0000000000121862
AUTHOR
Pablo Brañas-garza
Inducing efficient conditional cooperation patterns in public goods games, an experimental investigation
This study analyses the behavior in a repeated public goods game when subjects know about the possibility of existence of strict conditional cooperators. We employed a baseline treatment and a threat treatment in which subjects are informed about the possibility of being in a group together with automata playing a grim trigger strategy. We conjecture the resulting game allows for almost fully efficient outcomes. Contributions in the threat treatment increase by 40% before a surprise restart, and by 50% after the surprise restart. In line with the grim trigger strategy subjects contribute either all or nothing in the threat treatment.
Sequential versus Simultaneous Schelling Models: Experimental Evidence
This article shows the results of experiments where subjects play the Schelling’s spatial proximity model. Two types of experiments are conducted: one in which choices are made sequentially and a variation of the first where the decision making is simultaneous. The results of the sequential experiments are identical to Schelling’s prediction: subjects finish in a segregated equilibrium. Likewise, in the variant of the simultaneous decision experiment, the same result is reached: segregation. Subjects’ heterogeneity generates a series of focal points in the first round. To locate themselves, subjects use these focal points immediately, and as a result, the segregation takes place again. Fur…
Expected Behavior and Strategic Sophistication in the Dictator Game
This paper provides novel results for the extensive literature on dictator games: recipients do not expect dictators to behave selfishly, but instead expect the equal split division. The predictions made by dictators are notably different: 45% predicted the zero contribution and 40% the equal split. These results suggest that dictators and recipients are heterogenous with regard to their degree of strategic sophistication and identify the dictator's decision power in a very different manner.