• Can exit prizes induce lame ducks to shirk less? Experimental evidence 

      Helland, Leif; Hovi, Jon; Monkerud, Lars Christian (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2012)
      Elected representatives serving their final period face only weak incentives to provide costly effort. However, overlapping generations (OLG) models suggest that exit prizes sustained by trigger strategies can induce ...
    • Can Paying Politicians Well Reduce Corruption? The Effects of Wages and Uncertainty on Electoral Competition 

      Heggedal, Tom-Reiel; Morton, Rebecca; Helland, Leif (Peer reviewed; Journal article, 2022)
      We investigate the effects of wages and uncertainty on political corruption as measured by rent-taking. First, our laboratory data show that contrary to standard theory, rent-taking is not independent of, but decreases ...
    • Climate Leadership by Conditional Commitments 

      Helland, Leif; Hovi, Jon; Sælen, Håkon (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2018)
      Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, each Party sets its own mitigation target by submitting a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) every five years. An important question is whether including conditional components ...
    • Electoral agency in the lab: learning to throw out the rascals 

      Helland, Leif; Monkerud, Lars Christian (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2013)
      Models of electoral agency address the levels of discipline and selection that voters can acheive in elections. The models are demanding in terms of individual belief-formation and consistency of behavior. We investigate ...
    • Information and coordination frictions in experimental posted offer markets 

      Helland, Leif; Moen, Espen R.; Preugschat, Edgar (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2017)
      We experimentally investigate buyer and seller behavior in small markets with two kinds of frictions. First, a subset of buyers may have (severely) limited information about prices, and choose a seller at random. Second, ...
    • Information Quality and Regime Change: Evidence from the Lab 

      Helland, Leif; Iachan, Felipe S.; Juelsrud, Ragnar Enger; Nenov, Plamen (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      We experimentally test the effects of information quality in a global game of regime change. The game features a payoff structure such that more dispersed private information induces agents to attack more often and reduces ...
    • Ongoing quest for QWERTY 

      Heggedal, Tom-Reiel; Helland, Leif (CREAM Publications;1/2012, Working paper, 2012)
      First, we replicate the remarkable result of Hossain & Morgan (AER 2009), in which subjects in an experimental market tip almost perfectly to the superior platform even if an inferior platform enjoys initial monopoly. Next, ...
    • Partisan bias, electoral volatility, and government efficiency 

      Helland, Leif; Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2015)
      Electoral agency models suggest that government e¢ ciency is better when voters penalize poor performance, and party competition is balanced. Uncertainty in the electoral mechanism dillutes the incentive to produce e¢ ...
    • Partisan conflicts and parliamentary dominance: the Norwegian political business cycle 

      Helland, Leif (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2011)
      The arcticle explores the political business cycle in Norway from the early 1980s onwards. It is shown that unemployment growth is related to uncertainty about likely parliamentary majorities, and to the level of political ...
    • Persistent rent extraction 

      Helland, Leif; Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2012)
      Representative democracy does not necessarily eliminate political corruption. Existing models explain the survival of rent-taking politicians by ideological divisions in the electorate and/or informational asymmetries. The ...
    • Platform selection in the lab 

      Heggedal, Tom-Reiel; Helland, Leif (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2014)
      Emerging literature explores experimental platform selection games. These games con- verge rapidly on the superior platform under a wide range of conditions. We replicate the remarkable results of Hossain and Morgan ...
    • The power of outside options in the presence of obstinate types 

      Heggedal, Tom-Reiel; Helland, Leif; Knutsen, Magnus Våge (Peer reviewed; Journal article, 2022)
      We experimentally investigate the role of two-sided reputation-building in dynamic bargaining. In the absence of outside options, rational bargainers have an incentive to imitate obstinate types that are committed to an ...
    • Should I stay or should I go? Bandwagons in the lab 

      Heggedal, Tom-Reiel; Helland, Leif; Joslin, Knut-Eric Neset (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2018)
      We experimentally investigate the impact of strategic uncertainty and complementarity on leader and follower behavior using the model of Farrell and Saloner (1985). At the core of the model are endogenous timing, irreversible ...
    • When does informal enforcement work? 

      Aakre, Stine; Helland, Leif; Hovi, Jon (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2016)
      We study experimentally how enforcement influences public goods provision when subjects face two free-rider options that roughly parallel the nonparticipation and noncompliance options available for countries in relation ...