Methodology of experimental economics

We study social preferences in a three-person ultimatum game experiment with one proposer and two responders. Any responder can unilaterally punish the proposer. In three treatments, we vary the pecuniary consequences of rejection in such a way that upon rejection of one responder the other responder is (i) affected negatively, (ii) not affected, and (iii) positively affected. We collect complete strategies and are able to classify (almost) all of them in intuitively plausible strategy types. Half of the responders submitted strategies that are sensitive to the relative standing with respect to the proposer and the other responder. The other half of responders submitted strategies with an acceptance threshold concerning the own material payoff, only. Moreover, we observe a treatment effect. A responder is more likely to reject a proposal if this does not negatively affect his relative standing with respect to the other responder. Recently developed models of social preferences are not able to organize our data.

UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam () UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Responder behavior in three-person ultimatum game experiments Riedl, Arno; Vyrastekova, Jana Publication date 2003 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Riedl, A., & Vyrastekova, J. (2003). Responder behavior in three-person ultimatum game experiments. Unknown Publisher. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website.

which investigated the Nash equilibrium strategies in a repeated bidding institution called the rotating credit association. We study a parallel application of the rotating credit structure for tacit collusion among several sellers with a single agent buying an indivisible commodity from them at regular intervals via sealed-bid auctions.

Este artículo estudia el efecto de la experiencia, la estrategia intertemporal y el tamaño del grupo como posibles explicaciones a los mayores niveles de contribución al equilibrio en un juego de bienes públicos. En conjunto estas variables permiten capturar el efecto de la pertenencia al grupo, entendido este como el hecho de que a mayor información sobre el comportamiento de los integrantes de él se tenga, mayores serán los niveles de contribución. Para esto se implementó un tratamiento en el que los sujetos interactúan en un grupo con integrantes fijos (socios), y otro en el que el grupo cambia de forma aleatoria en cada ronda (extraños). Adicionalmente, se realizaron los tratamientos cruzados, donde la condición de socios o extraños en una primera etapa se cambia sorpresivamente en una segunda etapa del experimento. Para analizar el efecto del tamaño del grupo se consideraron grupos de cuatro y cinco integrantes. Los resultados muestran que la contribución promedio es positiva y...

Introduction: The role of medicinal plants in meeting the healthcare needs of the populace, particularly in developing countries cannot be overemphasized. They provide holistic treatment and wellbeing due to a plethora of phytochemicals found in them. Among such is Tetrapleura tetraptera (Schum. & Thonn.) Taub., a multipurpose tree plant with varied biological activities. The current study was aimed at assessing the basic phytochemical constituents, free radical scavenging activity as well as the antimicrobial effect on various solvent extracts of leaves, fruit and stem bark of T. tetraptera of Ghanaian origin. Materials and Methods: Aqueous, 50% hydroethanolic and methanolic extracts were made from the leaves, fruits, and stem bark of T. tetraptera. They were assessed for the qualitative and quantitative phytochemical constituents, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity, antimicrobial activity as well as the spectroscopic properties (Ultraviolet – visible ...

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This study extends the institutional design of the existing literature focusing solely on short selling by introducing an insider who is informed of the dividend distribution and experienced outsiders who gain information via trading experience. Our findings show that introducing short selling and an insider does reduce the bubble duration and size. At the same time, volatility is significantly reduced. Furthermore, the presence of the single insider reduces the large undervaluation and overall turnover in pure short selling treatment and generates small positive bubbles. Once the outsiders gain information via trading experience, there are small positive bubbles with reduced volatility.

During the heyday of discussion about Milton Friedman's 1953 methodology paper, Samuelson's operationalism was often discussed as the primary competitor to Friedman's position. Although Friedman's paper continues to be discussed-albeit at a steadily decreasing rate-Samuelson's account of economic methodology has all but disappeared from the literature. This paper offers a re-examination of Samuelson's account. Why a re-examination now? There are many reasons, but I will focus on just two. The first is that the historical research on Samuelson has exploded since his death in 2009, primarily because of the extensive archival material he left behind. The second is Samuelson's revealed preference theory; it is methodologically relevant because Samuelson insisted it was an exemplar of his operationalist approach.

