The theory of drift (Binmore and Samuelson 1999) concerns equilibrium selection in which second-order disturbances may have first-order effects in the emergence of one equilibrium over the other. We provided experimental evidence with human players supporting the model in Caminati, Innocenti and...

Restricting the analysis to general 2×2 coordination games, this article shows how under certain conditions, it is highly likely that individuals coordinate on a (pay-off) efficient through risk inferior convention. This contrasts with other equilibrium refinement criteria, such as risk...

In this paper, we examine several options for modeling local interactions within the framework of evolutionary game theory. Several examples show that there is a major difference between population dynamics using local dynamics versus global dynamics. Moreover, different modeling choices may...

Evolutionary game theory attempts to predict individual behavior (whether of humans or other species) when interactions between individuals are modeled as a noncooperative game. Most dynamic analyses of evolutionary games are based on their normal forms, despite the fact that many interesting...

We present two different mathematical models that examine the role of cellular evolution in the development and treatment of cancer. The first is a Lotka-Volterra model of an invasive cancer subjected to chemotherapy that demonstrates rapid evolution of drug-resistant phenotypes. The second...

In a number of evolutionary models the presence of mutations, or random components of choice, serve to refine predictions of long-run behavior. We analyze the effects of mutation rates that vary because of the presence of imitation. A full characterization of long-run outcomes is provided for...

Most contracts, whether between voters and politicians or between house owners and contractors, are incomplete. "More law," it typically is assumed, increases the likelihood of contract performance by increasing the probability of enforcement and/or the cost of breach. This paper studies a...

The class of “stable games”, introduced by Hofbauer and Sandholm in 2009, has the attractive property of admitting global convergence to equilibria under many evolutionary dynamics. We show that stable games can be identified as a special case of the feedback-system-theoretic notion of a...

We study the behavior of experimental subjects who have to make a sequence of risky investment decisions in the presence of network externalities. Subjects follow a simple heuristic – investing after positive experiences and reducing their propensity to invest after a failure. This result...