@article{ad5e3a44eed4482a9aa4bdba1a3cbe68,
title = "Equilibrium play and best response to (stated) beliefs in normal form games",
abstract = "We report experimental results on a series of ten one-shot two-person 3 × 3 normal form games with unique equilibrium in pure strategies played by non-economists. In contrast to previous experiments in which game theory predictions fail dramatically, a majority of actions taken coincided with the equilibrium prediction (70.2%) and were best-responses to subjects' stated beliefs (67.2%). In constant-sum games, 78% of actions taken were predicted by the equilibrium model, outperforming simple K-level reasoning models. We discuss how non-trivial game characteristics related to risk aversion, efficiency concerns and social preferences may affect the predictive value of different models in simple normal form games.",
keywords = "Constant sum games, Experiments, K-level reasoning, Normal form games, Stated beliefs",
author = "P. Rey-Biel",
note = "Funding Information: I am indebted to Miguel A. Ballester, Ken Binmore, Tilman B{\"o}rgers, Antoni Calv{\'o}-Armengol, Dirk Engelmann, Steffen Huck, Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, David P{\'e}rez-Castrillo and two anonymous referees for extensive comments. I am also grateful to Vincent P. Crawford, Julio Gonz{\'a}lez-D{\'i}az, Antonio Guarino, {\'A}ngel Hernando-Veciana, Manuel Mosquera, Nagore Iriberri, Joel So-bel, Georg Weizs{\"a}cker and to participants in the European Meeting of the Econometric Society (Vienna), ESA World Meeting (Rome), Simposio de An{\'a}lisis Econ{\'o}mico (Navarra), ENTER Jamboree (Mannheim), UAB and UCL for comments and to Martin B{\o}g, Laura Diego, Tom Rutter and Chris Tomlinson for laboratory assistance. Experimental Funding was provided by the ESRC Centre for Evolutionary Learning and Social Evolution (ELSE) and Ministe-rio de Ciencia y Tecnolog{\'i}a (BEC2003-01131). Financial support from Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnolog{\'i}a (SEJ2006-00538 and Consolider-Ingenio CSD2006-00016) and Generalitat de Catalunya (2005SGR-00836 and Barcelona Economics-Xarxa CREA) is gratefully acknowledged.",
year = "2009",
month = mar,
doi = "10.1016/j.geb.2008.03.003",
language = "English",
volume = "65",
pages = "572--585",
journal = "Games and Economic Behavior",
issn = "0899-8256",
publisher = "Academic Press Inc.",
number = "2",
}