This paper reports experiments designed to investigate the extent to which behavior in games reflects strategic considerations. Besides making decisions in a set of normal-form games with a unique pure Nash-equilibrium, subjects were asked to state their beliefs about their opponents
decisions, as well as asked to state their beliefs about their opponents’ beliefs about their own decisions. The order of these three tasks was varied across different treatments to study what effects, if any, such direct belief elicitation procedures might have on subsequent stated beliefs and decisions. The data are used to examine the prediction accuracy of stated beliefs as well as how consistent stated beliefs and observed decisions are. Also, a set of eight belief-based behavioral models is estimated, using both the decision data and the belief statement data.
By: Miguel Costa-Gomes,Georg Weizsticker
Published in: RC22111 in 2001
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