 Errors can increase cooperation in finite populationsGames and Economic Behavior, 2018, vol. 107, issue C, 203-219 Abstract: I use an evolutionary game to investigate how the level of noise influences cooperation and efficiency in a dynamic setting. Players choose strategies to play indefinitely repeated prisoner's dilemmas; the strategies are represented by finite automata, and complexity costs are imposed. Players update their strategies based on the successfulness of the strategies. Using both theoretical analysis and computational experiments, I show that the presence of noise dramatically changes the system dynamics. The effect of noise interacts with the benefit of cooperation: noise can increase cooperation, but only when its level is low and the benefit of cooperation is high. In the noise-free environment, I observe constant oscillations between cooperation and defection. In contrast, the presence of noise makes Win-Stay Lose-Shift (WSLS) a successful strategy when the benefit of cooperation is sufficiently high, making cooperation relatively stable and leading to an efficient outcome. Keywords: Cooperation; Prisoner's dilemma; Evolutionary game theory; Evolutionary dynamics; Uncertainty; Learning; Bounded rationality (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:107:y:2018:i:c:p:203-219 DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.10.023 Access Statistics for this article Games and Economic Behavior is currently edited by E. Kalai More articles in Games and Economic Behavior from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.