We aim to understand the role and evolution of beliefs in the indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma (IRPD). To do so, we elicit beliefs about the supergame strategies chosen by others. We find that heterogeneity in beliefs and changes in beliefs with experience are central to understanding...

This paper examines the influence of pre-experiment tasks on subject understanding. It used a 2x2 design varying the type of instructions and whether or not the pre-experiment quiz was incentivized. The Standard instructions were written closely replicate instructions used in prior economics...

Game-theoretic models of learning are hard to study even in the laboratory setting due to econometric and practical concerns (like the limited length of an experimental session).In particular, as the simulations by (Salmon, 2001) show, in a cross-model (or "blind'') testing of several models,...

The indefinitely repeated prisoner's dilemma (IRPD) captures the trade-off between the short-term payoff from exploiting economic partners and the long-term gain from building successful relationships. We aim to understand more about how people form and use beliefs about others in the IRPD. To...

Many economic decisions, such as whether to invest in developing new skills, change professions, or purchase a new technology, benefit from accurate estimation of skill acquisition. We examine the accuracy of such predictions by having experimental participants predict the speed at which they...

Do people know their own risk preferences, or do risk choices change with experience and observation? We provide a clean and straightforward test in the laboratory. People make an initial decision concerning a lottery choice and then experience 24 practice periods in which they roll the dice,...

Observational learning theories often assume that people's actions can be observed. However, in many naturally-occurring environments, individuals can choose whether to disclose their behavior to others. We provide theoretical analysis of observational learning under optional disclosure...

We aim to understand the role and evolution of beliefs in the indefinitely repeated prisoner's dilemma (IRPD). To do so, we elicit beliefs about the supergame strategies chosen by others. We find that heterogeneity in beliefs and changes in beliefs with experience are central to understanding...

People often form mental models based on incomplete information, revising them as new relevant data becomes available. In this paper, we experimentally investigate how individuals update their models when data on predictive variables are gradually revealed. We find that people's models tend to...

The purpose of the paper is to explore, from an assessment viewpoint, the ideas below. Economics, as a social science, has always considered sets of individuals with assumed characteristics, namely the level of knowledge, although in an implicit way in most of the cases. In this sense, an...