TY - JOUR
T1 - The evolution of cooperation
T2 - The role of costly strategy adjustments
AU - Romero, Julian
AU - Rosokha, Yaroslav
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Economic Association.
PY - 2019/2/1
Y1 - 2019/2/1
N2 - We study the evolution of cooperation in the indefinitely repeated prisoner's dilemma when it is costly for players to adjust their strategy. Our experimental interface allows subjects to design a comprehensive strategy that then selects actions for them in every period. We conduct lab experiments in which subjects can adjust their strategies during a repeated game but may incur a cost for doing so. We find three main results. First, subjects learn to cooperate more when adjustments are costless than when they are costly. Second, subjects make more adjustments to their strategies when adjustments are costless, but they still make adjustments even when they are costly. Finally, we find that cooperative strategies emerge over time when adjustments are costless but not when adjustments are costly. These results highlight that within-game experimentation is critical to the rise of cooperative behavior. We provide simulations based on an evolutionary algorithm to support these results.
AB - We study the evolution of cooperation in the indefinitely repeated prisoner's dilemma when it is costly for players to adjust their strategy. Our experimental interface allows subjects to design a comprehensive strategy that then selects actions for them in every period. We conduct lab experiments in which subjects can adjust their strategies during a repeated game but may incur a cost for doing so. We find three main results. First, subjects learn to cooperate more when adjustments are costless than when they are costly. Second, subjects make more adjustments to their strategies when adjustments are costless, but they still make adjustments even when they are costly. Finally, we find that cooperative strategies emerge over time when adjustments are costless but not when adjustments are costly. These results highlight that within-game experimentation is critical to the rise of cooperative behavior. We provide simulations based on an evolutionary algorithm to support these results.
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U2 - 10.1257/mic.20160220
DO - 10.1257/mic.20160220
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85062532784
VL - 11
SP - 299
EP - 328
JO - American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
JF - American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
SN - 1945-7669
IS - 1
ER -