The Effect of Payoff Tables on Experimental Oligopoly Behavior

Özgür Gürerk and Reinhard Selten

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We explore the effects of the provision of an information-processing instrument - payoff tables - on behavior in experimental oligopolies. In one experimental setting, subjects have access to payoff tables whereas in the other setting they have not. It turns out that this minor variation in presentation has non-negligible effects on participants' behavior, particularly in the initial phase of the experiment. In the presence of payoff tables, subjects tend to be more cooperative. As a consequence, collusive behavior is more likely and quickly to occur.

Keywords: Collusion; Cournot oligopoly; payoff tables; bounded rationality; framing; presentation effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 D03 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-04-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-exp and nep-ind
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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/22489/1/MPRA_paper_22489.pdf original version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/34895/2/MPRA_paper_34895.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The effect of payoff tables on experimental oligopoly behavior (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:22489

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