moralischer Präferenzen im Rahmen des Rational Choice-Ansatzes. Wir gehen der Frage nach, wie man der „Einbettung“ des Verhaltens in Netzwerke und Institutionen gerecht werden kann. Schließlich beantworten wir die Frage, warum einfache Modelle oft den Vorzug vor komplexen Modellen verdienen.
Strategic Unemployment
Burkhard Hehenkamp, Julia Angerhausen and Christian Bayer
2010. In: Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics.
The empirical literature on happiness ?nds that employment signi?cantly con- tributes to well-being. We propose a dynamic model that explains why individuals may nonetheless be reluctant to pick up low-paid work. Accepting low-paid work will put them in an adverse position in future wage bargaining, as employers could infer the individual's low reservation wage from his working history. Employers will exploit their knowledge offering low wages to this individual in the future. There- fore, employees with low reservation wage strategically opt into unemployment to signal a high reservation wage.
Betrayal aversion: Evidence from Brazil, China, Oman, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States: Comment
Bolton, Gary E. and Axel Ockenfels
2010. American Economic Review, 100, 628-633.
There is a growing literature showing that social context and social comparison can significantly affect consumption patterns, labor supply, savings, bargaining, cooperation, competition and other kinds of economic behavior. Surprisingly few contributions, however, investigate risk taking in a social context.
The Dynamics of Cooperation in Group Lending - A Microfinance Experiment
Peter Werner
2010. Working Paper.
We investigate the dynamics of borrower behavior in a microfinance experiment in which subjects are jointly responsible for credit repayment. Although cooperation levels are generally high, moral hazard problems persist among borrowers. Moreover, the path dependency of decisions mitigates the insurance effect of joint liability. We compare two conversion mechanisms from joint to individual liability. First, an active choice of the joint liability contract does not systematically increase cooperation. Second, conversion based on repayment success tends to have a detrimental impact on cooperation among the remaining joint liability borrowers.
Großhandelsmärkte für Strom - Marktintegration und Wettbewerb aus deutscher Perspektive
Rainer Nitsche, Axel Ockenfels, Lars-Hendrik Röller und Lars Wiethaus
2010. Energiewirtschaftliche Tagesfragen, 60(3), 28-37.
Nicht selten hört man besorgte Stimmen und kritische Äußerungen über die fehlende Integration der europäischen Großhandelsmärkte für Strom und die Marktbeherrschung durch nationale Stromversorger. Hervorzuheben ist in diesem Zusammenhang die Branchenuntersuchung (Sector Inquiry (SI)) der Europäischen Kommission, die für die Jahre 2002 bis 2005 entsprechende Bedenken äußert. Vor diesem Hintergrund haben die Autoren die Entwicklung und den Stand der europäischen Marktintegration untersucht. Zusätzlich wurde das Projektteam um eine Beurteilung gebeten, ob das Niveau der deutschen Großhandelspreise für Strom oberhalb der Preisbildung läge, die sich bei funktionierenden Wettbewerbsmärkten einstellen würde.
The Solidarity Game: What Drives Social Behavior in Economic Games?
Axel Ockenfels
2010. In: The Selten School of Behavioral Economics, A. Ockenfels and A. Sadrieh (eds.), 183-200. Heidelberg: Springer.