How many games are we playing? An experimental analysis of choice bracketing in games

摘要

Individuals who bracket decisions narrowly ignore the consequences of one decision when making another decision. Such behavior is well documented in experiments where subjects make decisions in the absence of strategic considerations. This paper uses an economic experiment to investigate whether people also bracket their decisions in games. Subjects played two Volunteer's Dilemmas at the same time, with the payoffs from both games added to their earnings. Aggregate play in the game is not consistent with predictions made by assuming all subjects bracket either narrowly or broadly. On the individual level, structural modeling suggests that most subjects bracket narrowly in the game.