Prudence, Justice, Benevolence, and Sex: Evidence from Similar Bargaining Games

Most learning experiments involve repeated play of exactly the same situation and, hence, can not discriminate between learning to use a deductive principle and other forms of routine learning. In this paper, subjects confront a sequence of similar, but not identical, bargaining games all of which can be solved using the same deductive principles. Conventions based on these deductive principles emerge within 70 periods in 5 of 26 eight-person cohorts. We found no economically significant differences between all male and all female cohorts. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, C78, C92, D83.     

Relative versus Absolute Speed of Adjustment in Strategic Environments: Responder Behavior in Ultimatum Games

Learning models predict that the relative speed at which players in a game adjust their behavior has a critical influence on long term behavior. In an ultimatum game, the prediction is that proposers learn not to make small offers faster than responders learn not to reject them. We experimentally test whether relative speed of learning has the predicted effect, by manipulating the amount of experience accumulated by proposers and responders. The experiment allows the predicted learning by responders to be observed, for the first time.     

Strategic Similarity and Emergent Conventions: Evidence from Similar Stag Hunt Games

This paper reports evidence on the origin of convention in laboratory cohorts confronting similar but not identical strategic situations repeatedly. The experiment preserves the action space of the game, while randomly perturbing the payoffs and scrambling the action labels in an effort to blunt the salience of retrospective selection principles. Hence, the similarity between stage games is reduced to certain strategic details, like efficiency, security, and risk dominance. Nevertheless, we do observe conventions emerging in half of the laboratory cohorts. When a convention emerges subjects's behavior conforms to the selection principles of efficiency rather than security or risk dominance. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, C78, C92, D83.     

Bargaining and Dilemma Games: From Laboratory Data Towards Theoretical Synthesis

Bargaining and dilemma games have developed in experimental economics as fairly separate literatures. More than a few analysts are now persuaded that the patterns of behavior in these games are closely related, and considerable effort is being put into a search for models that bridge the gap between the two types of games. I focus on a handful of models that, when taken together, outline the conceptual issues, and provide a sense of the progress that has already been made.     

Reinforcement-Based Adaptive Learning in Asymmetric Two-Person Bargaining with Incomplete Information

The sealed bidk-double auction is a mechanism used to structure bilateral bargaining under two-sided incomplete information. This mechanism is tested in two experiments in which subjects are asked to bargain repeatedly for 50 rounds with the same partner under conditions of information disparity favoring either the buyer (Condition BA) or seller (Condition SA). Qualitatively, the observed bid and offer functions are in agreement with the Bayesian linear equilibrium solution (LES) constructed by Chatterjee and Samuelson (1983). A trader favored by the information disparity, whether buyer or seller, receives a larger share of the realized gain from trade than the other trader. Comparison with previous results reported by Daniel, Seale, and Rapoport (1998), who used randomly matched rather than fixed pairs, shows that when reputation effects are present this advantage is significantly enhanced. A reinforcement-based learning model captures the major features of the offer and bid functions, accounting for most of the variability in the round-to-round individual decisions.     

Sex Differences in the Ultimatum Game: An Evolutionary Psychology Perspective

In the two-person ultimatum game, an allocator is required to split a given sum of money with a recipient. Subsequently the recipient can either accept or reject the offer. If it is accepted, both players receive their respective splits, while if it is rejected neither of them get anything. Using evolutionary psychology as the theoretical framework, we predicted and found that males made more generous offers when pitted against a female as opposed to a male. While females made equal offers independently of the sex of the recipient. That male allocators are altruistic towards female recipients and competitive with male recipients is construed as a manifestation of social rules, which evolve from the male pre-disposition to use resources for attracting mates. In contrast, females have not evolved such a pre-disposition, and thus, female allocators are more concerned about fairness when making offers to recipients. Several alternate explanations of the above findings are discussed and the evolutionary explanation is concluded as the most parsimonious one. Other potential moderators that are amenable to evolutionary explanations, namely, physical attractiveness, age and ethnicity of participants, are also discussed in this context. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Learning to Punish: Experimental Evidence from a Sequential Step-Level Public Goods Game

