One of the central predictions of the life cycle hypothesis is that individuals smooth consumption over their economic life cycle; thus, they save when income is high, in order to provide for when income is likely to be low, such as after retirement. We test this prediction in a group of...

Film studios occasionally withhold movies from critics before their release. Because the unreviewed movies tend to be below average in quality, this practice provides a useful setting in which to test models of limited strategic thinking: Do moviegoers seem to realize that no review is a sign of...

To understand the thinking process in private information games, we use “Mousetracking†to record which payoffs subjects attend to. The games have three information states and vary in strategic complexity. Subjects consistently deviate from Nash equilibrium choices and often fail to...

This chapter reviews recent experimental data testing game theory and behavioral models that have been inspired to explain those data. The models fall into four groups: in cognitive hierarchy or level-k models, the assumption of equilibrium is relaxed by assuming agents have beliefs about other...

We examine the phenomenon of escalation from an economist's perspective, emphasizing explanations which do not rule out rational behavior on the part of firms or agents. We argue that escalation cannot be established as a separate phenomenon unless these possible alternative explanations are...

EWA Lite is a one-parameter theory of learning in normal-form games. It approximates the free parameters in an earlier model (EWA) with functions of experience. The theory is tested on seven different games and compared to other learning and equilibrium theories. Either EWA Lite or parameterized...