Individuals repeatedly face a multi-decision task with unknown payoff distributions. They have minimal memory and update their strategy by observing previous play (and not strategy) of someone else. We select behavior rules that increase average payoffs as often as possible in a large population where all use the same rule. Here imitation generalizes to a pasting procedure. When decisions within the task are unrelated, individuals eventually learn the efficient strategy but the underlying dynamic is not monotone. However, when choices influence which decisions are subsequently faced in the task, play may not be efficient in the long run as it approaches a Nash equilibrium of the agent normal form.
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Paper provided by University of Bonn, Germany in its series Discussion Paper Serie B with number
432.
Length: Date of creation: Apr 1998 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:bon:bonsfb:432
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Find related papers by JEL classification: C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games C79 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Other