Exploitable actions of believers in the law of small numbers in repeated constant-sum games

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Scroggin, Steven
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California San Diego
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2005.11.001
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 219-235
• 关键词: Behavioral economics; Experimental economics; bounded rationality; local representativeness; game theory

摘要

In repeated fixed-pair constant-sum games with unique equilibria in mixed strategies, such as matching pennies, the subgame perfect equilibrium is repeating the stage-game mixed-strategy equilibrium action. In such games rational players avoid strategies that are exploitable, in that current actions either deviate systematically from the equilibrium action probabilities or fail to be serially independent of past actions. I revisit classic experiments and find that subjects' actions are sometimes exploitable because they are serially dependent. Subjects have difficulty in producing serially independent actions and in recognizing serially dependent sequences due to a bias called local representativeness. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.