Choosing Opponents in Games of Cooperation and Coordination

Peter Engseld () and Andreas Bergh

No 2005:1, Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We analyze a cooperation game and a coordination game in an evolutionary environment. Agents make noisy observations of opponent's propensity to play dove, called reputation, and form preferences over opponents based on their reputation. A game takes place when two agents agree to play. Socially optimal cooperation is evolutionarily stable when reputation perfectly reflects propensity to cooperate. With some reputation noise, there will be at least some cooperation. Individual concern for reputation results in a seemingly altruistic behavior. The degree of cooperation is decreasing in anonymity. If reputation is noisy enough, there is no cooperation in equilibrium. In the coordination game, the efficient equilibrium is chosen and agents with better skills to observe reputation earn more.

Keywords: Cooperation; Coordination; Conditioned Strategies; Prisoners Dilemma; Signaling; Reputation; Altruism; Evolutionary Equilibrium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 C72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2005-01-04, Revised 2005-11-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-gth
Note: This paper has been replaced by 2005:45 "Choosing Opponents in Prisoners’ Dilemma: An Evolutionary Analysis"
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2005_001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics School of Economics and Management, Box 7080, S-22007 Lund, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Iker Arregui Alegria ().