IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iob/dpaper/2005003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Beyond indifferent players: on the existence of prisoners dilemmas in games with amicable and adversarial preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Horowitz, Andrew W.
  • Flôres, Renato G. Jr.

Abstract

Why don’t agents cooperate when they both stand to gain? This question ranks among the most fundamental in the social sciences. Explanations abound. Among the most compelling are various configurations of the prisoner’s dilemma (PD), or public goods problem. Payoffs in PD’s are specified in one of two ways: as primitive cardinal payoffs or as ordinal final utility. However, as final utility is objectively unobservable, only the primitive payoff games are ever observed. This paper explores mappings from primitive payoff to utility payoff games and demonstrates that though an observable game is a PD there are broad classes of utility functions for which there exists no associated utility PD. In particular we show that even small amounts of either altruism or enmity may disrupt the mapping from primitive payoff to utility PD. We then examine some implications of these results.

Suggested Citation

  • Horowitz, Andrew W. & Flôres, Renato G. Jr., 2005. "Beyond indifferent players: on the existence of prisoners dilemmas in games with amicable and adversarial preferences," IOB Discussion Papers 2005.03, Universiteit Antwerpen, Institute of Development Policy (IOB).
    • Handle: RePEc:iob:dpaper:2005003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/oldcontent/container2143/files/Publications/DP/2005/03-Horowitz-Flores.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. M. Browning & P. A. Chiappori, 1998. "Efficient Intra-Household Allocations: A General Characterization and Empirical Tests," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(6), pages 1241-1278, November.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation," International Economic Association Series, in: L.-A. Gérard-Varet & S.-C. Kolm & J. Mercier Ythier (ed.), The Economics of Reciprocity, Giving and Altruism, chapter 7, pages 153-173, Palgrave Macmillan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Falk Armin & Kosfeld Michael, 2012. "It's all about Connections: Evidence on Network Formation," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-36, September.
    2. Pingle, Mark & Mitchell, Mike, 2002. "What motivates positional concerns for income?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 127-148, February.
    3. Erin L. Krupka & Roberto A. Weber, 2013. "Identifying Social Norms Using Coordination Games: Why Does Dictator Game Sharing Vary?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 495-524, June.
    4. Chrysanthos Dellarocas & Charles A. Wood, 2008. "The Sound of Silence in Online Feedback: Estimating Trading Risks in the Presence of Reporting Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 460-476, March.
    5. Lauren Cohen & Andrea Frazzini & Christopher J. Malloy, 2012. "Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of "Independent" Directors," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(6), pages 1039-1058, June.
    6. Basov, S., 2001. "An Evolutionary Model of Reciprocity," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 812, The University of Melbourne.
    7. Jonathan D. Cohen, 2005. "The Vulcanization of the Human Brain: A Neural Perspective on Interactions Between Cognition and Emotion," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 3-24, Fall.
    8. Jung-Kyoo Choi, 2008. "Play locally, learn globally: group selection and structural basis of cooperation," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 239-257, December.
    9. Ramalingam, Abhijit, 2009. ""Endogenous" Relative Concerns: The Impact of Workers' Characteristics on Status and Pro ts in the Firm," MPRA Paper 18759, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Boddewyn, Jean J. & Peng, Mike W., 2021. "Reciprocity and informal institutions in international market entry," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 56(1).
    11. Funk, Matt, 2008. "On the Problem of Sustainable Economic Development: A Theoretical Solution to this Prisoner's Dilemma," MPRA Paper 19025, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Jun 2008.
    12. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2009. "How large are returns to schooling? Hint: Money isn't everything," NBER Working Papers 15339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Jan Schnellenbach, 2006. "Appeasing nihilists? Some economic thoughts on reducing terrorist activity," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 301-313, December.
    14. Jessica L. Cohen & William T. Dickens, 2002. "A Foundation for Behavioral Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 335-338, May.
    15. Matt Parrett, 2006. "An Analysis of the Determinants of Tipping Behavior: A Laboratory Experiment and Evidence from Restaurant Tipping," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(2), pages 489-514, October.
    16. Tarui, Nori & Mason, Charles F. & Polasky, Stephen & Ellis, Greg, 2008. "Cooperation in the commons with unobservable actions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 37-51, January.
    17. Cullis, John & Jones, Philip & Soliman, Amal, 2012. "‘Spite effects’ in tax evasion experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 418-423.
    18. Fahr, René, 2006. "The Wage Effects of Social Norms: Evidence of Deviations from Peers’ Body-Mass in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 2323, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Dur, Robert & Roelfsema, Hein, 2010. "Social exchange and common agency in organizations," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 55-63, January.
    20. Mirco Tonin & Michael Vlassopoulos, 2014. "An experimental investigation of intrinsic motivations for giving," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 76(1), pages 47-67, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iob:dpaper:2005003. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Hans De Backer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iobuabe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.