Even though one of the founding aspirations of our field was to foster mutually beneficial exchanges between economics and philosophy, economists never paid much attention to our work. Now that practicing economists are increasingly engaging in explicit methodological reflections, we can no longer comfort ourselves with the idea that economists are simply not interested in discussions of methodological issues. What is new on our side of the fence is that some of us commend economists not to be distracted by the sort of philosophical ideas we discuss in our work. While no one openly opposes this, it is clear that others in our field strongly disagree with this. I argue that what is ultimately at stake are different views on what philosophy of economics is all about, what it should be and what it should do. I also argue that these fundamental disagreements are better discussed openly than being kept under the carpet.

All science is mirroring a Weltansicht, or worldview-that is, a comprehensive framework through which individuals or cultures interpret and understand the world around them. Worldviews not only provide a broader context for interpreting the data, but also influence research directions, methodological preferences, and final conclusions. Economics is no exception to this phenomenon. This modest essay aims to open up the epistemological foundations of modern economics to closer scrutiny with a view to pinpointing the tacit assumptions, cultural or other biases, and preconceived notions operating beneath the surface of economic theories, models, methods, and approaches. In addition, this essay also explores the controversial idea of Islamic economics which its exponents say recognizes the interdependence between economic outcomes and ethical choices, and take into account the importance of aligning economic activities with universally accepted human values.

Social norms can be understood as the grammar of social interaction. Like grammar in speech, they specify what is acceptable in a given context (Bicchieri in The grammar of society: the nature and dynamics of social norms, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006). But what are the specific rules that direct human compliance with the norm? This paper presents a quantitative model of self-and the other-perspective interaction based on a 'quantum model of decision-making', which can explain some of the 'fallacies' of the classical model of strategic choice. By (re)connecting two fields of social science research-norms compliance, and strategic decision-making-we aim to show how the novel quantum approach to the later can advance our understanding of the former. From the cacophony of different quantum models, we distill the minimal structure necessary to account for the known dynamics between the expectations and decisions of an actor. This model was designed for the strategic interaction of two players and successfully tested in the case of the one-shot Prisoners' Dilemma game. Quantum models offer a new conceptual framework for examining the interaction between self-and other-perspective in the process of social interaction which enables us to specify how social norms influence individual behavior.

The rise of behavioral economics since the 1980s led to richer mutual
influence between economic and psychological theory and
experimentation. However, as behavioral economics has become
increasingly integrated into the main stream in economics, and as
psychology has remained damagingly methodologically conservative,
this convergence has recently gone into reverse. At the same time,
growing appreciation among economists of the limitations of atomistic
individualism, along with advantages in econometric modeling
flexibility by comparison with psychometrics, is leading economists to
become more pluralistic than psychologists about the ontology of
behavioral causation and structures. This, combined with economists’
growing interest in network models, is drawing economists closer in
theory and practice to sociologists who use quantitative or mixed
methods.

El primer objetivo del trabajo es ofrecer una clasificacion de los distintos hechos de soborno a partir de dos dimensiones: quien comienza el intercambio corrupto, y en que medida los involucrados cumplen la norma social. El segundo objetivo es proveer una revision y un analisis critico de la literatura sobre experimentos de coimas, en funcion de las categorias definidas en primer termino. Se muestra que las normas sociales no estan implementadas debidamente en los juegos experimentales, y se explica que por ello las categorias de soborno no estan debidamente modeladas. Sobre la base de la discusion de la evidencia experimental, se muestra la potencial importancia empirica de la explicitacion de las normas sociales. Se concluye que representar en los juegos tales normas permitiria incrementar la validez ecologica y externa de los experimentos de coimas.

