A Continuous Dilemma ∗

We study prisoner’s dilemmas played in continuous time with flow payoffs over 60 seconds. In most cases, the median rate of mutual cooperation rises to 90% or more. Control sessions with 8-time repeated matchings achieve less than half as much cooperation, and cooperation rates approach zero in one-shot control sessions. In follow-up sessions with a variable number of subperiods, cooperation rates increase nearly linearly as the grid size decreases and, with one-second subperiods, they approach the level seen in continuous sessions. Our data support a strand of theory that explains how the capacity to respond rapidly stabilizes cooperation and destabilizes defection in the prisoner’s dilemma.