Perfect versus imperfect observability---An experimental test of Bagwell's result

Steffen Huck and Wieland Mueller
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Wieland Mueller: Humboldt University Berlin
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Wieland Müller

Experimental from EconWPA

Abstract: In a seminal paper Bagwell (1995) claims that the first mover advantage, i.e. the strategic benefit of committing oneself to an action before others can do, vanishes completely if this action is only imperfectly observed by second movers. In our paper we report on an experimental test of this prediction. We implement three versions of a game similar to an example^? given by Bagwell, each time varying the quality of the signal which informs the second mover. For experienced players we do not find empirical support for Bagwell's result. Instead, we find some support for the noisy Stackelberg equilibrium emphasised by van Damme and Hurkens (1997).

Keywords: commitment; first-mover advantage; imperfect observability; experimental economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-gth
Date: 1998-04-17
Note: Type of Document - ps; prepared on IBM PC; pages: 19 ; figures: included
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Related works:
Journal Article: Perfect versus Imperfect Observability--An Experimental Test of Bagwell's Result (2000)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpex:9804001

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