Even though one of the founding aspirations of our field was to foster mutually beneficial exchanges between economics and philosophy, economists never paid much attention to our work. Now that practicing economists are increasingly engaging in explicit methodological reflections, we can no longer comfort ourselves with the idea that economists are simply not interested in discussions of methodological issues. What is new on our side of the fence is that some of us commend economists not to be distracted by the sort of philosophical ideas we discuss in our work. While no one openly opposes this, it is clear that others in our field strongly disagree with this. I argue that what is ultimately at stake are different views on what philosophy of economics is all about, what it should be and what it should do. I also argue that these fundamental disagreements are better discussed openly than being kept under the carpet.

Este artículo estudia el efecto de la experiencia, la estrategia intertemporal y el tamaño del grupo como posibles explicaciones a los mayores niveles de contribución al equilibrio en un juego de bienes públicos. En conjunto estas variables permiten capturar el efecto de la pertenencia al grupo, entendido este como el hecho de que a mayor información sobre el comportamiento de los integrantes de él se tenga, mayores serán los niveles de contribución. Para esto se implementó un tratamiento en el que los sujetos interactúan en un grupo con integrantes fijos (socios), y otro en el que el grupo cambia de forma aleatoria en cada ronda (extraños). Adicionalmente, se realizaron los tratamientos cruzados, donde la condición de socios o extraños en una primera etapa se cambia sorpresivamente en una segunda etapa del experimento. Para analizar el efecto del tamaño del grupo se consideraron grupos de cuatro y cinco integrantes. Los resultados muestran que la contribución promedio es positiva y...

Introduction: The role of medicinal plants in meeting the healthcare needs of the populace, particularly in developing countries cannot be overemphasized. They provide holistic treatment and wellbeing due to a plethora of phytochemicals found in them. Among such is Tetrapleura tetraptera (Schum. & Thonn.) Taub., a multipurpose tree plant with varied biological activities. The current study was aimed at assessing the basic phytochemical constituents, free radical scavenging activity as well as the antimicrobial effect on various solvent extracts of leaves, fruit and stem bark of T. tetraptera of Ghanaian origin. Materials and Methods: Aqueous, 50% hydroethanolic and methanolic extracts were made from the leaves, fruits, and stem bark of T. tetraptera. They were assessed for the qualitative and quantitative phytochemical constituents, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity, antimicrobial activity as well as the spectroscopic properties (Ultraviolet – visible ...

Imagine asking a typical, well informed, contemporary philosopher whether or not she considered biology to be a science. Our informant, being a philosopher, would not necessarily respond with the straightforward “of course” that would be expected from anyone else. She might first reason through a complicated and heavily qualified definition of science, or she might distinguish certain parts of biology (molecular genetics, perhaps) that she held to be more clearly scientific than others (sociobiology, perhaps). If she were partial to a certain sort of critical stance, she might question the political basis for wishing to dignify certain parts of our inquisitive practice with the honorific ‘scientific’ in the first place. But there is at least one thing that she would almost certainly not do. She would not simultaneously embrace a version of the conventional philosophical view of science and deny that biology is a science. This is despite the fact that, as she will acknowledge, biolog...

Este artículo estudia el efecto de la experiencia, la estrategia intertemporal y el tamaño del grupo como posibles explicaciones a los mayores niveles de contribución al equilibrio en un juego de bienes públicos. En conjunto estas variables permiten capturar el efecto de la pertenencia al grupo, entendido este como el hecho de que a mayor información sobre el comportamiento de los integrantes de él se tenga, mayores serán los niveles de contribución. Para esto se implementó un tratamiento en el que los sujetos interactúan en un grupo con integrantes fijos (socios), y otro en el que el grupo cambia de forma aleatoria en cada ronda (extraños). Adicionalmente, se realizaron los tratamientos cruzados, donde la condición de socios o extraños en una primera etapa se cambia sorpresivamente en una segunda etapa del experimento. Para analizar el efecto del tamaño del grupo se consideraron grupos de cuatro y cinco integrantes. Los resultados muestran que la contribución promedio es positiva y...

