IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v138y2023icp42-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Feigning ignorance for long-term gains

Author

Listed:
  • Lee, Natalie

Abstract

In dynamic strategic interactions, a player who spies the opponent's actions might have incentives to feign ignorance and forgo immediate payoffs so that he can earn higher future payoffs by manipulating the opponent's suspicion. I model and experimentally implement the situation as a two-stage hide-and-seek game. A substantial share of the spying players fails to feign ignorance, despite the empirical suboptimality of the behavior and their largely correct predictions about opponents' suspicion. Subjects are highly heterogeneous in their tendency to feign ignorance and show only moderate learning. The players who are spied on hold empirically correct beliefs and mostly best-respond.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee, Natalie, 2023. "Feigning ignorance for long-term gains," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 42-71.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:138:y:2023:i:c:p:42-71
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2022.11.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825622001610
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2022.11.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    2. Bagwell, Kyle, 1995. "Commitment and observability in games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 271-280.
    3. Reny, Philip J. & Robson, Arthur J., 2004. "Reinterpreting mixed strategy equilibria: a unification of the classical and Bayesian views," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 355-384, August.
    4. van Damme, Eric & Hurkens, Sjaak, 1996. "Commitment Robust Equilibria and Endogenous Timing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 290-311, August.
    5. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    6. Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Georg Weizsäcker, 2008. "Stated Beliefs and Play in Normal-Form Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 729-762.
    7. Andrew Schotter & Isabel Trevino, 2014. "Belief Elicitation in the Laboratory," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 103-128, August.
    8. Cai, Hongbin & Wang, Joseph Tao-Yi, 2006. "Overcommunication in strategic information transmission games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 7-36, July.
    9. Jacquemet, Nicolas & Koessler, Frédéric, 2013. "Using or hiding private information? An experimental study of zero-sum repeated games with incomplete information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 103-120.
    10. Rogers, Brian W. & Palfrey, Thomas R. & Camerer, Colin F., 2009. "Heterogeneous quantal response equilibrium and cognitive hierarchies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1440-1467, July.
    11. Robson~ Arthur J., 1994. "An Informationally Robust Equilibrium for Two-Person Nonzero-Sum Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 233-245, September.
    12. Antonio Penta & Peio Zuazo-Garin, 2022. "Rationalizability, Observability, and Common Knowledge," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(2), pages 948-975.
    13. Harrison, Glenn W, 1989. "Theory and Misbehavior of First-Price Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 749-762, September.
    14. Harrison, Glenn W. & Martínez-Correa, Jimmy & Swarthout, J. Todd, 2013. "Inducing risk neutral preferences with binary lotteries: A reconsideration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 145-159.
    15. Lahav, Yaron, 2015. "Eliciting beliefs in beauty contest experiments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 45-49.
    16. van Damme, Eric & Hurkens, Sjaak, 1997. "Games with Imperfectly Observable Commitment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 21(1-2), pages 282-308, October.
    17. Vincent P. Crawford & Nagore Iriberri, 2007. "Fatal Attraction: Salience, Naïveté, and Sophistication in Experimental "Hide-and-Seek" Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1731-1750, December.
    18. Berg, Joyce E. & Rietz, Thomas A. & Dickhaut, John W., 2008. "On the Performance of the Lottery Procedure for Controlling Risk Preferences," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 115, pages 1087-1097, Elsevier.
    19. Solan, Eilon & Yariv, Leeat, 2004. "Games with espionage," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 172-199, April.
    20. Walker, James M & Smith, Vernon L & Cox, James C, 1990. "Inducing Risk-Neutral Preferences: An Examination in a Controlled Market Environment," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 5-24, March.
    21. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    22. Matsui, Akihiko, 1989. "Information leakage forces cooperation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 94-115, March.
    23. Karl Schlag & James Tremewan & Joël Weele, 2015. "A penny for your thoughts: a survey of methods for eliciting beliefs," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 457-490, September.
    24. Yaw Nyarko & Andrew Schotter, 2002. "An Experimental Study of Belief Learning Using Elicited Beliefs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 971-1005, May.
    25. Colin F. Camerer & Teck-Hua Ho & Juin-Kuan Chong, 2004. "A Cognitive Hierarchy Model of Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 861-898.
    26. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    27. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00773412 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Katarina Kostelić, 2023. "Implications of (un)awareness for decision-making in strategic interaction: another take on the Prisoner’s dilemma," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 50(2), pages 251-268, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Despoina Alempaki & Andrew M. Colman & Felix Kölle & Graham Loomes & Briony D. Pulford, 2022. "Investigating the failure to best respond in experimental games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(2), pages 656-679, April.
    2. Folli, Dominik & Wolff, Irenaeus, 2022. "Biases in belief reports," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2010. "Strategic Thinking," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000001148, David K. Levine.
    4. Nichole Szembrot, 2018. "Experimental study of cursed equilibrium in a signaling game," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(2), pages 257-291, June.
    5. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    6. Sofianos, Andis, 2022. "Self-reported & revealed trust: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    7. David Danz & Dietmar Fehr & Dorothea Kübler, 2012. "Information and beliefs in a repeated normal-form game," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(4), pages 622-640, December.
    8. Nagore Iriberri & Pedro Rey‐Biel, 2013. "Elicited beliefs and social information in modified dictator games: What do dictators believe other dictators do?," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(3), pages 515-547, November.
    9. Le Coq, Chloé & Tremewan, James & Wagner, Alexander K., 2015. "On the effects of group identity in strategic environments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 239-252.
    10. Tsakas, Elias, 2018. "Robust scoring rules," Research Memorandum 023, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    11. Karl Schlag & James Tremewan & Joël Weele, 2015. "A penny for your thoughts: a survey of methods for eliciting beliefs," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 457-490, September.
    12. Lai, Ernest K. & Lim, Wooyoung, 2012. "Authority and communication in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 541-560.
    13. Eyting, Markus & Schmidt, Patrick, 2021. "Belief elicitation with multiple point predictions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    14. Polonio, Luca & Coricelli, Giorgio, 2019. "Testing the level of consistency between choices and beliefs in games using eye-tracking," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 566-586.
    15. Dominik Bauer & Irenaeus Wolff, 2018. "Biases in Beliefs: Experimental Evidence," TWI Research Paper Series 109, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    16. Bauer, Dominik & Wolff, Irenaeus, 2019. "Biases in Beliefs," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203601, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Manski, Charles F. & Neri, Claudia, 2013. "First- and second-order subjective expectations in strategic decision-making: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 232-254.
    18. Cuihong Fan & Byoung Heon Jun & Elmar G. Wolfstetter, 2019. "Induced Price Leadership and (Counter-)Spying Rivals' Play under Incomplete Information," CESifo Working Paper Series 7476, CESifo.
    19. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Rasocha, Vlastimil, 2021. "Experimental methods: Eliciting beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 234-256.
    20. Kai Barron, 2021. "Belief updating: does the ‘good-news, bad-news’ asymmetry extend to purely financial domains?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 31-58, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information; Spying; Observability; Dynamic games;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D92 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:138:y:2023:i:c:p:42-71. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.