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AbstractWe show how 'cooperation' and 'defection' in the Volunteer's Dilemma can be conceptualized in line with established terminology for game-theoretic models of social dilemmas. Commonly employed labels for strategies in the Volunteer's Dilemma are not well in line with our conceptualization. Also, our conceptualization suggests new theory formation and empirical research on the Volunteer's Dilemma.

We study voluntary hostage posting - pledging a bond - as a commitment mechanism promoting trust, including trust in economic exchange. A hostage can promote trust by binding the trustee through reducing his incentives for abusing trust, by providing compensation for the trustor in case trust is abused, and by serving as a signal for the trustor about unobservable characteristics of the trustee that are related to the trustee's opportunities and incentives for abusing trust. We provide an integrated model that allows for a simultaneous analysis of how hostages promote trust through binding, compensation, and signaling. We model hostage posting as a mechanism of trust using a game with incomplete information and uncertainty. Our theorems provide conditions for equilibria such that a hostage is posted by the trustee and induces the trustor to place trust that is subsequently honored by the trustee. The article shows that equilibrium selection problems are not severe: the equilibria are unique or there are only few other equilibria with less appealing properties. Hence, the results can be used for predictions on trust based on hostage posting among rational actors.

Abstract
Various mechanisms are known that can stabilize trust relations. Examples are repeated interactions and credible commitments through warranties, deposits, and other kinds of 'hostages'. Usually, these mechanisms are studied in isolation from one another. An integrated analysis is widely neglected. In this note, the effects of a 'mix' of mechanisms are analyzed. A simple case is offered, where a combination of repeated interactions and credible commitments can stabilize trust, while neither of the mechanisms alone can do so.

This article analyzes the active and intentional modification of preferences as a mechanism of cooperation in "problematic" social situations (i.e., situations where individually rational behavior generates outcomes that are suboptimal in the Pareto sense). It is shown that an intentional modification of preferences in such situations can result in a generalization of Sen's Assurance Game preferences. As a formal framework for the analysis, a noncooperative N-person preference adaptation game is used. In this game, actors are able to choose effective preference orderings of outcomes in an underlying problematic situation. Under rather general conditions, mutual choice of generalized Assurance Game preferences is an ε-equilibrium point (Radner) in a preference adaptation game.