Rand et al. (2013) present a finite population model to explain the evolution of fair behaviour in the ultimatum game. They find that mutation and selection can balance at population states that resemble human behaviour, in that responders on average evolve sizable thresholds for rejection, and...

We report experiments designed to test between Nash equilibria that are stable and unstable under learning. The “TASP” (Time Average of the Shapley Polygon) gives a precise prediction about what happens when there is divergence from equilibrium under fictitious play like learning processes....

There is continuing debate about what explains cooperation and self-sacrifice in nature and in particular in humans. This paper suggests a new way to think about this famous problem. I argue that, for an evolutionary biologist as well as a quantitative social scientist, the triangle of two...

This paper studies strongly symmetric equilibria (SSE) in continuous-time games of strategic experimentation with Poisson bandits. SSE payoffs can be studied via two functional equations similar to the HJB equation used for Markov equilibria. This is valuable for three reasons. First, these...

This paper reconsiders evidence from experimental common pool resource games from the perspective of a model of payoff sampling. Despite being parameter-free, the model is able to replicate some striking features of the data, including single-peaked frequency distributions, the persistent use of...

Attempts to curb illegal activity through regulation gets complicated when agents can adapt to circumvent enforcement. Economic theory suggests that conducting audits on a predictable schedule, and (counter-intuitively) at high frequency, can undermine the effectiveness of audits. We conduct a...

We analyze continuous-time games of strategic experimentation with two-armedbandits when there is no discounting. We show that for all specifications of priorbeliefs and payoff-generating processes that satisfy some separability condition, the unique symmetric Markov perfect equilibrium can be...

We describe an experiment based on a repeated two-person game of incomplete information designed so that Jordan's Bayesian model of learning in games and the best response model make completely opposite predictions. Econometric analysis of the experimental data, using the maximum likelihood...

Mixed Nash equilibria are a cornerstone of game theory, but their empirical relevance has always been controversial. We study in the laboratory two games whose unique NE is in completely mixed strategies; other treatments include the matching protocol (pairwise random vs population...