Instability of defection in the prisoner's dilemma under best experienced payoff dynamics

Srinivas Arigapudi, Yuval Heller and Igal Milchtaich

Journal of Economic Theory, 2021, vol. 197, issue C

Abstract: We study population dynamics under which each revising agent tests each action k times, with each trial being against a newly drawn opponent, and chooses the action whose mean payoff was highest during the testing phase. When k=1, defection is globally stable in the prisoner's dilemma. By contrast, when k>1 we show that, if the gains from defection are not too large, there exists a globally stable state in which agents cooperate with probability between 28% and 50%. Next, we characterize stability of strict equilibria in general games. Our results demonstrate that the empirically plausible case of k>1 can yield qualitatively different predictions than the case k=1 commonly studied in the literature.

Keywords: Learning; Cooperation; Best experienced payoff dynamics; Sampling equilibrium; Evolutionary stability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:197:y:2021:i:c:s0022053120301678

DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2020.105174

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