We study the evolution of cooperation within the spatial prisoner's dilemma game on a square lattice where a fraction of players mu can spread their strategy more easily than the rest due to a predetermined larger teaching capability. In addition, players characterized by the larger teaching capability are allowed to temporarily link with distant opponents of the same kind with probability p , ...

Although social structure is known to promote cooperation, by locally exposing selfish agents to their own deeds, studies to date assumed that all agents have access to the same level of resources. This is clearly unrealistic. Here we find that cooperation can be maintained when some agents have access to more resources than others. Cooperation can then emerge even in populations in which the t...

Everyone, with the possible exception of those who are really good at it, is personally familiar with the phenomenon of self-deception. Anyone who has been conscious of struggling with a temptation to do what goes against her own better judgment and has then found justification for yielding to temptation is familiar with self-deception. So if I may be allowed to begin with the assumption that m...

We study optimal taxation when consumers have temptation and self-control problems. Embedding the class of preferences developed by Gul and Pesendorfer into a standard macroeconomic setting, we first prove, in a two-period model, that the optimal policy is to subsidize savings when consumers are tempted by “excessive” impatience. The savings subsidy improves welfare because it makes succumbing ...

Due to factors such as temptation, choices may not respect normative preference (the agent’s own, subjective view of what constitutes his welfare). Nevertheless, the evidence on preference reversals suggests a means of recovering normative preference from choice. A de…nition of normative preference in terms of choices between su¢ ciently delayed alternatives is formulated and studied. Mild cond...