Games, Volume 9, Issue 3

Incentives shape how much people contribute to the welfare of a group. These incentives do not restrict the opportunities but they change the costs of contributions. This paper studies how the random assignment of such incentives affects perceived di...

We investigate, theoretically and experimentally, the effect of competition on risk taking in a contest in which players only decide on the level of risk they wish to take. Taking more risk implies a chance of a higher performance, but also implies a...

In a context where sustainable consumption and production need to be encouraged, economic experiments can provide significant insights into how individuals consider environmental externalities in their choices and how public policy can foster the env...

Using a laboratory experiment, we collected data on dictator giving among student strangers and married couples in a suburban area in the United States. Confirming common belief and prior empirical evidence, we find that giving among spouses is great...

To examine the stability of prosocial behavior in groups and pairs, we use an indirect approach. We conducted linear public good experiments with two and four subjects repeatedly three times at intervals of one week. All experiments were carried out...

We consider the problem of how to apply a generalized second price (GSP) auction to a buyer–seller network. GSP auctions are often used to sell online ads where buyers care about the position or placement of the ad. GSP auctions can also be app...

We experimentally study how people resolve a tension between favoritism and fairness when allocating a profit in a team production setting. Past research shows that people tend to favor their ingroup at the cost of an outgroup when allocating a given...

We study the strategies used by experimental subjects in repeated sequential prisoners’ dilemma games to identify the underlying motivations behind instrumental reciprocity, that is, reciprocation of cooperation only if there is future interact...

This paper examines a persuasion game between two agents with one-sided asymmetric information, where the informed agent can reveal her private information prior to playing a Battle-of-the-Sexes coordination game. There is a close connection between...

The development of a cancerous tumor requires affected cells to collectively display an assortment of characteristic behaviors that contribute differently to its growth. A heterogeneous population of tumor cells is far more resistant to treatment tha...

In this paper, a two-player constant-sum interval-valued 2-tuple linguistic matrix game is construed. The value of a linguistic matrix game is proven as a non-decreasing function of the linguistic values in the payoffs, and, hence, a pair of auxiliar...

Many anthropological records exist of seemingly worthless tokens exchanged in traditional societies. The most famous instances of such tokens are probably the Kula necklaces and armbands first described by B. Malinowski. In our experiment, each parti...

Game-theoretic models are a convenient tool to systematically analyze competitive situations. This makes them particularly handy in the field of security where a company or a critical infrastructure wants to defend against an attacker. When the optim...

In this paper, we provide a welfare ranking for the equilibria of the supply function and quantity competitions in a differentiated product duopoly with demand uncertainty. We prove that the expected consumer surplus is always higher under the supply...

This paper studies the spatial joint evolution of cooperative behavior and a partially assortative matching institution that protects cooperators. We consider cooperation as characterized by a cultural trait transmitted via an endogenous socializatio...

In this experiment, we test whether subjects’ responses to variations in the action set in a dictator game depends on induced group identities. The action set includes choices in which the dictator can either give money to or take money from th...

This paper reports results from controlled laboratory experiments on the Laffer curve and explores the productivity differences under the strategy method and the direct method. The data collected in Pakistan show no significant productivity differenc...

The multi-dimensional nature of social exclusion requires several perspectives in understanding its causes and consequences. Focus on the topic is largely centred around questions of material deprivation. However, as poverty and inequality are inextr...

We elicit individual-level peer-punishment types in a cooperation (social dilemma) and a coordination (weakest link) problem. In line with previous literature, we find heterogeneity in peer-punishment in both environments. Comparing punishment behavi...

Arad and Rubinstein (2012, AER) proposed the 11–20 money request game as an alternative to the P beauty contest game for measuring the depth of thinking. In this paper, we show theoretically that in the Nash equilibrium of the 11–20 game...

In certain critical infrastructures, correlations between cyber and physical components can be exploited to launch strategic attacks, so that disruptions to one component may affect others and possibly the entire infrastructure. Such correlations mus...

We experimentally investigate variants of the investment game by Berg, Dickhaut, and McCabe (1995), in which one of the two players decides who are first mover and second mover. It has been shown by Kleine, Königstein, and Rozsnyói (2014) that volunt...

We test the empirical content of the assumption of preference dependent beliefs using a behavioral model of strategic decision making in which the rankings of individuals over final outcomes in simple games influence their beliefs over the opponent&r...

This paper explores the role of cultural transmission in extortion. Extortion is modeled as an asymmetric contest where individuals from one group attempt to take from individuals in another group. Using a model of cultural transmission, this paper f...

In this article, we analyze the stability of couples on the marriage market. Recent developments in cooperative game theory allow a new model that uses team games which make it possible to model the marriage market. Coalition structures can model cou...

This paper examines the subgame-perfect equilibria in symmetric $2\times 2$ supergames. We solve the smallest discount factor value for which the players obtain all the feasible and individually rational payoffs as equilibrium payoffs. We show that the...

In public goods game experiments, designs implementing non-linearities in the production are less common than the standard linear setting, especially so under the assumption that the private goods production and public goods aggregation function are...

The evolution of social or biological species can be modeled as an evolutionary game with the equilibrium strategies of the game as prediction for the ultimate distributions of species in population, when some species may survive with positive propor...

Whereas game theorists and logicians use formal methods to investigate ideal strategic behavior, many cognitive scientists use computational cognitive models of the human mind to predict and simulate human behavior. In this paper, we aim to bring the...

Many public projects are funded in a dynamic manner in which contributors are able to make gradual increases in contributions and condition additional contributions on the cooperation of others. This study presents results from experiments in which s...

A simple expression is derived for the optimal strategy in the minimum effort game. This maps from player beliefs to an optimal effort level. From this expression the set of Nash equilibria in the game is fully characterized. All Nash equilibria are...

We consider non-zero sum bi-matrix games where one player presumes the role of a leader in the Stackelberg model, while the other player is her follower. We show that the leader can improve her reward if she can incentivise her follower by paying som...

In an experimental study, we compare individual willingness to cooperate in a public good game after an initial team contest phase. While players in the treatment setup make a conscious decision on how much to invest in the contest, this decision is...

Network games (NGs) are played on directed graphs and are extensively used in network design and analysis. Search problems for NGs include finding special strategy profiles such as a Nash equilibrium and a globally-optimal solution. The networks mode...

In a world affected by the constant growth and concentration of the population in urban areas, the problem of preserving natural resources has become a priority. A promising approach to resource conservation is demand management, i.e., the ability to...