TESS Study Page

Inattention to Game Form

Download data and study materials from OSF

Principal investigator:

Daniel Martin

Northwestern University

Email: d-martin@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Homepage: http://www.martinonline.org/daniel/

Sample size: 2016

Field period: 07/19/2017-04/30/2018

Abstract

We ran an experiment in which a real-stakes reward is offered to participants for completing the BDM procedure. This replicated the Cason and Plott (2014) experiment in the TESS setting. For the experimental data of Cason and Plott (2014) and our replication of their study, our model of inattention to game form explains departures from playing the dominant strategy (for both the WTA and WTP version of the BDM) significantly better than two existing approaches to modeling the misperception of this mechanism.

Hypotheses

We investigate whether inattention to game form is a possible reason for game form misperceptions. We model misperception of the mechanism's payoff rule using a standard approach to perception and attention in which agents receive informative mental signals about the world, and our innovation is to assume that agents receive signals about the mechanism's payoff rule. We follow Cason and Plott (2014) in assuming that participants are confused between the BDM procedure and a first-price version of the procedure.

Experimental Manipulations

We ran both the Willingness-to-Accept (WTA) version of the BDM and the Willingness-to-Pay (WTP) version of the BDM.

Outcomes

The bids made in the BDM procedure.

Summary of Results

For the experimental data of Cason and Plott (2014) and our replication of their study, this approach explains departures from playing the dominant strategy (for both the WTA and WTP version of the BDM) significantly better than two existing approaches to modeling the misperception of this mechanism.