IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jeduce/v31y2000i3p229-236.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Classroom Games: A Prisoner's Dilemma

Author

Listed:
  • Charles A. Holt
  • Monica Capra

Abstract

Game theory is often introduced in undergraduate courses in the context of a prisoner's dilemma paradigm, which illustrates the conflict between social incentives to cooperate and private incentives to defect. We present a very simple card game that efficiently involves a large number of students in a prisoner's dilemma. The extent of cooperation is affected by the payoff incentives and by the nature of repeated interaction. The exercise can be used to stimulate a discussion of a wide range of topics such as bankruptcy, quality standards, or price competition.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Charles A. Holt & Monica Capra, 2000. "Classroom Games: A Prisoner's Dilemma," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 229-236, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jeduce:v:31:y:2000:i:3:p:229-236
    DOI: 10.1080/00220480009596781
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220480009596781
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220480009596781?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 1997. "Classroom Games: Voluntary Provision of a Public Good," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 209-215, Fall.
    2. Cooper, Russell & DeJong, Douglas V. & Forsythe, Robert & Ross, Thomas W., 1996. "Cooperation without Reputation: Experimental Evidence from Prisoner's Dilemma Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 187-218, February.
    3. Dawes, Robyn M & Thaler, Richard H, 1988. "Anomalies: Cooperation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 187-197, Summer.
    4. Roth,Alvin E. (ed.), 1988. "Laboratory Experimentation in Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521333924, September.
    5. C. Monica Capra, 1999. "Anomalous Behavior in a Traveler's Dilemma?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 678-690, June.
    6. Roth, Alvin E, 1988. "Laboratory Experimentation in Economics: A Methodological Overview," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(393), pages 974-1031, December.
    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. Morgan, Stephen N. & Sharp, Misti D. & Grogan, Kelly A., 2020. "So You Want to Run a Classroom Experiment Online? The Good, the Bad, and the Different," Applied Economics Teaching Resources (AETR), Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 2(5), December.
    2. Jeroen Hinloopen & Adriaan Soetevent, 2008. "From Overt to Tacit Collusion," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-059/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Metin TETİK, 2020. "Investigating factors affecting cooperative and non-cooperative behavior: An experimental game in the classroom," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(2(623), S), pages 205-214, Summer.
    4. Andreas Ortmann, 2003. "Bertrand Price Undercutting: A Brief Classroom Demonstration," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 21-26, January.
    5. Deck, Cary & Jahedi, Salar, 2015. "An experimental investigation of time discounting in strategic settings," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 95-104.
    6. Cary Deck & Salar Jahedi, 2014. "People Do Not Discount Heavily in Strategic Settings, but They Believe Others Do," Working Papers 14-11, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    7. Timothy L. Sorenson, 2002. "Theory And Practice In The Classroom: A Repeated Game Of Multimarket Oligopoly," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(3), pages 316-329, July.
    8. Deck, Cary & Pate, Jennifer, 2022. "High time to study the relationship between marijuana use and economic behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 1-14.
    9. Uri Benzion & Yochanan Shachmurove & Joseph Yagil, 2004. "Subjective discount functions - an experimental approach," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(5), pages 299-311.
    10. Melo, L, 2010. "Earth magnetism and the economic behavior," MPRA Paper 21656, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Gabriel Mhonyera & Daniel Francois Meyer, 2023. "The Impact of AfCFTA on Welfare and Trade: Nigeria and South Africa in Light of Core Export Competences," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-16, March.
    12. Uri Benzion & Yochanan Shachmurove & Joseph Yagil, 2003. "How good is the Exponential Function discounting Formula? An Experimental Study," PIER Working Paper Archive 03-015, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    13. Bogliacino, Francesco & Gómez, Camilo & Grimalda, Gianluca, 2023. "Crime-related exposure to violence and prosocial behavior: Experimental evidence from Colombia," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:10:y:2015:i:2:p:123-129 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Jonathan Guest, 2015. "Reflections on ten years of using economics games and experiments in teaching," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1115619-111, December.
    16. Schneider, Mark & Leland, Jonathan W., 2015. "Reference dependence, cooperation, and coordination in games," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 123-129, March.

