Cognitive Hierarchies in the Minimizer Game

Publication: Scientific journalJournal articlepeer-review

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Abstract

Experimental tests of choice predictions in one-shot games show only little support for Nash equilibrium (NE). Poisson Cognitive Hierarchy (PCH) and level-k (LK) are behavioral models of the thinking-steps variety where subjects differ in the number of levels of iterated reasoning they perform. Camerer et al. (2004) claim that substituting the Poisson parameter τ = 1.5 yields a parameter-free PCH model (pfPCH) which predicts experimental data considerably better than NE. We design a new multi-person game, the Minimizer Game, as a testbed to compare initial choice predictions of NE, pfPCH and LK. Data obtained from two large-scale online experiments strongly reject NE and LK, but are well in line with the point-prediction of pfPCH.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)337 - 348
JournalJournal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Volume130
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016

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