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  4. April 2012
  5. Slow to Anger and Fast to Forgive: Cooperation in an Uncertain World

Slow to Anger and Fast to Forgive: Cooperation in an Uncertain World

  • Drew Fudenberg
  • David G. Rand
  • Anna Dreber
American Economic Review
vol. 102, no. 2, April 2012
(pp. 720-49)
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Abstract

We study the experimental play of the repeated prisoner's dilemma when intended actions are implemented with noise. In treatments where cooperation is an equilibrium, subjects cooperate substantially more than in treatments without cooperative equilibria. In all settings there was considerable strategic diversity, indicating that subjects had not fully learned the distribution of play. Furthermore, cooperative strategies yielded higher payoffs than uncooperative strategies in the treatments with cooperative equilibria. In these treatments successful strategies were "lenient" in not retaliating for the first defection, and many were "forgiving" in trying to return to cooperation after inflicting a punishment. (JEL C72, C73, D81)

Citation

Fudenberg, Drew, David G. Rand, and Anna Dreber. 2012. "Slow to Anger and Fast to Forgive: Cooperation in an Uncertain World." American Economic Review, 102 (2): 720-49. DOI: 10.1257/aer.102.2.720

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • C72 Noncooperative Games
  • C73 Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games; Repeated Games
  • D81 Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty