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Ten Little Treasures of Game Theory and Ten Intuitive Contradictions

American Economic Review 2001 91(5), 1402-1422
This paper reports laboratory data for games that are played only once. These games span the standard categories: static and dynamic games with complete and incomplete information. For each game, the treasure is a treatment in which behavior conforms nicely to predictions of the Nash equilibrium or relevant refinement. In each case, however, a change in the payoff structure produces a large inconsistency between theoretical predictions and observed behavior. These contradictions are generally consistent with simple intuition based on the interaction of payoff asymmetries and noisy introspection about others' decisions.