Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Attention and Beliefs in Games: an Experiment

摘要：博弈论已成为分析人与人、群体与国家之间战略互动的重要工具。它以纳什均衡为中心概念。在纳什均衡中，(1)每个参与者？考虑到他或她的信仰，他的行为是最好的？行动和(2)这些信念是正确的。然而，即使在实验室实验的理想条件下，也存在与经典博弈论预测的系统性偏差。即使是最简单的游戏也是如此，这表明有必要扩大标准理论，以预测具有政策相关性的更现实的游戏中的行为，比如那些用于模拟公司的游戏。决定进入市场或制定竞争性贸易政策的国家。为了使理论与实验数据相协调，本研究提出了纳什均衡的概括，将条件(1)和(2)替换为允许参与者在采取行动和形成信念时犯错误的条件。通过在实验室收集许多简单游戏的实验数据，理论预测将被测试，模型性能将被评估。研究结果将有助于更好地理解人、组织和国家如何在战略上相互作用。更好的理解可以转化为更好的决策，更有针对性和更有效的结果。文献中已经存在一种将错误纳入行动的方法。它被称为QRE（量子反应平衡），假设玩家犯错的概率与错误导致的收益损失成反比。然而，这些错误的起源并没有明确说明。通过将错误与最佳信息处理理论或“注意力”理论联系起来，新颖的EQRE（内生QRE）对这些错误如何取决于游戏做出了不同的预测。另一方面，BBE（偏见信念均衡）提出了一种将系统偏见信念纳入均衡框架的新方法。偏见?是对他人行为形成错误信念的任何特定倾向。倾向于相信一种行动比均衡水平发生的概率更大，以及倾向于相信不同行动的频率比均衡频率更相似，这是两个偏差的例子。该实验将要求受试者玩许多2x2和3x3游戏，在这些游戏中，他们的信念也会被激发出来。有些游戏是专门用来区分QRE和EQRE的。其余的则是为了理解信念和偏见如何依赖于潜在的游戏。实验产生的数据集，加上理论的BBE框架，将适合回答更广泛的问题，例如：偏差能否预测总体行为？总的来说，行为能预测偏见吗？个人偏见在不同的游戏和时间中是否一致？研究结果有可能对实证博弈论做出重大贡献。

Abstract: Game theory has become an indispensable tool in the analysis of strategic interactions between people, groups, and nations. It rests on Nash equilibrium as its central concept. In a Nash equilibrium, (1) each player?s action is best, given his or her beliefs over others? actions and (2) those beliefs are correct. However, even under the idealized conditions of laboratory experiments, there are systematic deviations from the predictions of classical game theory. That this is true for even the simplest of games suggests the need to augment the standard theory to predict behavior in more realistic games with policy relevance, such as those used to model firms? decisions to enter markets or countries designing competing trade policies. To reconcile theory with experimental data, this research proposes generalizations of Nash equilibrium that replace conditions (1) and (2) with conditions that allow for players to make mistakes in taking actions and forming beliefs. By collecting experimental data in the laboratory from many simple games, theoretical predictions will be tested and model performance will be assessed. The results will provide a better understanding of how people, organizations, and nations interacting strategically. Better understanding can then translate into better policy-making, more carefully targeted, and more effective in its results. An approach for incorporating mistakes in actions already exists in the literature. Called QRE (quantal response equilibrium), it posits that players make mistakes with probability inversely related to the loss in payoffs the mistakes induce. However, the origins of these mistakes are left unspecified. By relating the mistakes to theories of optimal information processing or ?attention?, the novel EQRE (endogenous QRE) makes different predictions about how these mistakes depend on the game. BBE (biased beliefs equilibrium), on the other hand, suggests a new way of incorporating systematically biased beliefs into an equilibrium framework. A ?bias? is any specific tendency to form mistaken beliefs over the actions of others. Tending to believe one action will be played with greater probability than the equilibrium level and tending to believe that the frequencies of different actions will be more similar than the equilibrium frequencies are two examples of biases. The experiment will involve subjects playing many 2x2 and 3x3 games in which their beliefs are also elicited. Some games are specifically constructed to distinguish between QRE and EQRE. The rest are designed to understand how beliefs, and hence biases, depend on the underlying game. The data set generated by the experiment, together with the theoretical BBE framework, will be suited to answer questions of broader interest, such as: Can biases predict actions in the aggregate? Can actions predict biases in the aggregate? Are individual biases consistent across games and across time? The results have the potential to make a significant contribution to empirical game theory.