In-class Simulations of the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Game

The author developed a simple computer program for the in-class simulation of the repeated prisoner's dilemma game with student-designed strategies. He describes the basic features of the software and presents two examples for the use of the program in teaching the problems of cooperation among profit-maximizing agents.     

Reciprocity and Giving in a Consecutive Three‐Person Dictator Game with Social Interaction

We study pure indirect reciprocity by setting up a modified dictator game with three players A, B, and C acting sequentially. Subject A takes a share of a pie and passes the rest to subject B, while B divides the rest between herself and C. We find that this consecutive three‐person dictator game increases generosity compared with the traditional two‐person dictator game. We analyze the influence of social interaction and uncertainty. In treatments with certainty we observe pure indirect reciprocity: B indirectly reciprocates for A's behavior in the decision on how generous to be to C.     

Lying,Integrity, and Cooperation

While talk is cheap to some, it is expensive to others for whom moral considerations come into play. We employ a simple two-stage modified prisoner's dilemma game where integrity is endowed on a continuum to analyze when agents will lie in random economic interactions. If there is sufficient integrity in the population, all agents make a promise in the first stage to cooperate in the second. Some agents always lie, some always tell the truth, and some behave conditionally. Enhanced cooperation is a byproduct of integrity. In a second random interaction without the possibility of exit, some agents “switch” their behavior, that is, some who lied in the first period now tell the truth in the second (they've “reformed”), and some who told the truth in the first period now lie in the second (they've become “cynical”).     

Measuring Motivations for the Reciprocal Responses Observed in a Simple Dilemma Game

A reciprocal action is an action meant to have a similar influence on another's payoff as another's action has on one's own. One hypothesis asserts that reciprocal action is triggered by the reciprocator's belief that another's action was good or ill intended. The other hypothesis says that the reciprocator is simply acting to implement fixed preferences over payoff allocations. We report on an experiment that allows us to study both positive (reward) and negative (punishment) reciprocal action in a single framework. Knowing the preferences for payoff allocations is sufficient to account for nearly all the reciprocal action we observe in our experiment.     

The Impact of Social Comparisons on Reciprocity*

In this paper, we investigate how social comparison information about referent others (i.e., learning what similar others do, and how they are treated) affects reciprocal relationships. Using three‐person gift‐exchange games, we study how employees’ reciprocity towards an employer is affected by pay comparison information (what co‐workers earn) and effort comparison information (how co‐workers perform). We find strong evidence of the effects of effort comparison: employees are more willing to reciprocate by choosing high effort in response to a high wage if they observe others doing so. In our setting, we find somewhat weaker evidence of the effects of pay comparison.     

When a Precedent of Donation Favors Defection in the Prisoner's Dilemma

Abstract. In this paper, we examine the question of whether a collective activity can influence cooperation in a subsequent repeated one‐shot prisoner's dilemma (PD) game. We conduct two series of experiments. The first consists of control experiments in which 30 periods of a PD game are played, with a random rematching of the pairs in every period. In a second series of experiments, subjects first play a donation game (DG) and then the PD game. In the DG, they collectively discuss the amount of a donation to a given charity, before putting the question to an individual and anonymous vote. Cooperation levels in the PD games preceded by the DG are significantly lower than those observed in the control experiment.     

基于政府型强互惠的共享意义制度化的均衡与内卷

政府型强互惠将那些共享意义的习惯、习俗以具体的形式固定下来,实现制度化。当制度演化收敛于某一均衡点时,群体成员对于现行的规范体系不再有异动的要求,于是制度在均衡状态下表现为被简单的遗传复制,从而强互惠的政府就无须再对这些制度的强互惠投入成本,制度演化也自发地达成了均衡状态。在自发式内卷和强互惠式内卷两种力量共同作用下,制度会呈现长期低效率的锁定状态。     

防范国企经营者合谋：不对称信息的“囚徒困境”博弈

如何防范国企经营者和主管部门官员之间合谋侵占国有企业的生产剩余,一直是政府部门和学术界关注的焦点问题。本文根据Laffont和Martimort等在委托-代理框架下提出的分权制思想,构建了防范国企经营者合谋的"囚徒困境"博弈模型。但由于基于"囚徒困境"博弈所构建的双重审核机制可能产生过高的审查成本,且其实施受到主管官员有限责任的限制,因此通过引入不对称信息进一步改进了"囚徒困境"博弈,使不合谋的均衡结果能在更宽松的条件下实现。     

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.     

Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History: A Re-examination

Berg et al. (Games and Economic Behavior, 10, pp. 122–142, 1995) study trust and reciprocity in an investment setting. They find significant amounts of trust and reciprocity and conclude that trust is a guiding behavioral instinct (a primitive in their terminology). We modify the way information is presented to participants and, through a questionnaire, prompt strategic reasoning. To our surprise, none of our various treatments led to a reduction in the amount invested. Previously reported experimental results to the contrary did not survive replication. Our results suggest that those by Berg, Dickhaut, and McCabe are rather robust to changes in information presentation and strategic reasoning prompts. We discuss the implications of these findings.     

