This book is about the interplay of theory and experimentation on group decision making in economics. The theories that the book subjects to experimental testing mostly come from the theory of games. The decisions investigated in the book mostly concern economic interaction like strict competition. two-person bargaining. and coalition formation. The underlying philosophy of the articles collected in this book is consistent with the opinion of a growing number of economists and psychologists that economic issues cannot be understood fully just by thinking about them. Rather. the interplay between theory and experimentation is critical for the development of economics as an observational science (Smith. 1989). Reports of laboratory experiments in decision making and economics date back more than thirty years (e.g .• Allais. 1953; Davidson. Suppes. and Siegel. 1957; Flood. 1958; Friedman. 1%3; Kalisch. Milnor. Nash. and Nering. 1954; Lieberman. 1%0; Mosteller and Nogee. 1951; Rapoport. Chammah. Dwyer. and Gyr. I %2; Siegel and Fouraker. I %0; Stone. 1958). However. only in the last ten or fifteen years has laboratory experimentation in economics started its steady transformation from an occasional curiosity into a regular means for investigating various economic phenomena and examining the role of economic institutions. Groups of researchers in the USA and abroad have used experimental methods with increasing sophistication to attack economic problems that arise in individual decision making under risk. two-person bargaining.
This book reports our research on detection of change processes that underlie psychophysical, learning, medical diagnosis, military, and pro duction control situations, and share three major features. First, the states of the process are not directly observable but become gradually known with the sequential acquisition of fallible information over time. Second, the mechanism that generates the fallible information is not stationary; rather, it is subjected to a sudden and irrevocable change. Thirdly, in complete, probabilistic information about the time of change is available when the process commences. The purpose of the book is to characterize this class of detection of change processes, to derive the optimal policy that minimizes total expected loss, and, most importantly, to develop testable response models, based on simple decision rules, for describing detection of change behavior. The book is theoretical in the sense that it offers mathematical models of multi-stage decision behavior and solutions to optimization problems. However, it is not anti-empirical, as it aims to stimulate new experimental research and to generate applications. Throughout the book, questions of experimental verification are briefly considered, and existing data from two studies are brought to bear on the validity of the models. The work is not complete; it only provides a starting point for investigating how people detect a change in an uncertain environment, balancing between the cost of delay in detecting the change and the cost of making an incor rect terminal decision.
This book collects and integrates the results of an extensive research program conducted by the authors over the past two decades. It spans the disciplines of transportation science, operations management, and behavioral economics, and consists of 16 chapters previously published in peer-reviewed academic journals and grouped under three topical sections: queueing, route choice, and departure time. The book focuses on strategic interactions in directed networks and laboratory experiments carefully designed to test the descriptive validity of the underlying theoretical models. The research question that unifies the chapters is: do the conclusions of theoretical literature account for the decisions of network users in controlled laboratory experiments? With several major qualifications, this book answers this question affirmatively.
First published in 1984. In this book, the authors set forth the central ideas and results of the major theories of coalition forming behavior. These theories address situations of partial conflict of interest with the following aspects: (1) there are three or more players, (2) players may openly communicate with each other, and (3) players form coalitions by freely negotiating agreements on how to disburse the gains that result from the coalition members’ joint coordinated efforts. These models arise from the two disciplines of mathematics, in the theory of cooperative n-person games with side payments, and social psychology, in theories of small group behavior in mixed-motive situations. The goal is to explore the various solution concepts that make up this body of theory, and in particular to examine the psychological premises that underlie the various theoretical models.
This book is about the interplay of theory and experimentation on group decision making in economics. The theories that the book subjects to experimental testing mostly come from the theory of games. The decisions investigated in the book mostly concern economic interaction like strict competition. two-person bargaining. and coalition formation. The underlying philosophy of the articles collected in this book is consistent with the opinion of a growing number of economists and psychologists that economic issues cannot be understood fully just by thinking about them. Rather. the interplay between theory and experimentation is critical for the development of economics as an observational science (Smith. 1989). Reports of laboratory experiments in decision making and economics date back more than thirty years (e.g .• Allais. 1953; Davidson. Suppes. and Siegel. 1957; Flood. 1958; Friedman. 1%3; Kalisch. Milnor. Nash. and Nering. 1954; Lieberman. 1%0; Mosteller and Nogee. 1951; Rapoport. Chammah. Dwyer. and Gyr. I %2; Siegel and Fouraker. I %0; Stone. 1958). However. only in the last ten or fifteen years has laboratory experimentation in economics started its steady transformation from an occasional curiosity into a regular means for investigating various economic phenomena and examining the role of economic institutions. Groups of researchers in the USA and abroad have used experimental methods with increasing sophistication to attack economic problems that arise in individual decision making under risk. two-person bargaining.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.