The economics of cooperation and reciprocity:

- experimental, behavioral, and evolutionary game theory
- cooperation, altruism, reciprocity and social dilemmas
- dictator games and ultimatum games
- prisoner's dilemmas and public goods games
- the role of rewards and punishments
- evolution of cooperation
- direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, and reputation

Upon completing this course students

(i) understand the problem of cooperation in modern societies and know the fundamental mechanisms which are able to support cooperation in

(ii) a repeated-games equilibrium with standard preferences,

(iii) in an evolutionary equilibrium with boundedly rational agents,

(iv) or in an equilibrium of the one-shot game under social preferences.

First half: lecture with discussions.

Second half: students review parts of the literature, write up their results in a handout and present them in small groups.

10% active participation

50% presentation and handout

40% final exam

knowledge of game theory

e-mail: ulrich.berger@wu.ac.at

phone: 01/31336-4562