Forward-looking behavior in Hawk-Dove games in endogenous networks: Experimental evidence

In this paper, we present the experimental results of our investigation of network formation and the distribution of actions in a population of players whose members may select their partners in a bilateral 2x2 Hawk-Dove base game. In the population game, exploitive Hawk behavior leads to inefficiency while cooperative Dove behavior leads to efficient outcomes. The experiment was conducted in continuous time such that participants could change their base game action and their partners at any point in time. For this type of strategic interaction we introduce a strategy adaptation rule (anticipatory better-reply rule, ABR) for players with limited foresight and a related stability criterion (reaction-anticipating stable, RAS), both of which assume that players take other players’ linking reactions into account when deciding on their strategies. A comparison of the ABR vs. the better-reply rule and the RAS vs. the Nash equilibrium ultimately reveals that the ABR and RAS are in better accord with our data. Moreover, we find that cooperative Dove behavior yielded higher payoffs than hawkish behavior.