This paper reports experiments designed to study strategic sophistication, the extent to which behavior in games reflects attempts to predict others' decisions, taking their incentives into account. We studied subjects' initial responses to normal-form games with various patterns of iterated...

Industrial organization is mainly concerned with the behavior of large firms. Experimental industrial organization therefore faces a problem: How can firms be brought into the laboratory? The main approach relies on framing: Call individuals “firms”! This experimental approach is not in line...

We present a set of experimental coordination games with a payoff-dominant and a risk-dominant Nash equilibrium. We examine how much local interaction structures affect players' strategy choices. Our three major observations are the following: First, local interaction with open neighborhoods...

In a series of experimental effort games each of two players may choose between remuneration based on either private or team effort. Although at least one of the players has the subgame perfect equilibrium strategy to choose remuneration based on private effort, we frequently observe team...

A conjecture of Laffer, which had considerable influence on fiscal doctrine, is that tax revenues of a Leviathan state eventually decrease when the tax rate exceeds a threshold value. We conduct a real effort experiment, in which a worker is matched with a non-working partner, to elicit the...

We examine decision making in a simple supplier-retailer wholesale price contract in the experimental economics laboratory. We observe wholesale prices and order quantities below the game-theoretical predictions. The supply chain's efficiency is as predicted but profits are more equitably...

In an experimental 2x2 coordination game with two strict equilibria we observe that, in contrast to equilibrium selection theory (Harsanyi and Selten 1988), only half of the subjects choose the strategy that relates to the payoff- and risk-dominant equilibrium. We propose modified risk dominance...

We describe non-cooperative game models and discuss game theoretic solution<br/>concepts. Some applications are also noted. Conventional theory focuses on the<br/>question ‘how will rational players play?’, and has the Nash equilibrium at its core.<br/>We discuss this concept and its interpretations, as...

In the games with population uncertainty introduced in this paper, the number and identity of the participating players are determined by chance.Games with population uncertainty are shown to include Poisson games and random-player games.The paper focuses on those strategy profiles that are most...

Networks can have an important effect on economic outcomes. Given the complexity of many of these networks, agents will generally not know their structure. We study the sensitivity of game-theoretic predictions to the specification of players’ (common) prior on the network in a setting where...