IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/iasawp/ir98103.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Efficiency of Adapting Aspiration Levels

Author

Listed:
  • M. Posch
  • A. Pichler
  • K. Sigmund

Abstract

Win-stay, lose-shift strategies in repeated games are based on an aspiration level. Amove is repeated if and only if the outcome, in the previous round, was satisficing in the sense that the payoff was at least as high as the aspiration level. We investigate the conditions under which adaptive mechanisms acting on the aspiration level (selection, for instance, or learning) can lead to an efficient outcome; in other words, when can satisficing become optimising? Analytic results for 2 X 2-games are presented. They suggest that in a large variety of social interactions, self-centered rules (based uniquely on one's own payoff) cannot suffice.

Suggested Citation

  • M. Posch & A. Pichler & K. Sigmund, 1998. "The Efficiency of Adapting Aspiration Levels," Working Papers ir98103, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
    • Handle: RePEc:wop:iasawp:ir98103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Publications/Documents/IR-98-103.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Publications/Documents/IR-98-103.ps
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John C. Harsanyi & Reinhard Selten, 1988. "A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582384, December.
    2. Martin Posch, 1997. "Cycling in a stochastic learning algorithm for normal form games," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 193-207.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anton M Unakafov & Thomas Schultze & Alexander Gail & Sebastian Moeller & Igor Kagan & Stephan Eule & Fred Wolf, 2020. "Emergence and suppression of cooperation by action visibility in transparent games," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-32, January.
    2. Cui Zhiwei & Zhai Jian & Liu Xuan, 2009. "The Efficiency of Observability and Mutual Linkage," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-36, July.
    3. Tanimoto, Jun, 2010. "The effect of assortativity by degree on emerging cooperation in a 2×2 dilemma game played on an evolutionary network," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(16), pages 3325-3335.
    4. Knudsen, Thorbjørn, 2008. "Reference groups and variable risk strategies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 22-36, April.
    5. Steffen Huck & Kai A. Konrad & Wieland Müller & Hans-Theo Normann, 2007. "The Merger Paradox and why Aspiration Levels Let it Fail in the Laboratory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(522), pages 1073-1095, July.
    6. Oechssler, Jorg, 2002. "Cooperation as a result of learning with aspiration levels," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 405-409, November.
    7. Walter Gutjahr, 2006. "Interaction dynamics of two reinforcement learners," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 14(1), pages 59-86, February.
    8. Cho, In-Koo & Matsui, Akihiko, 2005. "Learning aspiration in repeated games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 171-201, October.
    9. Marco Novarese & Salvatore Rizzello, 2003. "Satisfaction and Learning: an experimental game to measure happiness," Microeconomics 0306004, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Nathalie Greenan & Marc-Arthur Diaye & Patricia Crifo, 2004. "Pourquoi les entreprises évaluent-elles individuellement leurs salariés ?," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 164(3), pages 27-55.
    2. Bosch-Domènech, Antoni & Vriend, Nicolaas J., 2013. "On the role of non-equilibrium focal points as coordination devices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 52-67.
    3. van Damme, Eric & Hurkens, Sjaak, 1999. "Endogenous Stackelberg Leadership," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 105-129, July.
    4. Dennis L. Gärtner, 2022. "Corporate Leniency in a Dynamic World: The Preemptive Push of an Uncertain Future," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 119-146, March.
    5. Antonio Cabrales & Rosemarie Nagel & Roc Armenter, 2007. "Equilibrium selection through incomplete information in coordination games: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 221-234, September.
    6. Paul Pezanis-Christou & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2003. "Elicited bid functions in (a)symmetric first-price auctions," Working Papers 85, Barcelona School of Economics.
    7. Gabriele Camera & Cary Deck & David Porter, 2020. "Do economic inequalities affect long-run cooperation and prosperity?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(1), pages 53-83, March.
    8. Bervoets, Sebastian & Bravo, Mario & Faure, Mathieu, 2020. "Learning with minimal information in continuous games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(4), November.
    9. Simai He & Jay Sethuraman & Xuan Wang & Jiawei Zhang, 2017. "A NonCooperative Approach to Cost Allocation in Joint Replenishment," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 65(6), pages 1562-1573, December.
    10. Maarten C.W. Janssen, 1997. "Focal Points," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 97-091/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    11. Michael Kosfeld, 2002. "Stochastic strategy adjustment in coordination games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 20(2), pages 321-339.
    12. Sanjeev Goyal & Fernando Vega-Redondo, 2000. "Learning, Network Formation and Coordination," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0113, Econometric Society.
    13. Andrea Isoni & Robert Sugden & Jiwei Zheng, 2018. "The Pizza Night Game: Efficiency, Conflict and Inequality in Tacit Bargaining Games with Focal Points," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 18-01, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    14. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2005. "Government policy and the probability of coordination failures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 939-973, May.
    15. Smith, Lisa C. & Chavas, Jean-Paul, 1999. "Supply response of West African agricultural households," FCND discussion papers 69, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Fletschner, Diana K., 2000. "Enhancing Rural Women'S Access To Capital: Why It Is Important And How It Can Be Done. The Case Of Colombia," Staff Papers 12640, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    17. Pal, Rupayan, 2010. "Technology adoption in a differentiated duopoly: Cournot versus Bertrand," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 128-136, June.
    18. Giovanni Facchini & Freek van Megen & Peter Borm & Stef Tijs, 1997. "Congestion Models And Weighted Bayesian Potential Games," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 193-206, March.
    19. Zhang, Boyu & Hofbauer, Josef, 2016. "Quantal response methods for equilibrium selection in 2×2 coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 19-31.
    20. Dieter Balkenborg & Rosemarie Nagel, 2016. "An Experiment on Forward vs. Backward Induction: How Fairness and Level k Reasoning Matter," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 17(3), pages 378-408, August.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wop:iasawp:ir98103. 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: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iiasaat.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.