Experimental results on the ultimatum game show clearly that (1) large fractions of players offer a 'fair' allocation and (2) that unfair (but positive) offers are systematically rejected. We offer an explanation of this behavior using the 'indirect evolutionary approach' which is based on the...

In this note we study a very simple trial & error learning process in the context of a Cournot oligopoly. Without any knowledge of the payoff functions players increase, respectively decrease, their quantity by one unit as long as this leads to higher profits. We show that this process converges...

The endowment effect describes the fact that people demand much more to give up an object than they are willing to spend to acquire it. The existence of this effect has been documented in numerous experiments. We attempt to explain this effect by showing that evolution favors individuals whose...

The recent literature on informational cascades has nurtured the impression that cascades can occur only if the action space is coarser than the signal space. In particular, it is sometimes claimed that with continuous action spaces cascades are impossible. In this note we present a simple...

This experiment was designed to test various learning theories in the context of a Cournot oligopoly. We derive theoretical predictions for the learning theories and test these predictions by varying the information given to subjects. The results show that some subjects imitate successful...