We experimentally examine how the incentive to defect in a social dilemma affects conditional cooperation. In our first study we conduct online experiments in which subjects play eight Sequential Prisoner's Dilemma games with payoffs systematically varied across games. We find that few second...

A usual criticism of the theory of infinitely repeated games is that it does not provide sharp predictions since there may be a multiplicity of equilibria. To address this issue we present experimental evidence on the evolution of cooperation in infinitely repeated prisoners’ dilemma games as...

Real world players often increase their payoþs by voluntarily committing to play a .xed strategy, prior to the start of a strategic game. In fact, the players may further bene.t from commitments that are conditional on the commitments of others. This paper proposes a model of conditional...