    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. Vogt, Carsten, 2000. "The evolution of cooperation in Prisoners' Dilemma with an endogenous learning mutant," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 347-373, July.
    2. Shepherd, Simon & Balijepalli, Chandra, 2015. "A game of two cities: A toll setting game with experimental results," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 95-109.
    3. Heiner, Ronald Asher, 2002. "Robust Evolution Of Contingent Cooperation In Pure One-Shot Prisoners' Dilemmas. Part II: Evolutionary Dynamics & Testable Predictions," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 2002-10, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
    4. Charness, Gary & Frechette, Guillaume R. & Qin, Cheng-Zhong, 2007. "Endogenous transfers in the Prisoner's Dilemma game: An experimental test of cooperation and coordination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 287-306, August.
    5. Chang, Ming-Chung & Chiu, Yung-Ho, 2008. "The analysis of a price war strategy under market demand growth," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 868-875, September.
    6. Noah Gans & George Knox & Rachel Croson, 2007. "Simple Models of Discrete Choice and Their Performance in Bandit Experiments," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 9(4), pages 383-408, December.
    7. Maier-Rigaud, Frank P. & Apesteguia, José, 2003. "The Role of Choice in Social Dilemma Experiments," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 22/2003, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    8. Leitner, Johannes & Leopold-Wildburger, Ulrike, 2011. "Experiments on forecasting behavior with several sources of information - A review of the literature," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 213(3), pages 459-469, September.
    9. Daley, Brendan & Sadowski, Philipp, 2017. "Magical thinking: A representation result," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), May.
    10. Matteo M. Galizzi & Daniel Navarro-Martinez, 2019. "On the External Validity of Social Preference Games: A Systematic Lab-Field Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 976-1002, March.
    11. Ledyard, John O., "undated". "Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research," Working Papers 861, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    12. repec:awi:wpaper:0485 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. James Fiet & Pankaj Patel, 2008. "Entrepreneurial Discovery as Constrained, Sytematic Search," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 215-229, March.
    14. List John A., 2007. "Field Experiments: A Bridge between Lab and Naturally Occurring Data," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-47, April.
    15. Samuel Ferey & Yannick Gabuthy & Nicolas Jacquemet, 2013. "L'apport de l'économie expérimentale dans l'élaboration des politiques publiques," Revue française d'économie, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(2), pages 155-194.
    16. Eckel, Catherine C. & Fatas, Enrique & Kass, Malcolm, 2022. "Sacrifice: An experiment on the political economy of extreme intergroup punishment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    17. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00879205 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Bolton, Gary E. & Katok, Elena, 1998. "An experimental test of the crowding out hypothesis: The nature of beneficent behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 315-331, November.
    19. Claudia Keser & Frans Van Winden, 2000. "Conditional Cooperation and Voluntary Contributions to Public Goods," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(1), pages 23-39, March.
    20. Tisserand, Jean-Christian & Hopfensitz, Astrid & Blondel, Serge & Loheac, Youenn & Mantilla, César & Mateu, Guillermo & Rosaz, Julie & Rozan, Anne & Willinger, Marc & Sutan, Angela, 2022. "Management of common pool resources in a nation-wide experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    21. Hasson, Reviva & Löfgren, Åsa & Visser, Martine, 2010. "Climate change in a public goods game: Investment decision in mitigation versus adaptation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 331-338, December.
    22. Yannick Gabuthy & Nicolas Jacquemet, 2013. "Analyse économique du droit et méthode expérimentale," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00746617, HAL.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

    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:taf:jeduce:v:31:y:2000:i:3:p:229-236. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/VECE20 .

    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.