Hirokazu Takizawa

Equilibrium refinement vs. level-k analysis: An experimental study of cheap-talk games with private information

We present the experimental results of cheap-talk games with private information. We systematically compare various equilibrium refinement theories and bounded rationality models such as level-k analysis in explaining our experimental data. As in the previous literature, we find that when interests between sender and receiver are aligned, informative communication frequently arises. While babbling equilibrium play is observed more frequently in conflicting interest cases, a substantial number of players tend to choose truth-telling and credulous play. We also find that level-k analysis outperforms equilibrium refinement theories in explaining this phenomenon. Our results also confirm the existence of the “truth bias” and “truth-detection bias” reported in communication theory.

Level-K Analysis of Experimental Centipede Games

As one of the best-known examples of the paradox of backward induction, centipede games have prompted a host of studies with various approaches and explanations (McKelvey and Palfrey, 1992; Fey et al., 1996; Nagel and Tang, 1998; Rapoport et al., 2003; Palacios-Huerta and Volij, 2009). Focusing on initial plays observed in experiments, this paper attempts to offer another explanation based on thorough study of level-k models as applied to these games. Borrowing ideas from the cognitive hierarchy model (Camerer et al., 2004), the authors constructed a group of models based on levels of rationality, and also tested for various assumptions on the play of the most naive player type in these models. It was found that level-k models generally perform better than the agent quantal response equilibrium (AQRE) model and its variant with altruistic player types for increasing-pie centipede games, while the AQRE model with altruistic player types performs better in constant-pie games.

The Skipping-down strategy and stability in school choice problems with affirmative action: Theory and experiment

Abstract This paper presents a theoretical and experimental study of affirmative action policies in school choice problems focusing on the minority reserve mechanism, or DA-Reserve, proposed by Hafalir et al. (2013) and the majority quota mechanism, or DA-Quota, proposed by Abdulkadiroglu and Sonmez (2003) , Kojima (2012) and Matsubae (2011) . An evaluation of the performance of these mechanisms showed that, (1) while truth-telling is a dominant strategy in both mechanisms, the rate of its occurrence was less than 60%; (2) the average payoff was significantly higher with DA-Reserve than with DA-Quota, as theoretically predicted; (3) surprisingly, the proportion of students exhibiting justified envy was higher with DA-Reserve than with DA-Quota; and (4) a systematic pattern of deviation from the dominant strategy (referred to as skipping-down) was observed, and it was theoretically proven that this constituted Nash equilibrium with DA-Quota in some environments but not with DA-Reserve. More generally, the set of stable matchings was found to be larger with DA-Quota than with DA-Reserve, which explains the matching instability observed with the latter.

New Institutional Arrangements for Product Innovation in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley has long been successful in bringing a lot of outstanding entrepreneurial firms into existence, including high-tech firms such as Hewlett-Packard, National Semiconductor, Inte1, Advanced Micro Devices, Apple, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Oracle, 3Com and Cisco Systems. More recently leading firms in Internet/web services, such as Netscape, Yahoo and e-Bay, have been funded and nurtured in Silicon Valley. Compared with other high-tech industrial districts such as Cambridge in the UK, Silicon Valley is undoubtedly the forerunner in product system innovation.1

Quantal response equilibria in a generalized Volunteer’s Dilemma and step-level public goods games with binary decision

The present paper characterizes equilibria of a generalized Volunteer’s Dilemma game, which is an integration of the Volunteer’s Dilemma and the step-level public goods games with binary decision. We also examined the explanatory power of widely accepted models with bounded rationality, the quantal response equilibrium (QRE) and level-k analysis. It is shown that the performance of the QRE model is better in explaining laboratory data.

Extended Oligopolies with Pollution Penalties and Rewards

An extended -firm oligopoly with product differentiation is considered. It is assumed that the government selects an emission standard for the industry and based on the output and technology of each firm it selects a maximum allowed amount of emission for each firm. If the actual amount is higher than the allowed maximum, then the firm has to pay a constant multiple of the excess to the government; otherwise it is rewarded similarly based on the saved emission amount. The existence of the unique interior equilibrium is first proved, and then the effect of the level of penalty or reward and that of the emission standard on the industry output and therefore on the total emission level is also examined. Time delay is introduced into the penalties the firms have to pay and into the rewards the firms receive. In analyzing the stability of the equilibrium both discrete and continuous time scales are considered. For mathematical simplicity the case of symmetric firms is analyzed. In the discrete case the various values of the delay length are examined. The equilibrium is stable if either the total industry output is sufficiently large or the common speed of adjustment of the firms is sufficiently small. In the continuous case, either the equilibrium is always stable or stability occurs if the delay is sufficiently small and at the critical value Hopf bifurcation occurs.

Coordination Costs and the Optimal Partition of a Product Design

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the problem of optimally partitioning a design process of a complex product, and to derive several comparative statics results by utilizing the technique developed by Topkis (1998). By partitioning the product design and assigning each sub-design to a team, there are the benefit of having many smaller real options on the one hand, and the cost esulting from an increased incidence of across-team coordination on the other. Furthermore, by endogenizing the across-team coordination costs, our analysis shows that lower cost of within-team coordination induces coarser partitions and higher costs of acrossteam coordination, i.e. lower level of information and communication technology (ICT)investment. It is argued that these results may explain the reason for the retarded introduction of the ICT by Japanese firms in the 1970s and 1980s as well as the difference of performance between Route 128 and Silicon Valley in the 1990s. It is also argued that our results are consistent with the empirical finding by Brynjolfsson, Maline, Gurbaxani, and Kambil (1994) that ICT leads to decreases in firm size.