Testing Behaviors in the Play of an Expected Prisoner's Dilemma

Richard Arend ()
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Richard Arend: University of Southern Maine

Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, 2023, vol. 7, issue 1, 25-33

Abstract: We test the impact of a new form of game structure – the expected game – focusing on whether it improves the outcomes of a prisoner’s dilemma. An expected game is defined by the probability-weighted payoffs of two or more different reference or ‘bookend’ games. We analyze the impact of this structure and several relevant variants through a set of human subject-based experiments on non-na ̈ıve, consenting participants. As conjectured, we find that real play under this structure does decrease defection in a one-shot prisoner's dilemma game. Additionally, we find that such effects can be enhanced through framing and priming treatments. We discuss the micro-economic policy implications of our new results.

Keywords: implied games; expected payoffs; prisoner's dilemma; microeconomic policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C63 C7 C72 D81 L24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:beh:jbepv1:v:7:y:2023:i:1:p:25-33

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