Learning in and about Games

Anke Gerber

No 234, IEW - Working Papers from Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: We study finitely repeated 2 / 2 normal form games, where players have incomplete information about their opponents� payoffs. In a laboratory experiment we investigate whether players (a) learn the game they are playing, (b) learn to predict the behavior of their opponent, and (c) learn to play according to a Nash equilibrium of the repeated game. Our results show that the success in learning the opponent�s type depends on the characteristics of the true game. The learning success is much higher for games with pure strategy Nash equilibria than for games with a unique mixed strategy Nash equilibrium, and it is higher for games with symmetric pure strategy Nash equilibria than for games with asymmetric equilibria. Moreover, subjects learn to predict the opponents� behavior very well. However, they rarely play according to a Nash equilibrium and we observe no correlation between equilibrium play and learning about the game.

Keywords: Learning; game theory; incomplete information; experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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