Simple heuristics as equilibrium strategies in mutual sequential mate search
Ismail Saglam
MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany
Abstract:
In this paper, we study whether simple heuristics can arise as equilibrium strategies in mutual sequential mate search. To this aim, we extend the mate search model of Todd and Miller (1999), involving an adolescence (learning) phase followed by an actual mating phase, to a strategic game where the players, as the individuals in the mating population, choose before starting the adolescence phase, the best rule - among the four available search (aspiration adjustment) rules - to maximize their likelihood of mating, given the choice of other individuals. Conducting Monte Carlo simulations, we show that the use of the Take the Next Best Rule by the whole population never becomes a (Nash) equilibrium in the simulation range of adolescence lengths. While the unanimous use of the Adjust Relative Rule by the whole population arises as an equilibrium for a wide part of the simulation range, especially for medium to high adolescence lengths, the rules Adjust Up/Down and Adjust Relative/2 are unanimously chosen as equilibrium strategies for a small part of the simulation range and only when the adolescence is long and short, respectively.
Keywords: Mate Choice; Mate Search; Simple Heuristics; Agent-Based Simulation; Stability; Equilibrium Strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C63 C72 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-01-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/44222/1/MPRA_paper_44222.pdf original version (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: Simple Heuristics as Equilibrium Strategies in Mutual Sequential Mate Search (2014) 
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:pra:mprapa:44222
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().