What Makes a Rule Complex?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Oprea, Ryan
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20191717
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 3913-3951
• 关键词: infinitely repeated games; TASK COMPLEXITY; COOPERATION; play

摘要

We study the complexity of rules by paying experimental subjects to implement a series of algorithms and then eliciting their willingness-to-pay to avoid implementing them again in the future. The design allows us to examine hypotheses from the theoretical automata literature about the characteristics of rules that generate complexity costs. We find substantial aversion to complexity and a number of regularities in the characteristics of rules that make them complex and costly for subjects. Experience with a rule, the way a rule is represented, and the context in which a rule is implemented (mentally versus physically) also influence complexity.