We propose a learning dynamic with agents using samples of past play to estimate the distribution of other players' strategy choices and best responding to this estimate. To account for noisy play, estimated distributions over other players' strategy choices have full support in the other...

This paper studies how external incentives can help agents to coordinate in summary-statistic games. Agents follow a myopic best-reply rule and face a trade-off between efficiency and strategic uncertainty. A principal can help agents to coordinate on the Pareto optimal equilibrium by monitoring...

This paper presents a Schelling-type checkerboard model of residential segregation formulated as a spatial game. It shows that although every agent prefers to live in a mixed-race neighborhood, complete segregation is observed almost all of the time. A concept of tipping is rigorously defined,...

In this paper we investigate how cognitive ability and character skills influence behavior, success and the evolution of play towards Nash equilibrium in repeated strategic interactions. We study behavior in a p-beauty contest experiment and find striking differences according to cognitive...

In this paper we investigate how cognitive ability and character skills influence behavior, success and the evolution of play towards Nash equilibrium in repeated strategic interactions. We study behavior in a p-beauty contest experiment and find striking differences according to cognitive...

This paper challenges recent results on the fragility of the value of commitment. It introduces a specific notion of the 'value of information' for a later-moving player about the action choice of a previously-moving player, gives conditions under which this value is positive and shows that a...

We present a model of neighborhood effects in wage payment delays. Positive feedback arises because each employer?s arrears affect the late payment costs faced by other firms in the same local labor market, resulting in a strategic complementarity in the practice. The model is estimated on panel...

Trust beliefs are heterogeneous across individuals and, at the same time, persistent across generations. We investigate one mechanism yielding these dual patterns: false consensus. In the context of a trust game experiment, we show that individuals extrapolate from their own type when forming...

In this paper we analyze the frequently observed phenomenon that (i) some members of a team ("black sheep") exhibit behavior disliked by other (honest) team members, who (ii) nevertheless refrain from reporting such misbehavior to the authorities (they set up a "wall of silence"). Much cited...

In many economic contexts, an elusive variable of interest is the agent's expectation about relevant events, e.g. about other agents' behavior. Recent experimental studies as well as surveys have asked participants to state their beliefs explicitly, but little is known about the causal relation...