A Simple Approach for Organizing Behavior and Explaining Cooperation in Repeated Games

Asen Ivanov (), Douglas Davis and Oleg Korenok
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Asen Ivanov: Department of Economics, VCU School of Business

No 1101, Working Papers from VCU School of Business, Department of Economics

Abstract: We introduce a novel approach for organizing behavior and explaining cooperation in repeated games. Our approach is based on the idea that players differ according to an inherent propensity to cooperate that systematically affects behavior and cooperation levels. We formulate the empirical implications of this idea and test them in the lab. Our data support our approach. Our main conclusions are: (i) players' strategies in a repeated game can be ranked along a single dimension, (ii) this ranking remains stable across repeated games, and (iii) the composition of a group, in terms of its players' propensities, strongly affects cooperation levels.

Keywords: repeated games; cooperation; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D03 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2011-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-mic and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vcu:wpaper:1101

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