Subjective Performance Evaluations and Reciprocity in Principal–Agent Relations

We conduct a laboratory experiment with agents working on, and principals benefiting from, a real effort task in which the agents' performance can only be evaluated subjectively. Principals give subjective performance feedback to agents, and agents have an opportunity to sanction principals. In contrast to existing models of reciprocity, we find that agents tend to sanction whenever the feedback of principals is below their subjective self‐evaluations even if agents' pay‐offs are independent of it. In turn, principals provide more positive feedback (relative to their actual performance assessment of the agent) if this does not affect their pay‐off.     

公平与互惠理论视角的知识员工激励

知识员工的特性使得基于理性人假设的经济契约不能进行有效激励。本文建立了基于知识员工互惠性的委托-代理模型。研究结果显示,新模型的最优委托-代理合约可给委托人带来比传统的委托-代理最优合约更高的利润水平。     

Which hat to wear? Impact of natural identities on coordination and cooperation

As the workforce becomes increasingly diverse, motivating individuals from different backgrounds to work together effectively is a major challenge facing organizations. In an experiment conducted at a large public university in the United States, we manipulate the salience of participants' multidimensional natural identities and investigate the effects of identity on coordination and cooperation in a series of minimum-effort and prisoner's dilemma games. By priming a fragmenting (ethnic) identity, we find that, compared to the control, participants are significantly less likely to choose high effort in the minimum-effort games, leading to less efficient coordination. In comparison, priming a common organization (school) identity significantly increases the choice of a rational joint payoff maximizing strategy in a prisoner's dilemma game.     

Institutionalized Consumption Patterns in Underdeveloped Countries

In matters of public policy, economists often design incentives and constraints so that economic actors with unrestricted preferences (including the self-interested motivations of homo economicus) will implement socially desired allocations. This paradigm, which dates to Machiavelli, contrasts sharply with an earlier approach, initiated by Aristotle, in which good governance entailed the cultivation of good citizens. Modern mechanism design, contract theory, and behavioral economics provide a critical perspective on the Machiavellian paradigm, and suggest a reformulation along more Aristotelian lines.     

Consumption,Identity, and the Sociocultural Constitution of “Preferences”: Reading Women's Magazines

This paper shows how the concept of identity may figure importantly into shifts in preferences and patterns of consumption. We explore the 1970s emergence of the “working woman” – a woman who worked outside the home and regarded work as central to her identity. Women's magazines were especially involved in working out the “working woman” image, stressing how products could be used to attain her readily-identifiable appearance and efficient, pleasant home life. As such, they played into a shift in social valuation of female identities – away from those centered on traditional feminine pursuits, towards those centered on intensified labor-force involvement, consumerism, and commodified private life.     

Patents,imitation and welfare

We consider the effects of product and process patents on profits and welfare. In a duopoly model, we show that if the cost of imitation is not very large, prisoner's dilemma occurs under process patent, thus creating lower profit of each firm under process patent than under product patent. Welfare is higher under process (product) patent for very small (not very small) cost of imitation. Although the possibility of cross-licensing never makes lower welfare under process patent for all costs of imitation, welfare is never lower under product patent under infinitely repeated game.     

Poverty as social deprivation: a survey

The concept of poverty is discussed using qualitative and quantitative measures as an indicator for social deprivation. Poverty can be absolute, relative, income based, consumption based, or entitlement based. The variation in the concept of poverty reveals its dimensionality. However, when closely examined, these dimensions are seen to be conceptually interrelated and complementary rather than substitutable. The concept used to define poverty determines the methods employed to measure it. Composite indicators can hide important policy messages inherent in their constituent variables.     

新型城镇化进程中流动人口的社会保障困境分析

中国自城镇化以来,大量农村人口走出了农村,但由于社会保障制度及其配套政策的残缺,他们无法真正融入城市,"流动"成为这一群体的主要特征。新型城镇化的核心是"人"的城镇化,流动人口的社会保障问题成为制约新型城镇化进程的瓶颈和关键。通过分析流动人口社会保障面临的困境及其成因,另辟蹊径地提出发展县域经济,以小城镇为过渡的化解对策。     

关于解决主权债重组问题的讨论:基于博弈均衡的分析框架

集中于国际主权债重组的理论诠释,并通过对主权债重组中的两个问题--集体行动困境和道德风险的博弈模型建立和分析,讨论如何建立一个解决主权债务重组问题的机制,使遇到债务困难的国家和债权人循此机制解决问题从而减少债权债务双方的损失,总结出处理主权债务问题应特别考虑的几个关系,提出一些启发性的政策建议.