Doctoral Dissertation Research: Ambiguity Aversion and Strategic Play in One-Shot Normal-Form Games

博士论文研究：一次性范式博弈中的歧义厌恶与策略博弈

• 批准号: 0609744
• 负责人: Dan Levin
• 金额: $ 0.64万
• 依托单位: Ohio State University Research Foundation -DO NOT USE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-09-01 至 2007-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0609744&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Ambiguity; Aversion

The study of behavior under uncertainty is one of the central areas in economics. One can distinguish between two types of uncertainty: objective and subjective. Objective uncertainty is present when there are clear objective probabilities with which different outcomes occur, e.g. when one flips a fair coin. Subjective uncertainty is present when there are no clear objective probabilities with which the different outcomes occur, e.g. when one invests in the stock market. Even though mainstream economic theory makes no distinction between objective and subjective uncertainty, this distinction seems to play an important role for behavior. In particular people seem to dislike subjective uncertainty -- in economic terminology they are ambiguity averse.The aim of the proposed research is to investigate experimentally to what extent people are ambiguity-averse when the subjective uncertainty arises in the context of a game. Our experimental game is a one-shot decision situation in which payoffs depends not only on the players' decisions but also on the decisions of other people. As players do not know in advance what the decision of the other persons are, they face uncertainty regarding what the other persons will do and hence regarding their own payoff. This uncertainty is subjective since players are not told how likely it is that the other persons will make each decision. Although there are many experimental studies on ambiguity aversion in individual decision making, there is a lack of such studies in the context of games. Given that game theory (which plays a central role in modern economics) ignores ambiguity aversion, it is important to investigate to what extent ambiguity aversion does have an impact on behavior in games. Such investigation could give us a better understanding of the current limitations of game theory and it may provide motivation for future efforts to incorporate ambiguity aversion into game theory.

不确定性下的行为研究是经济学的核心领域之一。人们可以区分两种类型的不确定性：客观的和主观的。当不同结果发生的客观概率明确时，就存在客观不确定性，例如当一个人投掷一枚公平的硬币时。主观的不确定性是存在的，当没有明确的客观概率与不同的结果发生，例如，当一个投资于股票市场。尽管主流经济理论没有区分客观和主观的不确定性，但这种区分似乎对行为起着重要作用。特别是人们似乎不喜欢主观的不确定性-在经济术语中，他们是模糊厌恶的目的，拟议的研究是实验调查到何种程度的人是模糊厌恶的主观不确定性时，出现在游戏的背景下。我们的实验游戏是一个一次性决策的情况下，收益不仅取决于球员的决定，但也对其他人的决定。由于参与者事先不知道其他人的决定，他们面临着其他人会怎么做的不确定性，因此也就面临着自己收益的不确定性。这种不确定性是主观的，因为玩家没有被告知其他人做出每个决定的可能性有多大。虽然有许多关于个体决策中模糊厌恶的实验研究，但缺乏在博弈背景下的研究。鉴于博弈论（在现代经济学中起着核心作用）忽略了模糊性厌恶，研究模糊性厌恶在多大程度上对博弈中的行为产生影响是很重要的。这样的调查可以让我们更好地了解目前的局限性的博弈论，它可能会提供未来的努力，将模糊性厌恶到博弈论的动机。