This paper uses a laboratory experiment to study beliefs and their relationship to action and strategy choices in finitely and indefinitely repeated prisoners' dilemma games. We find subjects' beliefs about the other player's action are accurate despite some systematic deviations corresponding...

It is shown that a win-stay, lose-hift behavior rule with endogenous aspiration levels yields cooperation in a certain class of games. The aspiration level in each round equals the current population average. The class of games includes the prisoner's dilemma and Cournot oligopoly and thus...

Globally, at least 11 million people are held in prisons and other penal institutions, a number which has increased by more than 10 percent over the past decade. Prisoners often come from marginalized groups in society with limited economic opportunities, and children in prison are mostly those...