A behavioral study of noise in coordination games

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mas, Michael; Nax, Heinrich H.
• 署名单位: University of Groningen; University of Groningen; Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2015.12.010
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 195-208
• 关键词: Behavioral game theory; discrete choice; EVOLUTION; learning; Logit response; stochastic stability; Trial-and-error

摘要

'Noise' in this study, in the sense of evolutionary game theory, refers to deviations from prevailing behavioral rules. Analyzing data from a laboratory experiment on coordination in networks, we tested 'what kind of noise' is supported by behavioral evidence. This empirical analysis complements a growing theoretical literature on 'how noise matters' for equilibrium selection. We find that the vast majority of decisions (96%) constitute myopic best responses, but deviations continue to occur with probabilities that are sensitive to their costs, that is, less frequent when implying larger payoff losses relative to the myopic best response. In addition, deviation rates vary with patterns of realized payoffs that are related to trial-and-error behavior. While there is little evidence that deviations are clustered in time or space, there is evidence of individual heterogeneity. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).