Learning, teaching, and turn taking in the repeated assignment game

Abstract

History-dependent strategies are often used to support cooperation in repeated game models. Using the indefinitely repeated common-pool resource assignment game and a perfect stranger experimental design, this paper reports novel evidence that players who have successfully used an efficiency-enhancing turn-taking strategy will teach other players in subsequent supergames to adopt this strategy. We find that subjects engage in turn taking frequently in both the Low Conflict and the High Conflict treatments. Prior experience with turn taking significantly increases turn taking in both treatments. Moreover, successful turn taking often involves fast learning, and individuals with turn taking experience are more likely to be teachers than inexperienced individuals. The comparative statics results show that teaching in such an environment also responds to incentives, since teaching is empirically more frequent in the Low Conflict treatment with higher benefits and lower costs.JEL Classification: C73, C91

Symmetric play in repeated allocation games

“…Lau and Mui [27,28] study a particular equilibrium in 2-player repeated games involving "turn taking" as a way to implement nearly symmetric payoffs, which is a specific instance of our rotation schemes. Cason, Lau, and Mui [16] observe rotation schemes in 2-player assignment games, and demonstrate that subjects are able to teach such behavior to future opponents. 10 A familiar example for rotation schemes is the assignment of positions in a pickup soccer or hockey game.…”

“…Since payoffs are, by assumption,nearly efficient, it must be that players are breaking symmetry fast, relative to the discount factor. Using this fact, the proof 16 The result applies only to stationary semi-public equilibria. We conjecture that the same conclusion holds for all symmetric equilibria.…”

“…16 Proposition 2. Consider the repeated game associated with any n-player allocation game Γ and any Pareto efficient payoff profile z ∈ Z Γ that is not completely symmetric, i.e., such that there exist a and b for which z a = z b .…”

Symmetric Play in Repeated Allocation Games

“…Prisbey (1992) is the first paper to observe rotation in experiments, again in the context of 2-player games. Cason, Lau, and Mui (2012) observe rotation schemes in 2-player assignment games, demonstrating that subjects are able to teach such behavior to future opponents.…”

It's Your Turn: Experiments with Three-Player Public Good Games

“…In an entry game with incomplete information, Kaplan and Ruffle (2011) identify conditions under which participants take turns as opposed to using cutoff strategies. 5 Using a repeated common-pool resource assignment game, Cason et al (2013) show that subjects engage in turn-taking frequently and participants experienced with the usage of such rotation schemes are more likely to teach inexperienced subjects how to undertake turn-taking.…”