IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Strategy choice in the infinitely repeated prisoners' dilemma

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Dal Bó, Pedro
  • Fréchette, Guillaume R.

Abstract

We use a novel experimental design to identify the subjects' strategies in an infinitely repeated prisoners' dilemma experiment. We ask subjects to design strategies that will play in their place. We find that eliciting strategies has negligible effects on their behavior, supporting the validity of this method. We find the chosen strategies include some common ones such as Tit-For-Tat and Grim trigger. However, other strategies that are considered to have desirable properties, such as Win-Stay-Lose-Shift, are not prevalent. We also find that the strategies used to support cooperation change with the parameters of the game. Finally, our results confirm that long-run miscoordination can arise.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/86146/1/770688586.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) in its series Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change with number SP II 2013-311.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: 2013
Handle: RePEc:zbw:wzbeoc:spii2013311
Contact details of provider: Postal:
Reichpietschufer 50, 10785 Berlin, Germany

Phone: ++49 - 30 - 25491 - 0
Fax: ++49 - 30 - 25491 - 684
Web page: http://www.wzb.eu/
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords: infinitely repeated games; prisoner's dilemma; cooperation; strategies; experimental economics;

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Jim Engle-Warnick & Robert Slonim, 2006. "Inferring repeated-game strategies from actions: evidence from trust game experiments," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 28(3), pages 603-632, 08.
  2. Guth, Werner & Huck, Steffen & Rapoport, Amnon, 1998. "The limitations of the positional order effect: Can it support silent threats and non-equilibrium behavior?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 313-325, February.
  3. Timothy N Cason & Vai-Lam Mui, 2008. "Coordinating Collective Resistance Through Communication And Repeated Interaction," Monash Economics Working Papers 16/08, Monash University, Department of Economics.
  4. Andrews, Donald W. K., 1998. "Hypothesis testing with a restricted parameter space," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 155-199, May.
  5. 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.
  6. Imhof, Lorens & Nowak, Martin & Fudenberg, Drew, 2007. "Tit-for-Tat or Win-Stay, Lose-Shift?," Scholarly Articles 3200671, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  7. Aoyagi, Masaki & Fréchette, Guillaume, 2009. "Collusion as public monitoring becomes noisy: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 1135-1165, May.
  8. Jordi Brandts & Gary Charness, 2000. "Hot vs. Cold: Sequential Responses and Preference Stability in Experimental Games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(3), pages 227-238, March.
  9. Fudenberg, Drew & Dreber, Anna & Rand, David G. & Nowak, Martin, 2008. "Winners Don't Punish," Scholarly Articles 2252594, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  10. Christopher Phelan & Ennio Stacchetti, 2001. "Sequential Equilibria in a Ramsey Tax Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1491-1518, November.
  11. Rotemberg, Julio J & Saloner, Garth, 1986. "A Supergame-Theoretic Model of Price Wars during Booms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 390-407, June.
  12. Engle-Warnick, J. & Slonim, Robert L., 2006. "Learning to trust in indefinitely repeated games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 95-114, January.
  13. Duffy, John & Ochs, Jack, 2009. "Cooperative behavior and the frequency of social interaction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 785-812, July.
  14. ENGLE-WARNICK, Jim & McCAUSLAND, William J. & MILLER, John H., 2004. "The Ghost in the Machine: Inferring Machine-Based Strategies from Observed Behavior," Cahiers de recherche 15-2004, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
  15. Gabriele Camera & Marco Casari, 2009. "Cooperation among Strangers under the Shadow of the Future," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 979-1005, June.
  16. Hans-Theo Normann & Brian Wallace, 2012. "The impact of the termination rule on cooperation in a prisoner’s dilemma experiment," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 41(3), pages 707-718, August.
  17. Pedro Dal Bó, 2005. "Cooperation under the Shadow of the Future: Experimental Evidence from Infinitely Repeated Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1591-1604, December.
  18. Drew Fudenberg & David G. Rand & Anna Dreber, 2012. "Slow to Anger and Fast to Forgive: Cooperation in an Uncertain World," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 720-749, April.
  19. Thomas R. Palfrey & Howard Rosenthal, 1994. "Repeated Play, Cooperation and Coordination: An Experimental Study," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(3), pages 545-565.
  20. Engle-Warnick, Jim & Slonim, Robert L., 2004. "The evolution of strategies in a repeated trust game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 553-573, December.
  21. Feinberg, Robert M & Husted, Thomas A, 1993. "An Experimental Test of Discount-Rate Effects on Collusive Behaviour in Duopoly Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 153-160, June.
  22. Lisa Bruttel & Ulrich Kamecke, 2012. "Infinity in the lab. How do people play repeated games?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 72(2), pages 205-219, February.
  23. Jeannette Brosig & Joachim Weimann & Chun-Lei Yang, 2003. "The Hot Versus Cold Effect in a Simple Bargaining Experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 6(1), pages 75-90, June.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Dreber, Anna & Fudenberg, Drew & Rand, David G., 2014. "Who cooperates in repeated games: The role of altruism, inequity aversion, and demographics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 41-55.
  2. repec:eee:ecolet:v:155:y:2017:i:c:p:1-4 is not listed on IDEAS
  3. Kamei, Kenju, 2015. "Endogenous Reputation Formation: Cooperation and Identity under the Shadow of the Future," MPRA Paper 61657, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  4. DeAngelo, Gregory & McCannon, Bryan C., 2017. "Theory of Mind predicts cooperative behavior," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 1-4.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:wzbeoc:spii2013311. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (ZBW - German National Library of Economics)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.