This paper studies how subjects in a three-person sequential step-level public good game learn to punish free riders more over time. Our current work makes several additions to the literature on other regarding behavior. First, our experiment provides evidence that subjects care about the actions that lead to an outcome as well as the outcome itself, replicating the results of A. Falk, E. Fehr and U. Fischbacher (Economic Inquiry, in press), J. Brandts and C. Solà (Games and Economic Behavior, 36(2), 138–157, 2001.) and J.H. Kagel and K. Wolfe (Working paper, Ohio State University, 1999). Second, our experiment provides one of the first tests of the newer theories of reciprocity by A. Falk and U. Fischbacher (Working paper, University of Zurich, 2000) and G. Charness and M. Rabin (Quarterly Journal of Economics, in press) that take a psychological games approach. We find that these theories fail to explain the experimental data. Finally, we examine the mechanism by which subjects learn to punish free-riding more ofter over time.     

Asymmetric Information in Simple Bargaining Games: An Experimental Study

Bilateral bargaining situations are often characterized by informational asymmetries concerning the size of what is at stake: in some cases, the proposer is better informed, in others, it is the responder. We analyze the effects of both types of asymmetric information on proposer behavior in two different situations which allow for a variation of responder veto power: the ultimatum and the dictator game. We find that the extent to which proposers demand less in the ultimatum as compared to the dictator game is (marginally) smaller when the proposer is in the superior information position. Further we find informed proposers to exploit their informational advantage by offering an amount that does not reveal the true size of the pie, with proposers in the ultimatum game exhibiting this behavioral pattern to a larger extent than those in the dictator game. Uninformed proposers risk imposed rejection when they ask for more than potentially is at stake, and ask for a risk premium in dictator games. We concentrate on proposers, but also explore responder behavior: We find uninformed responders to enable proposers’ hiding behavior, and we find proposer intentionality not to play an important role for informed responders when they decide whether to accept or reject an offer by an (uninformed) proposer.     

Reciprocity and Cooperation in Repeated Coordination Games: The Principled-Player Approach

Two long-lived players play a repeated coordination game. I show the restrictions on players' beliefs which imply that cooperation is optimal play. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: D83.     

Coordination and Information in Critical Mass Games: An Experimental Study

We present experimental results on a repeated coordination game with Pareto-ranked equilibria in which a payoff from choosing an action is positive only if a critical mass of players choose that action. We design a baseline version of the game in which payoffs remain constant for values above the critical mass, and an increasing returns version in which payoffs keep increasing for values above the critical mass. We test the predictive power of security and payoff-dominance under different information treatments. Our results show that convergence to the payoff-dominant equilibrium is the modal limit outcome when players have full information about others' previous round choices, while this outcome never occurs in the remaining treatments. The paths of play in some groups reveal a tacit dynamic coordination by which groups converge to the efficient equilibrium in a step-like manner. Moreover, the frequency and speed of convergence to the payoff-dominant equilibrium are higher, ceteris paribus, when increasing returns are present. Finally, successful coordination seems to crucially depend on players' willingness to signal to others the choice of the action supporting the efficient equilibrium.     

Learning to believe in nonrational expectations that support pareto-superior outcomes

I consider the prototype New Keynesian macroeconomic model with subjective demand expectations of firms. In this model the firms' objective demand is log-linear in their relative price. Firms believe that their demand curve is linear or log-linear in their absolute price. They estimate the parameters of this curve by least squares from past observations on prices and quantities. The wage rate either clears the labor market given firms' demand perceptions or is given in the short run and changes according to a linear Phillips curve. In either setup of the model the interplay between learning and price setting confirms the subjective model. Among the long-run equilibria are solutions at which the representative household attains a higher level of utility as compared to the rational-expectations outcome. If the supply of labor depends upon the real wage, money is not neutral.     

信任和学习对供应链竞争力的影响——基于中国汽摩配件产业的实证研究

本文运用供应链管理框架并结合战略文献,探索了中国汽摩配件产业中企业间的学习、信任以及供应链竞争力之间的关系。通过对长江三角洲地区81家汽摩配件制造企业的实证研究,本文构建了供应链战略关系的模型。该模型不仅可以很好地解释零配件制造企业如何成功地从契约、协议的范式转变到网络及创新的范式,也从信任和学习的角度解释了不同组合程度对供应链竞争力的影响。     

