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Hierarchical thinking and learning in rank order contests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Octavian Carare ,
Ernan Haruvy  and
Ashutosh Prasad
Octavian Carare*
Affiliation:
School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75083, USA
Ernan Haruvy*
Affiliation:
School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75083, USA
Ashutosh Prasad*
Affiliation:
School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75083, USA
*
e-mail: carare@utdallas.edu
e-mail: eharuvy@utdallas.edu
e-mail: aprasad@utdallas.edu
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Abstract

We analyze a class of coordination games in which the Kth player to submit an entry wins a contest. These games have an infinite number of symmetric equilibria and the set of equilibria does not change with K. We run experiments with 15 participants and with K = 3, 7, and 11. Our experiments show that the value of K affects initial submissions and convergence to equilibrium. When K is small relative to the number of participants, our experiments show that repeated play converges to or near zero. When K is large, an equilibrium is often not reached as a result of repeated play. We seek explanations to these patterns in hierarchical thinking and direction learning.

Keywords

Coordination gamesRank order contestsLearningHierarchical thinkingExperiments
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 10 , Issue 3: Special issue of Experimental Economics in honor of Raymond C. Battalio: Coordination Games , September 2007 , pp. 305 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Economic Science Association

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