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This study focuses on the endogenous formation of institutions for the provision of public goods. Institutions that impose a contribution on their members can increase social welfare. However, without powerful executive authority, not all players become institutional members, and those who choose not to join the institution do not contribute to public goods. Endogenous institution formation—for example, international treaties to prevent global warming—may be a solution. This study examines the effect of commitment on endogenous institution formation for solving the public goods problem. We compared two rules in which participants either committed to join or did not join an institution. Under both rules, players who proposed to form an institution could withdraw from it during the formation process. Under the breakaway rule, the institution can be formed even if some proposers withdraw, whereas under the unanimity rule, the institution is never formed if at least one proposer withdraws. Thus, the unanimity rule required the commitment of proposers for institution formation. Our experimental result showed that the unanimity rule increased the contribution to public goods, whereas the breakaway rule did not. Our findings suggest that the commitment to become a member of an institution is essential for endogenous institution formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing use of social-network games, game addiction has become a serious challenge to the world. This study investigates the effects of risk preference, loss aversion, and time preference on the behaviour of Japanese adolescents and young adults purchasing 'Gacha', or loot box gambling, in social-network games. We surveyed 1,210 respondents, aged 12 to 23 years; approximately 34% of the respondents had purchased 'Gacha'. We found that loss-averse and risk-averse female respondents had less experience paying for 'Gacha', with their highest billing amount charged per month being lower than that of other female respondents. Furthermore, future-oriented female respondents had less payment experience than present-oriented ones, with the highest billing amount charged per month for the former respondents being also lower. The highest billing amount charged per month of loss-averse male respondents was significantly lower than that of other male respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent of suitability of monopolistic firms in performing the role of middleman in stock trading while left uninformed about demand and supply conditions is analyzed. It is concluded that they performs well despite uncertainty.

We experimentally investigated whether continuous-time cheap talk improves the effort level in a minimal effort game with multiple Pareto-ranked Nash equilibria. In each round of the game, a player freely changes the message before he or she makes decisions, and constantly monitors other members' messages. We have two results. First, continuous-time cheap talk realizes a higher effort level than does one-shot cheap talk. Second, the group in which every member chooses the maximum effort in the first two rounds eventually achieves an efficient outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]