A Case of Evolutionarily Stable Attainable Equilibrium in the Lab

Abstract

We reinvestigate data from the voting experiment of Forsythe, Myerson, Rietz, and Weber (1993). In every one of 24 rounds 28 players were randomly (re)allocated into two groups of 14 to play a voting stage game with or without a preceding opinion poll phase. We find that the null hypothesis that play in every round is given by a particular evolutionarily stable attainable equilibrium of the 14 player stage game cannot be rejected if we account for risk-aversion (or a heightened concern for coordination), calibrated in another treatment.

Keywords: opinion polls, elections, testing, Nash equilibrium, attainable equilibrium, evolutionary stability

JEL Classification: C57, C72, D72