Can We Build Behavioral Game Theory?

The way economists and other social scientists model how people make interdependent decisions is through the theory of games. Psychologists and behavioral economists, however, have established many deviations from the predictions of game theory. In response to these findings, a broad movement has arisen to salvage the core of game theory. Extant models of interdependent decision-making try to improve their explanatory domain by adding some corrective terms or limits. We will make the argument that this approach is misguided. For this approach to work, the deviations would have to be consistent. Drawing in part on our experimental results, we will argue that deviations from classical models are not consistent for any individual from one task to the next or between individuals for the same task. In turn, the problem of finding an equilibrium strategy is not easier but rather is exponentially more difficult. It does not seem that game theory can be repaired by adding corrective terms (such as consideration of personal characteristics, social norms, heuristic or bias terms, or cognitive limits on choice and learning). In what follows, we describe new methods for investigating interdependent decision-making. Our experimental results show that people do not choose consistently, do not hold consistent beliefs, and do not in general align actions and beliefs. We will show that experimental choices are inconsistent in ways that prevent us from drawing general characterizations of an individual’s choices or beliefs or of the general population\u27s choices and beliefs. A general behavioral game theory seems a distant and, at present, unfulfilled hope

Against Game Theory

People make choices. Often, the outcome depends on choices other people make. What mental steps do people go through when making such choices? Game theory, the most influential model of choice in economics and the social sciences, offers an answer, one based on games of strategy such as chess and checkers: the chooser considers the choices that others will make and makes a choice that will lead to a better outcome for the chooser, given all those choices by other people. It is universally established in the social sciences that classical game theory (even when heavily modified) is bad at predicting behavior. But instead of abandoning classical game theory, those in the social sciences have mounted a rescue operation under the name of “behavioral game theory.” Its main tool is to propose systematic deviations from the predictions of game theory, deviations that arise from character type, for example. Other deviations purportedly come from cognitive overload or limitations. The fundamental idea of behavioral game theory is that, if we know the deviations, then we can correct our predictions accordingly, and so get it right. There are two problems with this rescue operation, each of them is fatal. (1) For a chooser, contemplating the range of possible deviations, as there are many dozens, actually makes it exponentially harder to figure out a path to an outcome. This makes the theoretical models useless for modeling human thought or human behavior in general. (2) Modeling deviations are helpful only if the deviations are consistent, so that scientists (and indeed decision makers) can make predictions about future choices on the basis of past choices. But the deviations are not consistent. In general, deviations from classical models are not consistent for any individual from one task to the next or between individuals for the same task. In addition, people’s beliefs are in general not consistent with their choices. Accordingly, all hope is hollow that we can construct a general behavioral game theory. What can replace it? We survey some of the emerging candidates

Be Selfish, But Wisely: Investigating the Impact of Agent Personality in Mixed-Motive Human-Agent Interactions

A natural way to design a negotiation dialogue system is via self-play RL: train an agent that learns to maximize its performance by interacting with a simulated user that has been designed to imitate human-human dialogue data. Although this procedure has been adopted in prior work, we find that it results in a fundamentally flawed system that fails to learn the value of compromise in a negotiation, which can often lead to no agreements (i.e., the partner walking away without a deal), ultimately hurting the model's overall performance. We investigate this observation in the context of the DealOrNoDeal task, a multi-issue negotiation over books, hats, and balls. Grounded in negotiation theory from Economics, we modify the training procedure in two novel ways to design agents with diverse personalities and analyze their performance with human partners. We find that although both techniques show promise, a selfish agent, which maximizes its own performance while also avoiding walkaways, performs superior to other variants by implicitly learning to generate value for both itself and the negotiation partner. We discuss the implications of our findings for what it means to be a successful negotiation dialogue system and how these systems should be designed in the future.Comment: Accepted at EMNLP 2023 (Main

Emotion Regulation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma: Effects of Reappraisal on Behavioral Measures and Cardiovascular Measures of Challenge and Threat

The current study examines cooperation and cardiovascular responses in individuals that were defected on by their opponent in the first round of an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma. In this scenario, participants were either primed with the emotion regulation strategy of reappraisal or no emotion regulation strategy, and their opponent either expressed an amused smile or a polite smile after the results were presented. We found that cooperation behavior decreased in the no emotion regulation group when the opponent expressed an amused smile compared to a polite smile. In the cardiovascular measures, we found significant differences between the emotion regulation conditions using the biopsychosocial (BPS) model of challenge and threat. However, the cardiovascular measures of participants instructed with the reappraisal strategy were only weakly comparable with a threat state of the BPS model, which involves decreased blood flow and perception of greater task demands than resources to cope with those demands. Conversely, the cardiovascular measures of participants without an emotion regulation were only weakly comparable with a challenge state of the BPS model, which involves increased blood flow and perception of having enough or more resources to cope with task demands

HOW THE GROWING GAP IN LIFE EXPECTANCY MAY AFFECT RETIREMENT BENEFITS AND REFORMS.