Este artículo estudia el efecto de la experiencia, la estrategia intertemporal y el tamaño del grupo como posibles explicaciones a los mayores niveles de contribución al equilibrio en un juego de bienes públicos. En conjunto estas variables permiten capturar el efecto de la pertenencia al grupo, entendido este como el hecho de que a mayor información sobre el comportamiento de los integrantes de él se tenga, mayores serán los niveles de contribución. Para esto se implementó un tratamiento en el que los sujetos interactúan en un grupo con integrantes fijos (socios), y otro en el que el grupo cambia de forma aleatoria en cada ronda (extraños). Adicionalmente, se realizaron los tratamientos cruzados, donde la condición de socios o extraños en una primera etapa se cambia sorpresivamente en una segunda etapa del experimento. Para analizar el efecto del tamaño del grupo se consideraron grupos de cuatro y cinco integrantes. Los resultados muestran que la contribución promedio es positiva y...

The aim of this article is to review some central ideas on economic methodology. Many people doubt whether economics can be considered as science. This sort of doubts does not exist, for instance, with respect to physics or chemistry. The main conclusion is that economics is a science inasmuch as it formulates falsifiable theories. However, the peculiarity that distinguishes it from, for instance, natural sciences, is that theories, in most cases, cannot actually in practice be falsified. Economists face very serious difficulties to test their theories because of the complexity of the subject matter and because of the presence of a lot of disturbances. So, as Hausman asserts, they are right in trusting more in the implications deduced from the theory's axioms than in the negative results which may emerge from empirical testing. It is very rare to see a theory disregarded because of an apparent disconfirmation. In economics there is, broadly speaking, nothing like a crucial experiment. The relationship between explanation and prediction, the role of tests and persuasion in economics, the use of mathematics, the relationship between economic theory and applied economics as well as other methodological issues are reviewed. Given economics's peculiarities it does not seem reasonable to judge its scientific character on the basis of its ability to use the methods and procedures of the experimental sciences. It seems more reasonable to analyze how to satisfy the scientific method requirements taking into consideration its particularities as a social science.

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it,. .. Justice Potter Stewart, 378 U.S. 184, 197. Rationality is for economists as pornography was to the U.S. Supreme Court, undefinable but nonetheless easily identified; and yet, like the Justices of the Court, no two economists share a common definition. This entry details some of the common meanings of individual (as opposed to social) rationality and discusses their uses. Our point of view is that of working economists rather than that of psychologists. Economics is committed to METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM, the claim that social phenomena must be explained in terms of individual actions which in turn must be explained through individuals' motivations. This commitment requires a theory of human action. The rationality principle, that individuals act in their best interest as they perceive it, provides such a theory. In this entry we evaluate the rationality hypothesis and its alternatives from the perspective of how they explain social phenomena such as the behavior of a market. Our interest is in social life rather than in the psychology of an individual.

Validity as a key concern in experimental methodology came to the fore in American post-World War Two psychology. Following the publication of the APA's Technical Recommendations in 1954, validity became firmly ingrained as one of the key concepts in psychologists' methodological discourse, without however any of the many different taxonomies prevailing over the others. In the 1980s and 1990s experimental economists introduced first external and later internal validity to demonstrate the experiments' validity for economic theorizing. Subsequently, In the 2000s internal and external validity in economics became analytically defined as relating the inside world of the laboratory to the outside world of reality, and as defining a trade-off between the costs and pay-off of experimental control. Both these analytical definitions are shown to be illusory.1

In Webster's Dictionary is an example of how to use “ceteris paribus “: [S]taple-growing states are, ceteris paribus, more favorable to slave labor than manufacturing states.” I suspect it would take a minor treatise to elucidate fully the ceteris paribus conditions here. And once this was done, it would be doubtful that holding all these cetera constant would have much analytical meaning. Unfortunately, this is always the potential problem with the expression. In too many cases one is unsure of exactly what restraints are being imposed and by what authority the exercise is legitimated. Fittingly, the history of ceteris paribus is a history of studied ambiguity.

Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.

En éste trabajo se aplica la teoría de los signos de Juan Poinsot para la evaluación de un "buen modelo económico". Primero se define qué se considera un buen modelo, luego se presenta el marco conceptual de Poinsot y se presentan algunas ideas actuales acerca de modelos económicos. Luego se muestra cómo se pueden combinar las ideas de Poinsot y sobre los modelos. La conclusión es que un buen modelo señala posibles causas de los fenómenos bajo estudio las que han de verificarse empíricamente.

