Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An Experimental Study.

In an experiment comparing two-person bargaining and multiperson markets in Israel, Japan, the United States, and Yugoslavia, market outcomes converged to equilibrium everywhere, with no payoff-relevant differences between countries. Bargaining outcomes were everywhere different from equilibrium predictions (both in agreements and in the substantial frequency of disagreements) and differences were observed between countries. Because of the experimental design, the fact that the market behavior is the same in all countries supports the hypothesis that the observed differences are not due to differences in languages, currencies, or experimenters, but may tentatively be attributed to cultural differences. Copyright 1991 by American Economic Association.

Modeling Altruism and Spitefulness in Experiment

We examine a simple theory of altruism in which players' payoffs are linear in their own monetary income and their opponents. The weight on the opponent's income is private information and varies in the population, depending, moreover, on what the opponent's coefficient is believed to be. Using results of ultimatum experiments and the final round of a centipede experiment, we are able to pin down relatively accurately what the distribution of altruism (and spite) in the population is. This distribution is then used with a reasonable degree of success to explain the results of the earlier rounds of centipede and the results of some public goods contribution games. In addition, we show that in a market game where the theory of selfish players does quite well, the theory of altruism makes exactly the same predictions as the theory of selfish players. (Copyright: Elsevier)