Telling the other what one knows? Strategic lying in a modified acquiring-a-company experiment with two-sided private information

Lying for a strategic advantage is to be expected in commercial interactions. But would this be more or less obvious when lying could come from either party and question mutually profitable exchange? To explore this, we modify the acquiring-a-company game (Samuelson and Bazerman in Res Exp Econ 3:105–138, 1985) by letting both, buyer and seller, be privately informed. Specifically, the value of the company for the buyer is known only by the seller; whereas, only the buyer is aware by which proportion the sellers evaluation is lower than that of the buyer. Before bargaining, both parties can reveal what they know via cheap-talk numerical messages. Game theoretically, the pooling equilibrium may or may not allow for trade depending on the commonly known expected evaluation discrepancy. By mutually revealing what one knows, one could boost trade and efficiency. Although strategic misreporting prevails quite generally, it is higher for sellers throughout the experiment. Regarding gender, women misreport less, especially as sellers, and offer higher prices

Trusting versus monitoring: an experiment of endogenous institutional choices

We investigate the problem of deciding between trusting and monitoring, and how this decision affects subsequent behavior, using a laboratory experiment where subjects choose between the Ultimatum and the Yes-No Game. Despite the similarity of the two games in Ultimatum Games responders monitor the allocation proposal, while in Yes-No games responders react without monitoring, i.e. have to rely on trust. We permit either the proposer or responder to make the game choice and analyze how both roles choose between trusting and monitoring, what the ensuing effects of their choices are, and how they vary depending on who has chosen the game. We, also, experimentally vary the cost of monitoring and the responder’s conflict payoff. Since monitoring is usually costly, the amount to share in Yes-No Games (YNG) can exceed that in Ultimatum Games (UG). Regarding the conflict payoff, it can be positive or negative with the former rendering Yes-No interaction a social dilemma. According to our results, proposers (responders) opt for trusting significantly more (less) often than for monitoring. Average offers are higher in Ultimatum than in Yes-No games, but neither UG nor YNG offers depend on who has chosen between games

On the variable-charged black holes embedded into de Sitter space: Hawking's radiation

In this paper we study the Hawking evaporation of masses of variable-charged Reissner-Nordstrom and Kerr-Newman, black holes embedded into the de Sitter universe by considering the charge to be function of radial coordinate of the spherically symmetric metric.Comment: LaTex, p. 2

Behavioral spillovers in local public good provision: an experimental study

In a circular neighborhood, each member has a left and a right neighbor with whom(s) he interacts repeatedly. From their two separate endowment amounts individuals can contribute to each of their two structurally independent public goods, either shared only with their left, respectively right, neighbor. If most group members are discrimination averse and conditionally cooperating with their neighbors, this implies intra- as well as inter personal spillovers which link all neighbors. Investigating individual adaptations in one’s two games with differing freeriding incentives confirms, through behavioral spillovers, that both individual contributions anchor on the local public good with the smaller free-riding incentive. Therefore asymmetry in gaining from local public goods allows to establish a higher level of voluntary cooperation

The better toolbox: experimental methodology in economics and psychology

In experimental economics one can confront a “don’t!”, as in “do not deceive your participants!”, as well as a “do!”, as in “incentivize choice making!”. Neither exists in experimental psychology. Further controversies exist in data collection methods, e.g., play strategy (vector) method in game experiments, and how to guarantee external and internal validity by describing experimental scenarios by feld-related vignettes or by abstract, often formal, rules as it is used in decision and game theory. We emphasize that diferences between the experimental methodology of the two disciplines are minor rather than substantial and suggest that such diferences should be resolved, as much as possible, through empirical research. Rather than focusing on familiar debates, we suggest to substitute the revealed-motive approach in experimental economics by designs whose data not only inform about choice, but also about the reasoning dynamics

Does heterogeneity spoil the basket? The role of productivity and feedback information on public good provision

In a circular neighborhood of eight, each member contributes repeatedly to two local public goods, one with the left and one with the right neighbor. All eight two-person games provide only local feedback information and are structurally independent in spite of their overlapping player sets. Heterogeneity is induced intra-personally by asymmetric productivity in left and right games and inter-personally by two randomly selected group members who are less privileged (LP) by being either less productive or excluded from end-of-period feedback information about their payoffs and neighbors’ contributions. Although both LP-types let the neighborhood as a whole evolve less cooperatively, their spillover dynamics differ. While less productive LPs initiate “spoiling the basket” via their low contributions, LPs with no-end-of-round information are exploited by their neighbors. Furthermore, LP-positioning, closest versus most distant, affects how the neighborhood evolves

Non-stationary rotating black holes: Entropy and Hawking's radiation

We derive a class of non-stationary embedded rotating black holes and study the Hawking's radiation effects on these embedded black holes. The surface gravity, entropy and angular velocity, which are three important properties of black holes, are presented for each of these embedded black holes.Comment: 36 pages, LaTe

Wormhole Cosmology and the Horizon Problem

We construct an explicit class of dynamic lorentzian wormholes connecting Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) spacetimes. These wormholes can allow two-way transmission of signals between spatially separated regions of spacetime and could permit such regions to come into thermal contact. The cosmology of a network of early Universe wormholes is discussed.Comment: 13 pages, in RevTe

From Newton's Laws to the Wheeler-DeWitt Equation

This is a pedagogical paper which explains some ideas in cosmology at a level accessible to undergraduate students. It does not use general relativity, but uses the ideas of Newtonian cosmology worked out by Milne and McCrea. The cosmological constant is also introduced within a Newtonian framework. Following standard quantization procedures the Wheeler-DeWitt equation in the minisuperspace approximation is derived for empty and non-empty universes.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur

Electric Vehicle Procurement Decisions in Fleets : Results of a Case Study in South-Western Germany

In order to increase the market share of electric vehicles (EV) in Germany, further insights on actors and structures of EV specific procurement decisions for fleets are necessary. Our analysis focuses on vehicles registered by companies/organizations as they dominate new vehicle registrations in Germany. The following question is examined empirically: Which departments influence EV procurement decisions in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), in large-scale enterprises (LSE) and in public organizations (PO) and what are the differences compared to these departments' influences on internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV) procurement decisions? Our results show that EV procurement decisions of organizations in South-West Germany are decisively influenced by upper management levels and partly by organizations' fleet management departments. In small and medium-sized enterprises sales- and public relations departments have a major influence on EV procurement decisions. These findings are important for stakeholders interested in selling EVs or in designing policies that are more effective in influencing organizations' decision making concerning future EV procurement decisions