The Tennis Coach Problem: A Game-Theoretic and Experimental Study

Arad Ayala
Additional contact information
Arad Ayala: Tel Aviv University, aradayal@post.tau.ac.il

The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, 2012, vol. 12, issue 1, 43

Abstract: The paper introduces a new allocation game, related to Blotto games: each tennis coach assigns his four different skilled players to four positions, and then each team plays all other teams in the tournament. The winning team is the one with the highest total score.The set of equilibria is characterized and experimental behavior in variants of the game is analyzed in light of an adapted level-k model which is based on an appealing specification of the starting point (Level-0). The results exhibit a systematic pattern- a majority of the subjects used a small number of strategies. However, although level-k thinking is naturally specified in this context, only a limited use of (low) level-k thinking was found. These findings differ from those obtained in previous studies, which found high frequencies of level-k reasoning among subjects in various games. Thus, the results illuminate some bounds of the level-k approach.

Keywords: level-k thinking; tennis coach problem; experimental game theory; colonel Blotto (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/1935-1704.1738 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:bejtec:v:12:y:2012:i:1:n:10

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/bejte/html

DOI: 10.1515/1935-1704.1738

Access Statistics for this article

The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics is currently edited by Burkhard C. Schipper

More articles in The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().