The paper provides a critical review of research using virtual reality as a tool in experimental economics. It addresses the question of whether behavior in virtual environments is a valuable source of evidence for economists. It is argued that virtual reality experiments are proper framed field experiments, which allow testing the effect of contextual cues on economic decisionmaking under the strict control of the experimenter. This feature enhances replicability and attenuates the context-free illusion that represents an important limitation of the standard laboratory approach.

Este artículo estudia el efecto de la experiencia, la estrategia intertemporal y el tamaño del grupo como posibles explicaciones a los mayores niveles de contribución al equilibrio en un juego de bienes públicos. En conjunto estas variables permiten capturar el efecto de la pertenencia al grupo, entendido este como el hecho de que a mayor información sobre el comportamiento de los integrantes de él se tenga, mayores serán los niveles de contribución. Para esto se implementó un tratamiento en el que los sujetos interactúan en un grupo con integrantes fijos (socios), y otro en el que el grupo cambia de forma aleatoria en cada ronda (extraños). Adicionalmente, se realizaron los tratamientos cruzados, donde la condición de socios o extraños en una primera etapa se cambia sorpresivamente en una segunda etapa del experimento. Para analizar el efecto del tamaño del grupo se consideraron grupos de cuatro y cinco integrantes. Los resultados muestran que la contribución promedio es positiva y...

Resumen En éste trabajo se aplica la teoría de los signos de Juan Poinsot para la evaluación de un "buen modelo económico". Primero se defi ne qué se considera un buen modelo, luego se presenta el marco conceptual de Poinsot y se presentan algunas ideas actuales acerca de modelos económicos. Luego se muestra cómo se pueden combinar las ideas de Poinsot y sobre los modelos. La conclusión es que un buen modelo señala posibles causas de los fenómenos bajo estudio las que han de verifi carse empíricamente. Clasifi cación JEL: A11, B41, C0 Palabras clave: modelos económicos-teoría de los signos-causalidad Abstract This paper applies John Poinsot's doctrine about signs to the evaluation of "good economic models". First, a "good model" is defi ned. Then, Poinsot's conceptual framework and some current ideas about models are introduced. Third, the paper shows how Poinsot's and ideas about models can be combined. The conclusion is that a good model r...

Distributive justice seems to guide behavior in reward allocation tasks in which subjects in a group jointly produce an endowment that is then allocated by a member of the group. It has been shown that allocators aim to preserve the proportionality between inputs (e.g., effort) and outputs (e.g., monetary rewards) of those in the group, even when this comes at a cost to themselves. We experimentally investigated whether justice considerations of this kind play a role in a double-blind dictator game when the assets to be allocated are generated exclusively through the effort of the decision maker. The experiment shows that distributive justice is an important source of motivation in highly demanding social environments in which reputational concerns and reciprocity are absent. This finding has been corroborated by an independent validity check and may have important implications for previous experimental findings and for the economics of charity.

I. INTRODUCTION This paper reviews a new research technique in law and economics-experimental law and economics. Although some economists have used laboratory techniques to study and develop economic theory for more than 20 years, researchers have only recently started to use these techniques specifically in law and economics. In this paper we review the literature in economics relevant to law and economics and then show how the technique makes it possible to both test theories and examine the effects of alternative legal policies without costly social experiments. Finally, we discuss the few experimental studies dealing directly with propositions in law and economics and suggest some appropriate directions for future research. 3. the difference between sale and purchase price (s-p). Under these circumstances, any subject who prefers to take home as much money as he can will also prefer to make his sale at as high a price as he can. In this way, the experimenter can induce subjects to try to "sell high, buy low," just as real sellers and buyers try to do. Fourth, the experimenter observes both the subjects' decisions and the associated cash payouts to subjects. Then, he uses the data to infer something either about an economic theory, or about the real world subject of 2 that economic theory. What does one need to assume in order to make laboratory experiments a valid source of data about naturally-occurring environments? The literature 3 on the philosophy behind the use of experiaental techniques in economics has focused on three crucial assumptions. First, one must assume that subjects will prefer more money (in payoffs) to less money. In this way, the use of reel money payoffs can be used to induce preferences in the 4 subjects in a predictable fashion. Second, one must assume that the same general rules of human behavior apply in both the laboratory and the 2 This last step is discussed in much greater detail, below.

