Research Interests

My Research Interests

I organized and chaired a session entitled "Trust and Reciprocity in Games" at the annual meetings of the American Economic Association held in Atlanta in January 2002. For a description of the session and the abstracts of papers Click Here.

My research focuses on two broad and separate areas. One area of research, which is my primary research focus these days, is experimental economics.I am involved in experimental work which looks at issues of trust, altruism and reciprocity. I am also currently involved in a two projects on the inter-generational evolution of conventions in laboratory games with Barry Sopher (Rutgers University) and Andrew Schotter (New York University). My other area of research involves thereotecal and empirical work in contract choice. Here I look at choice of tenancy contracts in agriculture as well as choice of contracts in franchising. There are many ways in which contract choices in the two areas overlap. Recently I have extended this work to look at interlinked credit and product contracts in both agriculture as well as franchising.

Many of my papers (mostly in pdf format) appear below.

If you experience any difficulty in accessing these papers please feel free to e-mail me at and I would be happy to mail you a hard copy.

Experimental Papers:

Sending Money in the Trust Game: Trust or Other-regarding Preferences? (with Lata Gangadharan, University of Melbourne), Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of Auckland, Auckland, NZ, December 2003.

The Evolution of Conventions in an Experimental Public Goods Game with Private and Public Knowledge of Advice",, (with Sara Graziano, Charles River Associates), Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of Auckland, Auckland, NZ, March 2003. This paper has received a revise and re-submit from the Review of Economic Studies.

A Dynamic Analysis of the Evolution of Conventions in an Experimental Public Goods Game with Intergenerational Advice, (with Pushkar Maitra, Dpartment of Economics, Monash University and Sara Graziano, Charles River Associates), Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of Auckland, Auckland, NZ, September 2003.

Gender Differences in Trust and Reciprocity,(with Lata Gangadharan, University of Melbourne), Working Paper 2002-03, Department of Economics, Wellesley College, Spring 2002.

Talking Ourselves to Efficiency: Coordination Conventions in an Inter-Generational Minimum Game with Private, Almost Common and Common Knowledge of Advice", (with Andrew Schotter, New York University and Barry Sopher, Rutgers University), Research Report 11-01, C. V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, Department of Economics, New York University, Fall 2001. This paper has received a revise and re-submit from the American Economic Review.

The Ratchet Principle in a Principal Agent Game with Unknown Costs: An Experimental Analysis. Published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 37(3), November 1998, pp. 291-304.

"Cooperation in Social Dilemmas, Trust and Reciprocity". (Joint with Barry Sopher, Department of Economics, Rutgers University and Paul Strand, Department of Psychology, Washington State University.) Journal of Economic Psychology, vol. 23(1), January 2002, 231-249

Trust and Trustworthiness in a Sequential Bargaining Game", (with Sarah Ali Khan, Aishwarya Lakshmiratan, Anne-Laure Py and Lisa Shah), Working Paper No. 2002-10, Department of Economics, Wellesley College, Spring 2002. Published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Vol. 16(5), pp. 331-340 (Lead Article).

Efficiency Breakthrough: Conversion from Common Knowledge to Almost Common Knowledge in the Minimum Game, (with Christina Antonopoulos, Lana Chau, Emily Hahn and Susie Min), Working Paper No. 2002-XX, Department of Economics, Spring 2002.

An Inter-generational Approach to the Public Goods Problem, (with Liliana Kim, Susane Ko, Erin-Rand Giovannetti and Nina Varghese), Working Paper No. 2002-XX, Department of Economics, Wellesley College, Spring 2002.

Why Free Ride? The Role of Feedback in a Public Goods Game", (with DeeDee Chen, Sara Graziano, Frances McIntire and Dawn Winkler), Working Paper No. 2002-XX, Department of Economics, Wellesley College,Spring 2002.

For a description of the work that I am doing with Andrew Schotter and Barry Sopher, take a look at Andrew Schotter's Research Page.

Papers on Contract Choice:

Formal and Informal Sector Credit and Interlinkage. (Joint with Debajyoti Chakrabarty, Department of Economics, Rutgers University.) Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 46(3), November 2001, 313-325.

Informational Structure and Contractual Choice in Franchising. Here are the tables and figures from the paper. Tables and Figures. (Joint with Debajyoti Chakrabary, Department of Economics, Rutgers University and Chester Spell, Department of Management, Washington State University). Published in the Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics., Vol. 158 (4), December 2002.

On the Choice of Tenancy Contracts in Rural India. (Joint with Pushkar Maitra, Department of Economics, Monash University.) This paper was published in Economica, Vol. 69, Issue 275, August 2002, pp. 445-459.

A Location Based Theory of Franchising. The paper is joint with Parikshit Ghosh, Department of Economics, University of British Columbia and Chester Spell, Department of Management, Washington State University. This paper was published in the Journal of Business and Economic Studies, vol. 7(1), Spring 2001, 54-67.

On the Implications of Interlinked Credit-Product Contracts in Franchising. (Joint with Debajyoti Chakrabarty, Department of Economics, Rutgers University), Working Paper No. 2002-XX, Department of Economics, Wellesley College, Spring 2002.

Tenant Characteristics and the Choice of Tenurial Contracts in Rural India".(Joint with Pushkar Maitra, Department of Economics, Monash University.) This paper has been published in the Journal of International Development, Vol. 13(2), March 2001, pp. 169-181.

The Terms of Sharecropping Contracts in Rural India: A Note. (Joint with Pushkar Maitra, Department of Economics, Monash University and Univerity of Sydney.) Published in the Journal of Contemporary Asia, 30(1), January 2000, pp. 99-108. This is an inter-disciplinary journal in economics, political science and sociology.