Epstein (1998) demonstrates that in the demographic Prisoner's Dilemma game it is possible to sustain cooperation in a repeated game played on a finite grid, where agents are spatially distributed and of fixed strategy type ('cooperate' or 'defect'). We introduce a methodology to formalize the...

We offer a game-theoretic proof of Hamilton's rule for the spread of altruism. For a simple case of siblings, we show that the rule can be derived as the outcome of a one-shot prisoner's dilemma game between siblings.

This paper studies an evolutionary model of network formation with endogenous decay, in which agents benefit both from direct and indirect connections. In addition to forming (costly) links, agents choose actions for a coordination game that determines the level of decay of each link. We address...

Traditional game theory usually relies on commonly known decision rationality meaning that choices are made in view of their consequences (the shadow of the future). Evolutionary game theory, however, denies any cognitive deliberation by assuming that choice behavior evolves due to its past...

Players from two populations, predictors and predictees, are randomly matched in a game--theoretic version of Newcomb's Problem. Predictors are able to predict the predictees' choices by observing their type. There are two types of predictees, those who take their predictability into account by...

In this paper we unify, simplify, and extend previous work on the evolutionary dynamics of symmetric N-player matrix games with two pure strategies. In such games, gains from switching strategies depend, in general, on how many other individuals in the group play a given strategy. As a...

We introduce a generalized theoretical approach to study imitation and subject it to rigorous experimental testing. In our theoretical analysis we find that the different predictions of previous imitation models are due to different informational assumptions, not to different behavioral rules....

A well-known result by Vega-Redondo implies that in symmetric Cournot oligopoly, imitation leads to the Walrasian outcome where price equals marginal cost. In this paper we show that this result is not robust to the slightest asymmetry in fixed costs. Instead of obtaining the Walrasian outcome...

It is well known that the rock-paper-scissors game has no pure saddle point. We show that this holds more generally: A symmetric two-player zero-sum game has a pure saddle point if and only if it is not a generalized rock-paper-scissors game. Moreover, we show that every finite symmetric...

Consider a population of farmers who live around a lake. Each farmer engages in trade with his m adjacent neighbors, where m is termed the span of interaction. Trade is governed by a prisoner's dilemma rule of engagement. A farmer's payoff is the sum of the payoffs from the m prisoner's dilemma...