Risk attitudes and the stag-hunt game


Buyukboyaci M. İ.

ECONOMICS LETTERS, vol.124, no.3, pp.323-325, 2014 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 124 Issue: 3
  • Publication Date: 2014
  • Doi Number: 10.1016/j.econlet.2014.06.019
  • Journal Name: ECONOMICS LETTERS
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.323-325
  • Keywords: Risk aversion, Stag-hunt games, Strategic uncertainty, Coordination, COORDINATION GAMES
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: No

Abstract

A stag-hunt game (with the risky and safe actions) has two pure Nash equilibria that are Pareto-rankable. The risky action leads either to the Pareto-superior equilibrium (high payoff) or to out of equilibrium (low payoff) depending on the opponent's action. Both players may want to obtain high payoff but uncertainty about the opponent's action may prevent them to take such strategic risk, This paper investigates how information about the risk attitude of an opponent affects a player's action choice in the stag-hunt game. I find that although a subject's propensity to choose the risky action depends on her opponent's risk attitude, it does not depend on her own risk attitude. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.