The Speed of Learning in Noisy Games: Partial Reinforcement and the Sustainability of Cooperation

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2006
Volume: 96
Issue: 4
Pages: 1029-1042

Authors (2)

Yoella Bereby-Meyer (not in RePEc) Alvin E. Roth (Stanford University)

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

In an experiment, players? ability to learn to cooperate in the repeated prisoner?s dilemma was substantially diminished when the payoffs were noisy, even though players could monitor one another?s past actions perfectly. In contrast, in one-time play against a succession of opponents, noisy payoffs increased cooperation, by slowing the rate at which cooperation decays. These observations are consistent with the robust observation from the psychology literature that partial reinforcement (adding randomness to the link between an action and its consequences while holding expected payoffs constant) slows learning. This effect is magnified in the

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:96:y:2006:i:4:p:1029-1042
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-29