Taking seriously the philosophical foundations of classical strategic theories of choice-making we scrutinize to what extent planning on equilibrium strategies can be justified "eductively" among rational players and how this can be utilizes to analyze games by their "game-like" sub-structures,...

Problems of social coordination can be formalized as non-cooperative games with several equilibria. We know that in such situations serious problems of equilibrium selection arise which cannot be solved by traditional game theoretical reasoning. Conventions seem to be a powerful tool to solve...

Recent experimental results show that equilibrium selection in coordination games exhibits remarkable regularities. We analyze three important determinants for equilibrium selection in coordination games, the size of the population of players, the number of periods during which players interact...

In plausible theories of bounded rationality actors are not stimulus-response machines but human beings. As such they are guided by theories that predict the course of the world and prescribe how they should try to intervene in that course. Since boundedly rational human beings cannot only...

The phenomenon of predating predators requires at least three specimens to whom we refer as players 1, 2, and 3. Player 1 has simply to guess nature when trying to find food. Player 2 is hunting player 1 in the hope that 1 is well fed but must also avoid being hunted by player 3. One major...

In this paper we report experimental results that relate to the recprocity experiment of Berg, Dickhaut, and McCabe (1995). We consider direct reciprocity, which means to respond in kind to another person, and indirect reciprocity, understoode as rewarding someone else. Another variation conerns...

Experimental studies have shown that trust and reciprocity are effective in increasing efficiency when complete contracting is infeasible. One example is the study by Berg et al. (1995) of the investment game. In this game the person who receives the investment is the one who may reward the...

One of the long-standing questions in economics is whether or not wages will fall sufficiently in recessions so as to avoid increases in unemployment. Put differently, if the competitive market wage declines, will employers simply force their employees to accept lower wages as well? As an...