Facing the Grim Truth: Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma Against Robot Opponents by Tatiana Kornienko

Join us for this week's event in the Experimental Economics Seminar Series, Autumn Term 2023

Join Tatiana Kornienko from the School of Economics, University of Edinburgh as they present their research on Facing the Grim Truth: Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma Against Robot Opponents. 

Abstract

Cooperation in repeated interactions is important for much socio-economic activity. In this paper we put subjects in the simplest dynamic setting that can rationalize cooperative behavior while eliminating confounding factors such as multiple equilibria, strategic uncertainty, and other regarding concerns. We find that, over all supergames, only 1-2% of subjects behave perfectly consistently with rational choice predictions, and only 3-5% behave consistently with the theory at least 95% percent of the time. These low frequencies suggest that the rational choice framework used to explain cooperative behavior may not be empirically relevant, either in the standard subject pool or in a more representative online subject pool. We document that while the majority of subjects make dominated choices resulting in money left on the table, a substantial minority are able to earn payoffs in excess of rational choice predictions by “endtiming”, or gambling on the end to a supergame.

This seminar will be held in the Economics Common Room on Wednesday 18 October 2023 at 11.00am. This event is open to all levels of study and is also open to the public. To register your place, please contact the seminar organisers.

This event is part of the Experimental Economics Research Seminar Series.