Do people make strategic commitments? Experimental evidence on strategic information avoidance

Anders Poulsen and Michael Roos ()
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Anders Poulsen: University of East Anglia

No 09-01, Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) from School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Abstract: Game theory predicts that players make strategic commitments that may appear counter-intuitive. We conducted an experiment to see if people make a counter-intuitive but strategically optimal decision to avoid information. The experiment is based on a sequential Nash demand game in which a responding player can commit ahead of the game not to see what a proposing player demanded. Our data show that subjects do, but only after substantial time, learn to make the optimal strategic commitment. We find only weak evidence of physical timing effects.

Keywords: strategic commitment; commitment; bargaining; strategic value of information; physical timing effects; endogenous timing; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C78 C90 C92 D63 D80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-10-01
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Related works:
Journal Article: Do people make strategic commitments? Experimental evidence on strategic information avoidance (2010)
Working Paper: Do People Make Strategic Commitments? Experimental Evidence on Strategic Information Avoidance (2010)
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