{"title":"Nash bargaining is implementable via two-stage rights structures","authors":"Kemal Yıldız","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107214","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107214","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Koray and Yildiz (2018) introduces a new framework for implementation in which the main tool to design is the <em>rights structure</em> introduced by Sertel (2001).It was assumed that there is only one stage to obtain the equilibrium outcome of a rights structure.We formulate implementation via two-stage rights structures and show that the <em>Nash bargaining solution</em> is implementable via two-stage rights structures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"238 ","pages":"Article 107214"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145105250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The evolution of the common law with strategic litigants","authors":"Giri Parameswaran , Andrew Samuel","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107242","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107242","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The common law is shaped by the cases that are litigated in court. We study the incentives for litigants to influence legal evolution by strategically choosing which disputes to litigate. In our framework, clarifying the law typically benefits defendants. This creates a strict incentive for plaintiffs to settle cases, or to abandon legal claims even when litigation is costless. When plaintiffs are regulators, we associate this scenario with ‘regulator capture’. By contrast, defendants may generate ‘test cases’ to force litigation which clarifies the law, in instances where plaintiffs would ordinarily not litigate. We predict that settlement and this form of regulatory capture is most likely when regulators are sufficiently long-run oriented, whilst test cases arise when defendants are long-run oriented. We analyze the welfare consequences arising from these dynamic incentives.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"238 ","pages":"Article 107242"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145105248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bargaining on behalf of others: Incentives, beliefs, and gender gaps","authors":"Jeanna Kenney , Tomer Mangoubi","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107221","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107221","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Oftentimes people delegate negotiation to others (i.e., “agents”), whether formally or informally. This paper explores the impact of agents on gender differences in negotiation and how this varies with common incentive structures. Using a bargaining experiment with over 2,400 subjects, we find that, absent agents, males make more aggressive demands than females. Introducing agents who negotiate on behalf of the players entirely closes this gap. Although agent incentives affect overall aggressiveness, they do not induce gender gaps. Belief elicitations suggest that this is because agents underestimate reservation prices for both males and females and incorrectly believe that they have the same threshold for rewarding aggressive behavior. While males and females have similar expected outcomes, agents close a risk exposure gap by making proposals across genders that are equally likely to be accepted.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"238 ","pages":"Article 107221"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145105246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Time pressure and strategic risk-taking in professional chess","authors":"Johannes Carow , Niklas M. Witzig","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107218","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107218","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study the impact of time pressure on strategic risk-taking of professional chess players. We propose a novel machine-learning-based measure for the degree of strategic risk of a single chess move and apply this measure to the 2013–2023 FIDE Chess World Cups that allow for variation in thinking time. Our results indicate that having less thinking time consistently leads chess players to opt for more risk-averse moves. This effect is particularly pronounced in disadvantageous positions, that is, in which a player is trailing behind. We additionally provide correlational evidence for strategic loss aversion, a tendency for more risky moves after a mistake and in a disadvantageous position. Our results suggest that even high-proficiency decision-makers in high-stake situations react to time pressure and contextual factors more broadly.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"238 ","pages":"Article 107218"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145105247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Faith and philanthropy: Megachurch scandals and charitable giving","authors":"Angela Cools","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107139","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107139","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Religious institutions receive the plurality of U.S. charitable contributions, but do their actions affect the total size of the charitable sector or simply the allocation of donations? I examine the impact of religious shocks on giving using a newly constructed database of megachurch scandals linked to itemized contributions data from the Internal Revenue Service. A scandal reduces local itemized contributions by 1.9 percent ($10 million) per year for at least three years. Contributions to non-church local charities are largely unaffected, indicating limited substitution between religious and secular philanthropy. However, declines in funds received by crisis pregnancy centers reveal close ties between megachurches and the anti-abortion/pro-life movement in the United States. Scandals also reduce religious service attendance, indicating that religious disengagement is an important channel through which scandals affect contributions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"238 ","pages":"Article 107139"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145105245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cannabis deregulation and policing","authors":"Panka Bencsik , Saayili Budhiraja","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107202","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107202","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Drug crimes continue to make up a large share of the offenses for which individuals interact with the criminal justice system in the United States, with Black Americans arrested at four times the rate of white Americans despite similar drug usage rates. In recent years, policymakers in jurisdictions across the country have deregulated recreational cannabis use, often with the explicit intention of reducing drug crime arrest disparities. Yet, causal evidence about the impact of deregulation on who police arrest is limited. In this paper, we exploit the rollout of the most widespread deregulatory approach related to recreational cannabis use—the decriminalization of cannabis possession—across the three largest US cities, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, using a difference-in-differences design. We find that decriminalization significantly reduced cannabis possession arrests. We observe that decriminalization narrowed racial disparities in arrests in Chicago by reducing small quantity possession arrests for Black individuals and in Los Angeles by reducing large quantity possession arrests for both Black and Hispanic residents. Lastly, we extend our analysis to legalization of recreational cannabis use and observe that legalization decreased arrests for every racial and ethnic group we consider, with similarly large impacts across groups.