Hierarchical Thinking and Learning in Rank Order Contests

Posted: 7 Feb 2012

See all articles by Octavian Carare

Octavian Carare

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Ernan Haruvy

McGill University; McGill University - Desautels Faculty of Management

Ashutosh Prasad

University of California, Riverside (UCR)

Date Written: August 7, 2007

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 games, Rank order contests, Learning, Hierarchical thinking, Experiments

JEL Classification: C92, D83

Suggested Citation

Carare, Octavian and Haruvy, Ernan and Prasad, Ashutosh, Hierarchical Thinking and Learning in Rank Order Contests (August 7, 2007). Experimental Economics, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2000778

Octavian Carare

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ( email )

United States

Ernan Haruvy (Contact Author)

McGill University ( email )

1001 Sherbrooke St. W
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1G5
Canada

McGill University - Desautels Faculty of Management ( email )

1001 Sherbrooke St. West
Montreal, Quebec H3A1G5 H3A 2M1
Canada

Ashutosh Prasad

University of California, Riverside (UCR)

900 University Avenue
Riverside, CA CA 92521
United States

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