Strategic Sophistication of Adolescents: Evidence from Experimental Normal-Form Games
41 Pages Posted: 12 Jul 2010
Abstract
We examine the strategic sophistication of adolescents, aged 10 to 17 years, in experimental normal-form games. Besides making choices, subjects have to state their first- and second-order beliefs. We find that choices are more often a best reply to beliefs if any player has a dominant strategy and equilibrium payoffs are not too unequal. Using a mixture model we can estimate for each subject the probability to be any of eight different strategic and non-strategic types. The econometric estimation reveals that older subjects are more likely to eliminate dominated strategies, and that subjects with good math grades are more strategic.
Keywords: strategic thinking, beliefs, experiment, age, adolescents
JEL Classification: C72, C91
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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