Homo Sapiens Sapiens Meets Homo Strategicus at the Laboratory

Ludovic Renou and Ralph-C Bayer ()

No 08/16, Discussion Papers in Economics from Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester

Abstract: Homo Strategicus populates the vast plains of Game Theory. He knows all logical implications of his knowledge (logical omniscience) and chooses optimal strategies given his knowledge and beliefs (rationality). This paper investigates the extent to which the logical capabilities of Homo Sapiens Sapiens resemble those possessed by Homo Strategicus. Controlling for other-regarding preferences and beliefs about the rationality of others, we show, in the laboratory, that the ability of Homo Sapiens Sapiens to perform complex chains of iterative reasoning is much better than previously thought. Subjects were able to perform about two to three iterations of reasoning on average.

Keywords: iterative reasoning; depth of reasoning; logical omniscience; rationality; experiments; other-regarding preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 C91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-04, Revised 2008-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-hpe, nep-knm and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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