Quantitative Economics: Jul, 2021, Volume 12, Issue 3

Bandits in the lab

Johannes Hoelzemann, Nicolas Klein

We experimentally implement a dynamic public‐good problem, where the public good in question is the dynamically evolving information about agents' common state of the world. Subjects' behavior is consistent with free‐riding because of strategic concerns. We also find that subjects adopt more complex behaviors than predicted by the welfare‐optimal equilibrium, such as noncut‐off behavior, lonely pioneers, and frequent switches of action.

Dynamic public‐good problem strategic experimentation exponential bandits learning dynamic games laboratory experiments C73 C92 D83 O32

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