Browsing by Author "Ahn, Toh-Kyeong"

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Asymmetric Payoffs in Simultaneous and Sequential Prisoner's Dilemma Games
(2006) Ahn, Toh-Kyeong; Lee, Myungsuk; Ruttan, Lore M.; Walker, James M.
"We investigate the role of payoff asymmetry in laboratory prisoner's dilemma games. Symmetric and Asymmetric games are examined in simultaneous and sequential settings. In the asymmetric/sequential games, we study the impact of having payoff advantaged players moving either first or second. Asymmetry reduces the rates of cooperation in simultaneous games. In sequential games, asymmetry interacts with order of play such that the rate of cooperation is highest when payoff disadvantaged players move first. The presence of an exit option increases cooperation by the players who choose to play the game when payoffs are symmetric, or when payoffs are asymmetric and the payoff disadvantaged player moves first."
Endogenous Group Formation
(2004) Ahn, Toh-Kyeong; Isaac, R. Mark; Salmon, Timothy C.
"While the rules governing the formation of groups engaging in collective action may have significant impact on group size and behavior of members, most experiments on public goods have been conducted with the subjects in fixed groups or of fixed sizes. We study endogenous formation of groups in a public-goods provision game by allowing subjects to change groups under three sets of rules: free entry and exit, restricted entry and free exit, and free entry and restricted exit. We find that the rules governing entry and exit do have a significant impact on individual behavior and group-level outcomes."
Foundations for Cooperation in Social Dilemmas
(2001) Ahn, Toh-Kyeong
"Institutional approaches to social dilemmas have so far focused on how to create incentive structures that channel individuals' behavior into socially desirable outcomes assuming that everyone is selfish. However, the presumption of universal selfishness is not only empirically invalid but may also result in inefficient policy prescriptions in the short run and a culture of distrust in the long run. The game theoretic models that depart from the universal self-interest assumption, on the other hand, have not been successful in incorporating both individual rationality and inter-individual heterogeneity. "This dissertation develops game theoretic models of social dilemmas with individuals who are rational in the sense that they have preferences and try to maximize expected utility but heterogeneous in the sense that they have different preferences over possible social outcomes. This dissertation tests the implications of the models using a series of experimental data sets. The empirical results are: (1) there is a significant proportion of individuals who are rational but not selfish, (2) non-selfish individuals' motivations are best described on a dimension of equity/fairness rather than being thought of as unconditional altruism, and (3) the possibility of sustained mutual cooperation in finitely repeated social dilemmas is affected by the material conditions of the action situation, the composition of types within the population, and individuals' willingness to take risks to initiate coordination."
Generating Distrust in PD Games: Fear, Greed, and History of Play
(1999) Ahn, Toh-Kyeong; Ostrom, Elinor; Schmidt, David; Shupp, Robert; Walker, James M.
"The impact of game parameters, social history, and endogenous group formation on the choice of strategies in repeated PD games is experimentally examined. Overall, rates of cooperation are quite low and decline with repetition of the game. On the other hand, rates of cooperation are increased by increases in the level of cooperators gain, as well as in groups that endogenously, via strategy selection, 'self-select' into subgroups of relatively high cooperators. Rates of cooperation are also increased in situations where subjects are repeatedly matched with the same person, relative to situations with random matching between decision rounds."
Heterogeneous Preferences and Collective Action
(2003) Ahn, Toh-Kyeong; Ostrom, Elinor; Walker, James M.
"In recent years, scholars have turned to alternative representations of utility to capture motivational heterogeneity across individuals. In the research reported here, we examine two models of heterogeneous utility—linear-altruism and inequity-aversion—in the context of two-person, social dilemma games. Empirical tests are conducted drawing on data from experiments and surveys. We find that the model of inequity-aversion accounts for a substantial proportion of the preference types and behavior that are not explained by the standard model of self-interested preferences. In contrast, the altruism model does not provide a significant increase in explanatory power over the inequity aversion model."
Incorporating Motivational Heterogeneity into Game Theoretic Models of Collective Action
(2002) Ahn, Toh-Kyeong; Ostrom, Elinor; Walker, James M.