Older Americans have experienced dramatic gains in life expectancy in recent decades, but an emerging literature reveals that these gains are accumulating mostly to those at the top of the income distribution. We explore how growing inequality in life expectancy affects lifetime benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and other programs and how this phenomenon interacts with possible program reforms. We first project that life expectancy at age 50 for males in the two highest income quintiles will rise by 7 to 8 years between the 1930 and 1960 birth cohorts, but that the two lowest income quintiles will experience little to no increase over that time period. This divergence in life expectancy will cause the gap between average lifetime program benefits received by men in the highest and lowest quintiles to widen by $130,000 (in$2009) over this period. Finally we simulate the effect of Social Security reforms such as raising the normal retirement age and changing the benefit formula to see whether they mitigate or enhance the reduced progressivity resulting from the widening gap in life expectancy

Novel prokaryotic expression of thioredoxin-fused insulinoma associated protein tyrosine phosphatase 2 (IA-2), its characterization and immunodiagnostic application

Background The insulinoma associated protein tyrosine phosphatase 2 (IA-2) is one of the immunodominant autoantigens involved in the autoimmune attack to the beta-cell in Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus. In this work we have developed a complete and original process for the production and recovery of the properly folded intracellular domain of IA-2 fused to thioredoxin (TrxIA-2ic) in Escherichia coli GI698 and GI724 strains. We have also carried out the biochemical and immunochemical characterization of TrxIA-2icand design variants of non-radiometric immunoassays for the efficient detection of IA-2 autoantibodies (IA-2A). Results The main findings can be summarized in the following statements: i) TrxIA-2ic expression after 3 h of induction on GI724 strain yielded ≈ 10 mg of highly pure TrxIA-2ic/L of culture medium by a single step purification by affinity chromatography, ii) the molecular weight of TrxIA-2ic (55,358 Da) could be estimated by SDS-PAGE, size exclusion chromatography and mass spectrometry, iii) TrxIA-2ic was properly identified by western blot and mass spectrometric analysis of proteolytic digestions (63.25 % total coverage), iv) excellent immunochemical behavior of properly folded full TrxIA-2ic was legitimized by inhibition or displacement of [35S]IA-2 binding from IA-2A present in Argentinian Type 1 Diabetic patients, v) great stability over time was found under proper storage conditions and vi) low cost and environmentally harmless ELISA methods for IA-2A assessment were developed, with colorimetric or chemiluminescent detection. Conclusions E. coli GI724 strain emerged as a handy source of recombinant IA-2ic, achieving high levels of expression as a thioredoxin fusion protein, adequately validated and applicable to the development of innovative and cost-effective immunoassays for IA-2A detection in most laboratories.Fil: Guerra, Luciano Lucas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni; ArgentinaFil: Faccinetti, Natalia Ines. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni; ArgentinaFil: Trabucchi, Aldana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni; ArgentinaFil: Rovitto, Bruno David. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni; ArgentinaFil: Sabljic, Adriana Victoria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni; ArgentinaFil: Poskus, Edgardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni; ArgentinaFil: Iacono, Ruben Francisco. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni; ArgentinaFil: Valdez, Silvina Noemi. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral Prof. Ricardo A. Margni; Argentin

The Threat of Capital Drain: A Rationale for Public Banks?

This paper yields a rationale for why subsidized public banks may be desirable from a regional perspective in a financially integrated economy. We present a model with credit rationing and heterogeneous regions in which public banks prevent a capital drain from poorer to richer regions by subsidizing local depositors, for example, through a public guarantee. Under some conditions, cooperative banks can perform the same function without any subsidization; however, they may be crowded out by public banks. We also discuss the impact of the political structure on the emergence of public banks in a political-economy setting and the role of interregional mobility

A core outcome set for pre-eclampsia research:an international consensus development study

Objective: To develop a core outcome set for pre-eclampsia. Design: Consensus development study. Setting: International. Population: Two hundred and eight-one healthcare professionals, 41 researchers and 110 patients, representing 56 countries, participated. Methods: Modified Delphi method and Modified Nominal Group Technique. Results: A long-list of 116 potential core outcomes was developed by combining the outcomes reported in 79 pre-eclampsia trials with those derived from thematic analysis of 30 in-depth interviews of women with lived experience of pre-eclampsia. Forty-seven consensus outcomes were identified from the Delphi process following which 14 maternal and eight offspring core outcomes were agreed at the consensus development meeting. Maternal core outcomes: death, eclampsia, stroke, cortical blindness, retinal detachment, pulmonary oedema, acute kidney injury, liver haematoma or rupture, abruption, postpartum haemorrhage, raised liver enzymes, low platelets, admission to intensive care required, and intubation and ventilation. Offspring core outcomes: stillbirth, gestational age at delivery, birthweight, small-for-gestational-age, neonatal mortality, seizures, admission to neonatal unit required and respiratory support. Conclusions: The core outcome set for pre-eclampsia should underpin future randomised trials and systematic reviews. Such implementation should ensure that future research holds the necessary reach and relevance to inform clinical practice, enhance women's care and improve the outcomes of pregnant women and their babies. Tweetable abstract: 281 healthcare professionals, 41 researchers and 110 women have developed #preeclampsia core outcomes @HOPEoutcomes @jamesmnduffy. [Correction added on 29 June 2020, after first online publication: the order has been corrected.].</p