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"238 ","pages":"Article 107202"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145105255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Equilibrium effects of abortion restrictions on cohort fertility: Why restricting abortion access can reduce human capital, social welfare, and lifetime fertility rates","authors":"Nicholas Lawson , Dean Spears","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107216","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107216","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The United States Supreme Court’s ruling in <em>Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</em> has made understanding the impact of abortion laws increasingly important and timely. We investigate recent claims by policymakers that abortion restrictions increase birth rates; we also evaluate consequences for human capital and women’s welfare. We motivate our theoretical contribution by presenting some simple empirical analysis of cross-country associations. These provide no evidence of a significant association between abortion legality and birth rates. Our main contribution is an applied economic theory model. Contrary to some policy claims, but in line with stylized empirical facts, abortion bans can <em>lower</em> equilibrium fertility: An abortion ban might cause women to have more unintended births at young ages, but this could reduce their accumulation of capabilities that would prepare them to have a larger family later. We solve a 2-period version of the model, and simulate it and a 3-period version. If women with more resources can afford to choose more children (because of costs of having, raising, and educating children), then the sign of the effect on lifetime fertility depends on whether the increase in fertility due directly to unintended births is outweighed by the effect on subsequent fertility choices. But either way, abortion restrictions are likely to reduce human capital and harm women’s welfare.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"238 ","pages":"Article 107216"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145060553","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kieu Trang Vu , Maria H. Kim , Sandy Suardi , Wei-shao Wu
{"title":"Facial features and environmental strategy: How aggressive CEOs respond to regulatory changes in carbon emissions?","authors":"Kieu Trang Vu , Maria H. Kim , Sandy Suardi , Wei-shao Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107240","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107240","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Do aggressive CEOs adapt to new regulatory environments more aggressively? Leveraging the staggered finalisations of State Climate Adaptation Plans (SCAPs) in the United States as a source of exogenous climate regulatory risks, we examine the impact of a male CEO’s facial-width-to-height ratio (<em>fWHR</em>) on corporate carbon emissions post-SCAP finalisation. Drawing from neuroendocrinology literature, <em>fWHR</em> is associated with aggressiveness in pursuing higher social status and self-interest. Our findings show that firms led by high-<em>fWHR</em> CEOs reduce carbon emissions following SCAP finalisation, while those with low-<em>fWHR</em> CEOs exhibit no change. Channel analysis suggests that this emission reduction is driven by a greater tendency to adopt carbon reduction policies. The effect is more pronounced in firms with powerful CEOs, those based in collectivist states, and those facing lower SCAP uncertainty. Despite lowering carbon emissions, high-<em>fWHR</em> CEO-led firms do not achieve better ESG ratings post-SCAP finalisation. This paradox arises from their lower public commitments to emission reduction, suggesting a reduced tendency toward greenwashing. By establishing a novel linkage between CEOs’ <em>fWHR</em> and corporate climate strategies, this study provides new insights into the role of CEO personality traits in shaping corporate responses to climate regulatory risks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"238 ","pages":"Article 107240"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145060670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Work schedules","authors":"Jed DeVaro","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107209","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107209","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In a new model of work schedules, employers choose the number of working hours and either assign the specific hours worked or let workers choose their preferred hours via flextime. Workers’ preferences over schedules, and their tendencies to fatigue from long shifts, influence their productivities. An inverted-<em>U</em>-shaped hours-output profile arises. Flextime policies shift its peak rightward. Long hours go hand-in-hand with flextime. The employer finds flextime less appealing when wages exogenously increase. Analysis of a worker-employer matched panel of British workplaces in 2004 and 2011 reveals that flextime and other flexible work practices mitigate the productivity erosion from long hours.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"238 ","pages":"Article 107209"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145060555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The motherhood penalty on health: Evidence from China","authors":"Ang Sun , Fang Xia , Xuan Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107241","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107241","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding women’s physical and mental well-being following childbirth is critical for informing policies on labor market equity, family support, and fertility. Using event study methods and panel data from China, we document a persistent motherhood penalty in both physical and mental health, whereas the health impacts on fathers are minimal. While mothers experience a temporary reduction in paid work hours, they face a sustained increase in unpaid domestic labor — housework and childcare — resulting in a net increase in total work time. This additional workload likely contributes to deterioration in health. Mothers are also more likely to engage in multitasking, which is associated with elevated stress and burden, and they experience a greater increase in insufficient sleep (fewer than 7 hour per night) during the first postpartum year. Finally, we find that grandparental support can help mitigate the adverse health effects associated with motherhood.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48409,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization","volume":"238 ","pages":"Article 107241"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145060554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}