Learning in Network Games

Jaromír Kovářík, Friederike Mengel and José Romero Ciavatto

IKERLANAK from Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I

Abstract: We report the findings of an experiment designed to study how people learn and make decisions in network games. Network games offer new opportunities to identify learning rules, since on networks (compared to e.g. random matching) more rules differ in terms of their information requirements. Our experimental design enables us to observe both which actions participants choose and which information they consult before making their choices. We use this information to estimate learning types using maximum likelihood methods. There is substantial heterogeneity in learning types. However, the vast majority of our participants' decisions are best characterized by reinforcement learning or (myopic) best-response learning. The distribution of learning types seems fairly stable across contexts. Neither network topology nor the position of a player in the network seem to substantially affect the estimated distribution of learning types.

Keywords: experiments; game theory; heterogeneity; learning; maximum likelihood method; networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-11-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-net
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Learning in network games (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehu:ikerla:9171

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Dpto. de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I, Facultad de CC. Económicas y Empresariales, Universidad del País Vasco, Avda. Lehendakari Aguirre 83, 48015 Bilbao, Spain

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