1953 essay, ‘The Methodology of Positive Economics ’ (henceforth F53). The session consisted of a panel of four presenters: Wade Hands, Uskali Mäki, Melvin Reder and me. Friedman was on a conference phone connection, listened to all of the papers and even made a few comments on them. In my contribution to this session, I argued that whether one has a favourable view of F53’s instrumentalist methodology depends on one’s ideology concerning Friedman-the-man. Specifically, I argued that when many econometricians who are opponents of Friedman-the-man’s economics are asked whether they agree with the essential ideas of instrumentalism – but without mentioning Friedman’s name or F53 – they will most often say they agree. So the public opposition to F53 often seems rather hypocritical – as their opposition seems ideological rather than intellectual. Later in 2003, Mäki organized his own conference to discuss F53 and its legacy. The announced list of contributors included Roger Backhouse, D...

La corrupción es un fenómeno que se caracteriza por el uso de recursos públicos en beneficio privado. Estudiar este fenómeno con las herramientas y métodos de análisis tradicionales (métodos observacionales) nos enfrenta a muchas dificultades metodológicas (resultados espurios, por ejemplo). Frente a ello, desde comienzos de los años 2000 se han venido desarrollando estudios que utilizan diseños experimentales, los que presentan un conjunto de ventajas frente a los diseños tradicionales. En la literatura, encontramos que son tres los diseños experimentales utilizados en el estudio de este fenómeno: (i) el diseño experimental en laboratorio (Lab experiment), (ii) el diseño experimental en campo (Field experiment) y (iii) el diseño experimental en encuesta (Survey experiment). En ese sentido, el presente artículo tiene por objetivo describir cada uno de estos diseños experimentales utilizados en el estudio de la corrupción, la utilidad de estos según las preguntas de investigación que se tengan, y junto a ello describir las principales investigaciones desarrolladas por investigadores líderes.

Glenn Harrison's recent (1989) article in this Review has provoked the loudest debate yet heard among experimental economists. His critique of the James Cox, Vernon Smith, and James Walker (1983a,b, 1985a,b, 1988; henceforth CSW) laboratory studies of first-price sealed-bid auctions with independent and private values, in my view, raises a fundamental methodological issue that is well worth debating, and the CSW research program deserves further discussion. In this short comment I confine myself to what I see as the most important issues and do not try to address all evidence relevant to the ongoing debate. First, I summarize Harrison's central argument very briefly. After pointing out two shortcomings in Harrison's specific analysis of CSW, I propose a methodological reconciliation. Finally (and with some trepidation since my own experience with the auction data is relatively slight), I suggest an alternative approach to understanding the anomalies discovered by CSW.

Could There Be a Science of Economics? JOHN D U P a uch scientific thinking and thinking about science involves the assump-M tion that there is a deep and pervasive order to the world that it is the business of science to disclose. A paradigmatic statement of such a view can be found in a widely discussed paper by a prominent economist, Milton Friedman (a paper which will be discussed in more detail shortly):

Recently, computer simulation, particularly agent-based modeling, has grown in popularity as a method to uncover macro patterns and developments that emerge from simple micro behavior. The present paper combines both techniques by using protocol analysis to uncover player strategies in an experiment and encoding those strategies in an agent-based computer simulation. In particular, Keynes’ (1936) beauty contest analogy is simulated in a number-guessing context. Several researchers have conducted experiments asking subjects to play “p-beauty contest games” in order to compare the experimental results with those predicted by the game-theoretic, deductive reasoning concept of iterated dominance. Our results are compared with those found experimentally in order to demonstrate the usefulness of a combining agent-based modeling with protocol analysis.

