title: Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics
creator: Dürsch, Peter
subject: 330
subject: 330 Economics
description: Chapter I We use a large-scale internet experiment to explore how subjects learn to play against computers that are programmed to follow one of a number of standard learning algorithms. The learning theories are (unbeknown to subjects) a best response process, fictitious play, imitation, reinforcement learning, and a trial & error process. We explore how subjects' performances depend on their opponents' learning algorithm. Furthermore, we test whether subjects try to influence those algorithms to their advantage in a forward-looking way (strategic teaching). We find that strategic teaching occurs frequently and that all learning algorithms are subject to exploitation with the notable exception of imitation. Chapter II In a punishment experiment, we separate the demand for punishment in general from a possible demand to conduct punishment personally. Subjects experience an unfair split of their earnings from a real effort task and have to decide on the punishment of the person who determines the distribution. First, it is established whether the allocator's payoff is reduced and, afterwards, subjects take part in a second price auction for the right to (physically) carry out the act of payoff reduction. This auction only resolves who will punish, not whether punishment takes place, so only subjects with a demand for personal punishment should bid. Chapter III This paper experimentally investigates whether risk-averse individuals punish less if the outcome of punishment is uncertain than when it is certain. We compare subjects’ behavior in two treatments: Certain Punishment in which the prisoner’s dilemma game is followed by a punishment stage allowing subjects to decrease the other player’s payoff by 2 Euros; and Uncertain Punishment in which subjects could decrease the other player’s payoff with a 50% probability by 1 Euro and with a 50% probability by 3 Euros. We observe only several instances of punishment in our setup. Consequently, we find that in both cases risk-averse subjects are equally likely to cooperate in the prisoner’s dilemma and equally likely to punish in the punishment stage. Chapter IV Does a mere availability of punishment increase cooperation in the one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game? In our experiment we observe that the subjects almost never use punishment. Consistently, the data shows no increase in the cooperation rate as the subjects correctly anticipated that they would not be punished for defection. Thus, the availability of punishment is ineffective in inducing cooperation in a one-shot game. Moreover, we do not find any evidence that risk attitude is a factor when making the decision to cooperate.
date: 2010
type: Dissertation
type: info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserverhttps://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/12058/1/Dissertation_Peter_Duersch.pdf
identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00012058
identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-opus-120581
identifier:   Dürsch, Peter  (2010) Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics.  [Dissertation]     
relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/12058/
rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/help/license_urhg.html
language: eng