I examine the generalizability of a broad range of prominent learning models in explaining contribution patterns in repeated linear public goods games. Experimental data from twelve previously published papers are considered in testing several learning models in terms of how accurately they...

Previous research has shown that opportunities for two-sided partner choice in finitely repeated social dilemma games can promote cooperation through a combination of sorting and opportunistic signaling, with late period defections by selfish players causing an end-game decline. How such...

Previous research has shown that opportunities for two-sided partner choice in finitely repeated social dilemma games can promote cooperation through a combination of sorting and opportunistic signaling, with late period defections by selfish players causing an end-game decline. How such...

This paper explores the question whether boundedly rational agents learn to behave optimally when asked to voluntarily contribute to a public good. The decision process of individuals is described by an Evolutionary Algorithm. We analyze the learning process of purely and impurely altruistic...

We use a limited information environment to mimic the state of confusion in an experimental, repeated public goods game. The results show that reinforcement learning leads to dynamics similar to those observed in standard public goods games. However, closer inspection shows that individual decay...

This paper studies a game of strategic experimentation in which the players have access to two-armed bandits where the risky arm distributes lumpsum payoffs according to a Poisson process with unknown intensity. Because of free-riding, there is an inefficiently low level of experimentation in...

This paper studies a game of strategic experimentation with two-armed bandits whose risky arm might yield a payoff only after some exponentially distributed random time. Because of free-riding, there is an inefficiently low level of experimentation in any equilibrium where the players use...

We study behavior in repeated interactions when agents have no information about the structure of the underlying game and they cannot observe other agents' actions or payoffs. Theory shows that even when players have no such information, simple payoff-based learning rules eventually lead to...

The public goods problem or the “tragedy of the commons,” (Hardin, 1968) either viewed as a problem of extraction or that of contribution has had a rich history in Economics and indeed in other social sciences like Anthropology, Sociology and Political Science. Our research examines free...