Auctioning the Right to Play Ultimatum Games and the Impact on Equilibrium Selection

Games

Jason Shachat¹ 

[1] Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE) and the MOE Key Laboratory in Econometrics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, Fujian, China; E-Mail:

关键词: ultimatum bargaining;    auction;    forward induction;    loss avoidance;   

DOI  :  10.3390/g4040738

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

We auction scarce rights to play the Proposer and Responder positions in ultimatum games. As a control treatment, we randomly allocate these rights and charge exogenous participation fees. These participation fee sequences match the auction price sequence from a session of the original treatment. With endogenous selection via auctions, we find that play converges to a session-specific Nash equilibrium, and auction prices emerge supporting this equilibrium by the principle of forward induction. With random assignment, we find play also converges to a session-specific Nash equilibrium as predicted by the principle of loss avoidance. While Nash equilibria with low offers are observed, the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium never is.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.