Man Versus Nash: An Experiment on the Self-enforcing Nature of Mixed Strategy Equilibrium

Jason Shachat, J. Todd Swarthouty and Lijia Wei

No 2013-10-14, Working Papers from Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University

Abstract: We examine experimentally how humans behave when they play against a computer which implements its part of a mixed strategy Nash equilibrium. We consider two games, one zero-sum and another unprofitable with a pure minimax strategy. A minority of subjects' play was consistent with their Nash equilibrium strategy, while a larger percentage of subjects' play was more consistent with different models of play: equiprobable play for the zero-sum game, and the minimax strategy in the unprofitable game. We estimate the heterogeneity and dynamics of the subjects' latent mixed strategy sequences via a hidden Markov model. This provides clear results on the identification of the use of pure and mixed strategies and the limiting distribution over strategies. The mixed strategy Nash equilibrium is not self-enforcing except when it coincides with the equal probability mixed strategy, and there is surprising amounts of pure strategy play and clear cycling between the pure strategy states.

Keywords: Mixed Strategy; Nash Equilibrium; Experiment; Hidden Markov Model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C10 C72 C92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-10-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Man versus Nash An experiment on the self-enforcing nature of mixed strategy equilibrium (2011)
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