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Approval mechanism to solve prisoner’s dilemma: comparison with Varian’s compensation mechanism

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  • Tatsuyoshi Saijo

    (Kochi University of Technology
    Research Institute for Humanity and Nature)

  • Takehito Masuda

    (Osaka University)

  • Takafumi Yamakawa

Abstract

After having played a prisoner’s dilemma, players can approve or reject the other’s choice of cooperation or defection. If both players approve the other’s choice, the outcome is the result of the chosen strategies in the prisoner’s dilemma; however, if either rejects the other’s choice, the outcome is the same as if they had mutually defected from the prisoner’s dilemma. In theory, such an approval mechanism implements cooperation in backward elimination of weakly dominated strategies, although this is not the case in the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium. By contrast, the compensation mechanism proposed by Varian (Am Econ Rev 84(5):1278–1293, 1994) implements cooperation in the latter but not in the former. This result motivates the present experimental study of the two mechanisms. The approval mechanism sessions yield a cooperation rate of 90% in the first period and 93.2% across periods, while the compensation mechanism sessions yield a cooperation rate of 63.3% in the first period and 75.2% across periods. In addition, the backward elimination of weakly dominated strategies better predicts subjects’ behavior than does the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium in both mechanism sessions.

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  • Tatsuyoshi Saijo & Takehito Masuda & Takafumi Yamakawa, 2018. "Approval mechanism to solve prisoner’s dilemma: comparison with Varian’s compensation mechanism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 51(1), pages 65-77, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:51:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s00355-017-1107-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-017-1107-z
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    Cited by:

    1. Saijo, Tatsuyoshi & Shen, Junyi, 2018. "Mate choice mechanism for solving a quasi-dilemma," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-8.
    2. Koffi Serge William Yao & Emmanuelle Lavaine & Marc Willinger, 2021. "Effectiveness of the approval mechanism for CPR dilemmas: unanimity versus majority rule," Working Papers hal-03234786, HAL.
    3. Yao, Koffi Serge William & Lavaine, Emmanuelle & Willinger, Marc, 2024. "Effectiveness of the approval mechanism in a three-player common pool resource dilemma," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    4. Tatsuyoshi Saijo, 2019. "Second thoughts of social dilemma in mechanism design," Working Papers SDES-2019-6, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Jun 2019.
    5. Koffi Serge William Yao & Emmanuelle Lavaine & Marc Willinger, 2022. "Does the approval mechanism induce the efficient extraction in common pool resource games?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(1), pages 111-139, January.

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