IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pit/wpaper/309.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Altruistic Versus Rational Behavior in a Public Good Game

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander Matros

Abstract

This paper analyses an evolutionary version of the Public Good game of Eshel, Samuelson, and Shaked (1998) in which agents can choose between imitation and best-reply decision rules. We describe conditions under which altruistic and spiteful (maximizing) behavior arise: these conditions are established for any number of neighbors and any total number of agents in the population. Given mistake-free play, (short-run) outcomes are identical whether agents are constrained to employ an imitation rule only; or they can choose between imitation and best-reply rules. Given the possibility of mistakes, (long-run) outcomes vary across these two scenarios. The paper suggests how to provide public goods and gives an explanation of why we observe seemingly irrational cooperation - altruistic behavior - in the rational world.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Matros, 2006. "Altruistic Versus Rational Behavior in a Public Good Game," Working Paper 309, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Sep 2008.
    • Handle: RePEc:pit:wpaper:309
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.pitt.edu/papers/Alexander_pgg080929.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Apesteguia, Jose & Huck, Steffen & Oechssler, Jorg, 2007. "Imitation--theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 217-235, September.
    2. Ellison, Glenn, 1993. "Learning, Local Interaction, and Coordination," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 1047-1071, September.
    3. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Stark, Oded, 1993. "How Altruism Can Prevail in an Evolutionary Environment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 149-155, May.
    4. Mookherjee Dilip & Sopher Barry, 1994. "Learning Behavior in an Experimental Matching Pennies Game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 62-91, July.
    5. Sidney G. Winter, 1964. "Economic "Natural Selection" and the Theory of the Firm," LEM Chapters Series, in: Yale Economic Essays, pages 225-272, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    6. Theodore C. Bergstrom, 2002. "Evolution of Social Behavior: Individual and Group Selection," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 67-88, Spring.
    7. Armen A. Alchian, 1950. "Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3), pages 211-211.
    8. Saez-Marti, Maria & Weibull, Jorgen W., 1999. "Clever Agents in Young's Evolutionary Bargaining Model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 268-279, June.
    9. Blume Lawrence E., 1993. "The Statistical Mechanics of Strategic Interaction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 387-424, July.
    10. Young, H Peyton, 1993. "The Evolution of Conventions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 57-84, January.
    11. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 1999. "Learning in Cournot Oligopoly--An Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(454), pages 80-95, March.
    12. Prajit K. Dutta & Roy Radner, 1999. "Profit Maximization and the Market Selection Hypothesis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(4), pages 769-798.
    13. Colin Camerer & Teck-Hua Ho, 1999. "Experience-weighted Attraction Learning in Normal Form Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 827-874, July.
    14. Matros, Alexander, 2003. "Clever agents in adaptive learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 110-124, July.
    15. Arthur, W Brian, 1994. "Inductive Reasoning and Bounded Rationality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 406-411, May.
    16. Eshel, I. & Samuelson, L. & Shaked, A., 1996. "Altruists, Egoists and Hooligans in a Local Interaction Model," Working papers 9612, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    17. Kandori, Michihiro & Mailath, George J & Rob, Rafael, 1993. "Learning, Mutation, and Long Run Equilibria in Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 29-56, January.
    18. Fernando Vega-Redondo, 1997. "The Evolution of Walrasian Behavior," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(2), pages 375-384, March.
    19. Ilan Eshel & Larry Samuelson & Avner Shaked, "undated". "Altruists Egoists and Hooligans in a Local Interaction Model," ELSE working papers 005, ESRC Centre on Economics Learning and Social Evolution.
    20. Stahl Dale O., 1993. "Evolution of Smartn Players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 604-617, October.
    21. Eshel, Ilan & Samuelson, Larry & Shaked, Avner, 1998. "Altruists, Egoists, and Hooligans in a Local Interaction Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 157-179, March.
    22. Timothy C. Salmon, 2001. "An Evaluation of Econometric Models of Adaptive Learning," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1597-1628, November.
    23. Blume, Lawrence & Easley, David, 1992. "Evolution and market behavior," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 9-40, October.
    24. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Friedman, Daniel, 1997. "Individual Learning in Normal Form Games: Some Laboratory Results," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 46-76, April.
    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. Hedlund Jonas, 2012. "Altruism and Local Interaction," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-27, 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. Matros, Alexander, 2012. "Altruistic versus egoistic behavior in a Public Good game," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 642-656.
    2. Jonas Hedlund, 2015. "Imitation in Cournot oligopolies with multiple markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 60(3), pages 567-587, November.
    3. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2014. "Imitation and the role of information in overcoming coordination failures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 397-411.
    4. Levine, David K. & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 2007. "The evolution of cooperation through imitation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 293-315, February.
    5. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2014. "Imitation and the role of information in overcoming coordination failures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 397-411.
    6. Hsiao-Chi Chen & Yunshyong Chow & Li-Chau Wu, 2013. "Imitation, local interaction, and coordination," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 42(4), pages 1041-1057, November.
    7. Ge Jiang & Simon Weidenholzer, 2017. "Local interactions under switching costs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(3), pages 571-588, October.
    8. Rosenkranz, Stephanie & Weitzel, Utz, 2012. "Network structure and strategic investments: An experimental analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 898-920.
    9. Simon Weidenholzer, 2010. "Coordination Games and Local Interactions: A Survey of the Game Theoretic Literature," Games, MDPI, vol. 1(4), pages 1-35, November.
    10. Schipper, Burkhard C., 2009. "Imitators and optimizers in Cournot oligopoly," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 1981-1990, December.
    11. Duffy, John, 2006. "Agent-Based Models and Human Subject Experiments," Handbook of Computational Economics, in: Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), Handbook of Computational Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 19, pages 949-1011, Elsevier.
    12. Hedlund Jonas, 2012. "Altruism and Local Interaction," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-27, June.
    13. Susan Lee, 1999. "Assortative Interactions and Endogenous Stratification," Working Papers 99-08-056, Santa Fe Institute.
    14. Bigoni, Maria & Fort, Margherita, 2013. "Information and learning in oligopoly: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 192-214.
    15. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2008. "Contagion and efficiency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 251-274, November.
    16. Khan, Abhimanyu & Peeters, Ronald, 2015. "Imitation by price and quantity setting firms in a differentiated market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 28-36.
    17. Jackson, Matthew O. & Zenou, Yves, 2015. "Games on Networks," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    18. Takács, Károly, 2010. "Hálózati kísérletek [Network experiments]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 958-979.
    19. Jonathan Newton, 2018. "Evolutionary Game Theory: A Renaissance," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-67, May.
    20. Selten, Reinhard & Apesteguia, Jose, 2005. "Experimentally observed imitation and cooperation in price competition on the circle," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 171-192, April.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pit:wpaper:309. 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: Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/depghus.html .

    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.