公司治理、经验学习与企业连续并购——基于我国上市公司并购决策的经验证据

文章以2004-2008年我国上市公司的1 480起并购事件为样本,运用事件历史分析方法研究了公司治理和经验学习对企业连续并购行为的影响。研究发现:(1)并购管理程序熟练程度和以往并购绩效反馈都会增加连续并购决策的发生概率;(2)国有股权、管理层持股比率的增加、CEO和董事长两职合一会促进企业连续并购的发生,而具有较高独立性的董事会则可能会降低企业并购的发生概率;(3)国有股权、管理层持股比率、董事会领导结构和董事会独立性会强化经验学习对并购决策的影响效果。     

Resolving Indeterminacy in Coordination Games: A New Approach Applied to a Pay-as-you-go Pension Scheme

This paper shows that when players ignore what outcome will emerge because of the presence of multiple equilibria, they can coordinate their expectations by forming an initial belief based on the principle of indifference followed by a process of reasoning that updates this belief. Since this procedure describes a natural way to form beliefs under indeterminacy, it is reasonable for every agent to conjecture that all the others form their beliefs according to the same logic. Exactly the fact that agents are aware that they form their beliefs following the same procedure allows them to successfully coordinate their expectations.      

The Role of Personality Temperament and Student Learning in Principles of Economics: Further Evidence

This note offers some critical comments on a previously published article ranking economics departments.     

The Transition from Stagnation to Growth: An Adaptive Learning Approach

This article develops the first model in which, consistentwith the empirical evidence, the transition from stagnation toeconomic growth is a very long endogenous process. The modelhas one steady state with a low and stagnant level of incomeper capita and another steady state with a high and growing levelof income per capita. Both of these steady states are locallystable under the perfect foresight assumption. We relax the perfectforesight assumption and introduce adaptive learning into thisenvironment. Learning acts as an equilibrium selection criterionand provides an interesting transition dynamic between steadystates. We find that for sufficiently low initial values of humancapital—values that would tend to characterize preindustrialeconomies—the system under learning spends a long periodof time (an epoch) in the neighborhood of the low-income steadystate before finally transitioning to a neighborhood of the high-incomesteady state. We argue that this type of transition dynamic providesa good characterization of the economic growth and developmentpatterns that have been observed across countries.     

基于时间维度的组织学习理论——组织从未来可能的情景中学习的模型

基于组织学习时空理论的时间维度,提出了组织从未来可能的情景中学习的模型。该模型包含四个方面:知,通过情景构建,从未来可能的情景中获取知识;行,将从未来可能的情景中学习到的知识运用于实践;知到行的转化;评估从未来可能的情景中学习的有效性。该模型详细阐述了这四个方面的方法和步骤,并提出了相应的管理措施。最后,总结了理论和实践贡献,并指出了存在的不足和未来的研究方向。     

The importance of government commitment in attracting firms: A dynamic analysis of tax competition in an agglomeration economy

Agglomeration tendencies of industrial firms significantly affect the nature of tax competition. This paper analyzes tax competition between two countries over an infinite time horizon in an economy with trade costs and internationally mobile industrial firms. Most of the previous studies on tax competition in the ‘new economic geography’ framework employ static models. In this study, two governments dynamically compete with each other to attract firms through their choices of taxes and subsidies. It is shown that the commitment of the governments to their policies is crucial in determining the distribution of firms in the long run. Specifically, if governments find each others׳ tax policies credible, then one country will attract all the firms when trade costs are low enough to make agglomeration forces dominant. If policies are not credible, both countries may attract an equal share of firms even when trade costs are low, as the lack of commitment by governments acts as a dispersion force.     

业主预期、学习经历与城镇住宅小区共享资源治理模式选择——来自南京市28个小区865个样本的证据

针对我国转型期城市发展过程中出现的住宅小区共享资源治理困境,从业主预期结构入手,考察住宅小区共享资源治理模式。通过对非可控的样本观测数据进行计量分析,得出结论：业主的“独立承担资源损益的预期”与“资源支配权的自我归属预期”之问能保持其偏好的逻辑关联,但“资源支配权的自我归属预期”与“共享资源自我治理模式选择的预期”没有显著的逻辑关联,即偏好发生变化;而通过模仿学习经历,业主能够达到和谐的认知状态,使得三类预期之问建立一致的逻辑关系。因此,要形成减轻政府财政负担的自我治理模式,必须让业主认识到自身的治理主体地位。