IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v160y2019icp68-82.html

Is Ignorance Bliss?

Author

Listed:
  • Yang, Yang

Abstract

This paper presents a two-round Prisoner’s Dilemma game with rematching between rounds involving two player types, ‘Giver’ and ‘Taker’. The former have more cooperative preferences than the latter. Two information conditions are compared: in one, player types are revealed before actions are chosen. In the other, types remain private information. In both cases first-round decisions are revealed to (new) partners in round 2. When the proportion of Givers is sufficiently high, a Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium (PBE) analysis for this game predicts that Givers discriminate based on opponents’ previous actions if type information is not revealed and, when type information is revealed, discriminate based on opponents’ type regardless of their previous actions. This implies the revelation of type information decreases cooperation. We study behavior in this game using a laboratory experiment. We observe that Givers discrimination as predicted by theory in both treatments. However, in contrast to the PBE prediction, we find players choose to cooperate more often when types are revealed. We show that an alternative theoretical approach based on image scoring can explain 60%–70% of our data.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang, Yang, 2019. "Is Ignorance Bliss?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 68-82.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:160:y:2019:i:c:p:68-82
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2019.02.025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268119300551
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.02.025?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glenn Ellison, 1994. "Cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma with Anonymous Random Matching," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 567-588.
    2. Uri Gneezy & John A. List & George Wu, 2006. "The Uncertainty Effect: When a Risky Prospect is Valued Less than its Worst Possible Outcome," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1283-1309.
    3. repec:bge:wpaper:405 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Zachary Grossman & Joël J. van der Weele, 2017. "Self-Image and Willful Ignorance in Social Decisions," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 173-217.
    5. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 1998. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring," Nature, Nature, vol. 393(6685), pages 573-577, June.
    6. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    7. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-954, August.
    8. Nagore Iriberri & Pedro Rey‐Biel, 2013. "Elicited beliefs and social information in modified dictator games: What do dictators believe other dictators do?," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(3), pages 515-547, November.
    9. Drew Fudenberg & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem In Repeated Games With Discounting Or With Incomplete Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 11, pages 209-230, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. M.A. Nowak & K. Sigmund, 1998. "Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity by Image Scoring/ The Dynamics of Indirect Reciprocity," Working Papers ir98040, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
    11. Diamond, Peter A, 1982. "Aggregate Demand Management in Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(5), pages 881-894, October.
    12. Yang, Yang & Onderstal, Sander & Schram, Arthur, 2016. "Inequity aversion revisited," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1-16.
    13. Dale T. Mortensen & Christopher A. Pissarides, 1994. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 397-415.
    14. Seinen, Ingrid & Schram, Arthur, 2006. "Social status and group norms: Indirect reciprocity in a repeated helping experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 581-602, April.
    15. Xiaojuan Hu & Cheng-Zhong Qin, 2013. "Information acquisition and welfare effect in a model of competitive financial markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(1), pages 199-210, September.
    16. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    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. Engelmann, Dirk & Fischbacher, Urs, 2009. "Indirect reciprocity and strategic reputation building in an experimental helping game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 399-407, November.
    2. Bolton, Gary E. & Katok, Elena & Ockenfels, Axel, 2005. "Cooperation among strangers with limited information about reputation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(8), pages 1457-1468, August.
    3. Stanca, Luca, 2009. "Measuring indirect reciprocity: Whose back do we scratch?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 190-202, April.
    4. Tim Kraft & León Valdés & Yanchong Zheng, 2018. "Supply Chain Visibility and Social Responsibility: Investigating Consumers’ Behaviors and Motives," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 617-636, October.
    5. Mitzkewitz, Michael & Neugebauer, Tibor, 2020. "Can intermediaries assure contracts? Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 354-368.
    6. Maria Bigoni & Gabriele Camera & Marco Casari, 2019. "Cooperation among strangers with and without a monetary system," Working Papers 19-01, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    7. Gaudeul, Alexia & Keser, Claudia & Müller, Stephan, 2021. "The evolution of morals under indirect reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 251-277.
    8. Danz, David & Engelmann, Dirk & Kübler, Dorothea, 2022. "Do legal standards affect ethical concerns of consumers?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    9. Roman M. Sheremeta & Jingjing Zhang, 2014. "Three-Player Trust Game With Insider Communication," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(2), pages 576-591, April.
    10. von Wangenheim, Georg & Müller, Stephan, 2014. "Evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas: signaling internalized norms," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100340, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. Servátka, Maros, 2010. "Does generosity generate generosity? An experimental study of reputation effects in a dictator game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 11-17, January.
    12. Greiff, Matthias & Paetzel, Fabian, 2016. "Second-order beliefs in reputation systems with endogenous evaluations – an experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 32-43.
    13. Servtka, Maros, 2009. "Separating reputation, social influence, and identification effects in a dictator game," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 197-209, February.
    14. Camera, Gabriele & Casari, Marco & Bigoni, Maria, 2012. "Cooperative strategies in anonymous economies: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 570-586.
    15. Gagen, Michael, 2013. "Isomorphic Strategy Spaces in Game Theory," MPRA Paper 46176, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2004. "Social norms and human cooperation," Macroeconomics 0409026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Jaakko Junikka & Lucas Molleman & Pieter van den Berg & Franz J Weissing & Mikael Puurtinen, 2017. "Assortment, but not knowledge of assortment, affects cooperation and individual success in human groups," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(10), pages 1-11, October.
    18. Misato Inaba & Nobuyuki Takahashi, 2018. "The use of reputation in repeated dyadic interactions," Rationality and Society, , vol. 30(1), pages 54-79, February.
    19. Song, Fei & Zhong, Chen-Bo, 2015. "You scratch his back, he scratches mine and I’ll scratch yours: Deception in simultaneous cyclic networks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 98-111.
    20. Yvan I. Russell & Yana Stoilova & Aura-Adriana Dosoftei, 2020. "Cooperation through Image Scoring: A Replication," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-15, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:jeborg:v:160:y:2019:i:c:p:68-82. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    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.