Game Theory and Social Interactions: A Virtual Collaboratory for Teaching and Research

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

Game theory is one of the prime contenders for becoming the central theory in economics and related social sciences. Broadly speaking, a game is an interactive situation in which everyone's incentives depend on their own and others' actions. Games have been used to model a wide variety of environments, such as collective action problems, market pricing, auctions, committee voting, family decisions, organizational behavior, and contract law negotiations. The Nash equilibrium, which has been the central solution concept in game theory since its introduction about fifty years ago, is one of the most commonly used constructs in economics. Game theory is increasingly being applied in political science and management science. Its relevance in many non-market interactions, however, is limited by the extreme rationality assumptions that underlie standard solution concepts. This project will bring together a group of social scientists that incorporate behavioral and cultural factors into the analysis of strategic interactions. Cross-cultural studies of non-economic motivations are naturally supplemented with controlled experiments, some of which will be implemented using a portable wireless laboratory or web-based software to connect participants at different locations. Although game theory has been successfully applied in some settings (for example, the design of the FCC spectrum auctions), the inclusion of behavioral elements and limited rationality is essential to ensure a major impact on the study of a wide array of social interactions. One goal of this project is to coordinate web-based teaching, research, and programming activities through a virtual collaboratory involving the investigators and other researchers who decide to post and share their work. The central website will contain a set of useful computer programs and a data base of interdisciplinary experimental results, which will be structured to stimulate further theoretical work that is guided by carefully documented empirical regularities. The web-based programs that control these strategic interactions will be made available for general use and adapted for classroom instruction, for large classes and groups of students at different universities. A series of annual workshops on classroom experiments, held at different locations, will facilitate the dissemination of the teaching and research insights across disciplinary boundaries.