Dr. Ochangco’s book, based on his doctoral dissertation (1996, New School University), is to date still the only internationally recognized work by a Filipino in the field of economic methodology, an important area in economics representing an application of the philosophy of science to economics, typically utilizing parts of the history of economic thought as material. The author’s overlapping competencies (in both economics and philosophy) place him in a favored position to work in a difficult field where only few practicing economists feel themselves qualified.

We investigate the different ways in which the results of theoretical models can be ‘robust’. We identify three kinds of ‘robustness’: (1) robustness to changes in the model’s idealisations; (2) robustness to changes in the ‘background’ conditions; (3) robustness to changes in the implied causal mechanism. Each of these is discussed and illustrated by means of examples from economic practice.

We propose a novel model of aspiration levels for interactive games, termed economic harmony. The model posits that the individuals' levels of outcome satisfaction are proportional to their actual outcomes relative to their aspired outcomes. We define a state of harmony as a state at which the interacting players' levels of outcome satisfaction are equal, and underscore the necessary condition for the manifestation and sustenance of harmony situations on the behavioral level. We utilize the proposed model to predict the transfer decisions in a class of two-person ultimatum games, including the standard ultimatum game, an ultimatum game with asymmetric information about the size of the "pie", an ultimatum game with varying veto power. We also apply the model to predicting behavior in a three person ultimatum game with uncertainty regarding the identity of the recipient and in a sequential common pool resource game. For all the aforementioned games, we show that the ...

We investigate the different ways in which the results of theoretical models can be ‘robust’. We identify three kinds of ‘robustness’: (1) robustness to changes in the model’s idealisations; (2) robustness to changes in the ‘background’ conditions; (3) robustness to changes in the implied causal mechanism. Each of these is discussed and illustrated by means of examples from economic practice. Address for correspondence: Dr Francesco Guala Centre for Philosophy of the Social Sciences University of Exeter Amory Building, Rennes Drive Exeter EX4 4RJ UK Email:f.guala@ex.ac.uk * Grants from, respectively, the Cognitive Science Laboratory of the University of Trento and the Department of Economics of the University of Bergamo are gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank Alessandro Turrini, two anonymous referees, and the audience of the 2001 HES conference for some useful comments on an earlier version. The usual caveats apply.

We conduct a field experiment to explore the effect of social distance on the choice of economic opportunities in a virtual world community. We design trust games with partner selection, in which potential responders vary in social distance from the proposer, and the investment multiplier increases with social distance. The proposer can choose between the two trust games with the two different responders. This design allows us to study how individuals make decisions when it involves tradeoffs between economic opportunities and social distance. We compare participants' behavior to that in a benchmark standalone trust game and investigate three questions: (1) To what extent do proposers prefer to sacrifice potential payoff in favor of lower social distance, and to what extent such choices are rational? (2) Is there evidence for reciprocity by the chosen party? (3) To what extent do preferences over the passive player enter this decision? We find that proposers are more likely to select socially closer responders despite the lower rate of investment returns, and the latter reciprocate by returning a higher proportion than socially distant responders. The choice of socially distant responders does not increase significantly with the investment returns.

Le but de cette recherche est de trouver l'implicature conversationnelle et d'expliquer l'implication dans le film. En analysant les données, le chercheur voit dans le contexte, la transgression du principe de coopération, la situation et l'expression. La méthode d'analyse des données qui est utilisée dans cette recherche est la méthode Padan Pragmatik (méthode d’équivalence pragmatique) avec des techniques de base PUP (Triage de Constituent Déterminant) avec la technique avancée HBS (technique d’égalisation) et HBB ((Différencier la technique). Les résultats de l'analyse montrent qu'il y a 41 implications avec les caractéristiques qui clarifient l'énoncé. Ces caractéristiques sont a) L'implicature conversationnelle nécessite le sens conventionnel de la phrase utilisée, mais le contenu de l'implicature conversationnelle ne correspond pas au sens conventionnel de la phrase, b) La vérité du contenu de l'implicature conversationnelle ne dépen...