Subsequently published as: "Incorporating Motivational Heterogeneity into Game Theoretic Models of Collective Action." Public Choice, 117, 2003, 295-315. "Understanding cooperation in the context of social dilemma games is fundamental to understanding how alternative institutional arrangements may foster collective action in such settings. An abundance of experimental evidence is inconsistent with predictions from game theoretic models based strictly on self-regarding utilities. In recent years, scholars have turned to alternative representations of utility in an attempt to capture motivational heterogeneity across individuals. In the research reported here, we examine two models of heterogeneous utility, linear-altruism and inequity-aversion, as complements to the standard model based on purely self-interested motivations. We examine these models in the contest of two-person social dilemma games. In addition, we examine data from experiments and survey instruments that provide evidence related to the empirical robustness of models based on different types of players characterized by heterogeneous utility functions."
Learning to Play Nice: Strategy Evolution in the National Hockey League
(2005) Ahn, Toh-Kyeong; Janssen, Marco A.; Reiners, Derek; Stake, Jeffrey E.
"The effect of increased monitoring and rule-enforcement in National Hockey League(NHL) games is analyzed at two levels (player and team). The economic theory of crime predicts a reduction of rule breaking due to increased deterrence. No change is observed in behavior at the player level. At the team level, however, we find a change in composition in type of players. Private rule enforcers, the goons, become more costly and less necessary when official monitoring is increased. We observe a decrease in the salaries of the goons as our game theoretic model predicted. These findings suggest that the economic theory of crime needs to be tested at multiple temporal and organizational levels."
Learning, Signaling, and Social Preferences in Public-Good Games
(2006) Janssen, Marco A.; Ahn, Toh-Kyeong
"This study compares the empirical performance of a variety of learning models and theories of social preferences in the context of experimental games involving the provision of public goods. Parameters are estimated via maximum likelihood estimation. We also performed estimations to identify different types of agents and distributions of parameters. The estimated models suggest that the players of such games take into account the learning of others and are belief learners. Despite these interesting findings, we conclude that a powerful method of model selection of agent-based models on dynamic social dilemma experiments is still lacking."
The Meaning of Social Capital and its Link to Collective Action
(2007) Ostrom, Elinor; Ahn, Toh-Kyeong
From p. 2-3: "The social capital approach takes these factors seriously as causes of behavior and collective social outcomes. The social capital approach does this in ways that are consistent with continued and lively development of neoclassical economics and rational choice approaches. In sum, the social capital approach improves the knowledge of macro political and economic phenomena by expanding the factors to be incorporated in such knowledge and by constructing richer causality among those factors, and by achieving these without dismissing the insights from neoclassical economics and rational choice theories. "Abundant, and often valid, criticisms of the concept have also levied against it (Arrow 1999; Solow 1999; Fine 2001; Durlauf 2002 - to name a few). Solow notes that much of the social capital research is plagued by 'vague ideas' and 'casual empiricism.' Academic research can be afflicted by fads and fashions just as much as any other field. We believe, however, that the concept of social capital can be defined carefully. It is a useful concept that should take its place alongside physical and human capital as core concepts of great usefulness to the social sciences."
Scaling Issues in the Social Sciences: A Report for the International Human Dimensions Program
(1998) Gibson, Clark C.; Ostrom, Elinor; Ahn, Toh-Kyeong
"Numerous human activities--from the cutting of firewood in rural Uganda to the production of hydrocarbons by oil refineries in southern California--have causes and consequences measured at small, medium, and large levels on spatial and temporal scales. The multilevel/multi-scale nature of the problems relating to the human dimensions of global change demands that researchers address key issues of scales and levels in their analyses. While natural scientists have long understood the importance of scales, and have operated within relatively well-defined hierarchical systems of analysis, social scientists have worked with scales of less precision and greater variety. With the growing realization that the insights of social science are crucial to understanding the relationships between people and the natural environment, it is necessary for social scientists to identify more clearly the effects of diverse levels on multiple scales in their own analyses, to comprehend how other social scientists employ diverse kinds of levels and scales, and to begin a dialogue with natural scientists about how different conceptions of scales and levels are related. "This report seeks to facilitate this dialogue among researchers by reviewing the concept of scale in the social sciences. After reading extensive numbers of articles and books related to the broad concept of scale, one of the key problems that we have come to recognize is that terms such as level and scale are frequently used interchangeably and that many of the key concepts related to scale are used differently across disciplines and scholars. Thus, we present in Table 1.1 definitions of key terms that we have come to use after reading the literature cited in the bibliography and struggling with the confusion created by many different uses of the same word."