Bargaining and Negotiations What should experimentalists explore more thoroughly?

A long time ago most economists would have limited themselves to stating that agreements should be individually rational and efficient and that selecting a specific agreement from that set depends on bargaining and negotiation power whatever that may be. Nowadays hardly any economist will argue that way. The change has been brought about by the strategic approach to bargaining and cooperation and the parallel experimental studies of bargaining and negotiation. When arguing what should be explored more thoroughly, we will point out directions where previous efforts may have been misdirected, where importing new methods may be helpful or even needed, and where new research questions need to be asked and answered.(un)bounded rationality, (non-)cooperative game theory, bargaining and negotiation (theory and experiments)

Introducing disappointment dynamics and comparing behaviors in evolutionary games : Some simulation results

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedThe paper presents an evolutionary model, based on the assumption that agents may revise their current strategies if they previously failed to attain the maximum level of potential payoffs. We offer three versions of this reflexive mechanism, each one of which describes a distinct type: spontaneous agents, rigid players, and 'satisficers'. We use simulations to examine the performance of these types. Agents who change their strategies relatively easily tend to perform better in coordination games, but antagonistic games generally lead to more favorable outcomes if the individuals only change their strategies when disappointment from previous rounds surpasses some predefined threshold.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The better toolbox: experimental methodology in economics and psychology

In experimental economics one can confront a “don’t!”, as in “do not deceive your participants!”, as well as a “do!”, as in “incentivize choice making!”. Neither exists in experimental psychology. Further controversies exist in data collection methods, e.g., play strategy (vector) method in game experiments, and how to guarantee external and internal validity by describing experimental scenarios by feld-related vignettes or by abstract, often formal, rules as it is used in decision and game theory. We emphasize that diferences between the experimental methodology of the two disciplines are minor rather than substantial and suggest that such diferences should be resolved, as much as possible, through empirical research. Rather than focusing on familiar debates, we suggest to substitute the revealed-motive approach in experimental economics by designs whose data not only inform about choice, but also about the reasoning dynamics

An understanding of influence on human behavior

We describe a candid model for learning, why and how learning transpires. We investigate the original as well as the leading conditions of the learning process. We provide an insight into the realm of beliefs and their formation, their interaction and influence with the actor’s environment. In addition, we provide to our terms (and terminology) real definitions, thus differentiating between nominal and real definitions. Having this approach, the same terminology can be employed by other models, theories or frameworks without creating ‘expert language’ barriers. Moreover, we provide an understanding of the influence that learning in general has on human behavior.conceptual conglomerate, learning, learning process, human behavior.

Adopting and adapting a standardised modular survey

Survey design involves a range of different decisions, many of which affect the accuracy of the results. This report discusses some of the key challenges of comparative survey research, and the different approaches to quality in comparative survey projects through the concept of equivalence. This field of research has developed considerably in the past three decades or so, and we now have a greater understanding of how equivalence can be achieved. Global Kids Online (GKO) has developed a modular survey for those who want to study children’s use of digital media. The survey is responsive to local contexts while also allowing cross-national comparisons, and key to its flexibility is the concept of careful adaptation

A cybernetic decision model of market entry

This article analyzes a firm's decision of entering a new market - or staying outside - and considers five decision models - optimizing, satisficing, incremental, cybernetic, and random - and their domain of applicability in order to discuss how fit they are in describing this specific decision. Because the cybernetic decision strategy appears to be the most appropriate to deal with the entry decision, the work goes deeper into this model focusing on the degree of uncertainty that the environment represents to the decision makers and to the state of the conflict of interest that arises because this decision implies a coordination problem

The epistemic value of rationality

Models of rational choice use different definitions of rationality. However, there is no clear description of the latter. We recognize rationality as a conceptual conglomerate where reason, judgment, deliberation, relativity, behavior, experience, and pragmatism interact. Using our definition, the game theoretic idealized principle of rationality becomes absolute. Our model gives a more precise account of the players, of their true behavior. We show that the Rational Method (RM) is the only process that can be used to achieve a specific goal. We also provide schematics of how information, beliefs, knowledge, actions, and purposes interact with and influence each other in order to achieve a specific goal. Furthermore, ration, the ability to think in the RM framework, is a singularity in time and space. Having a unilateral definition of rationality, different models and theories have now a common ground on which we can judge their soundness.conceptual conglomerate, traditional rationality, rational method, ration