Does Experience Teach? Professionals and Minimax Play in the Lab

Wooders, J

Does Experience Teach? Professionals and Minimax Play in the Lab

Wooders, J

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Econometrica, 2010, 78 (3), pp. 1143 - 1154
Issue Date:: 2010-05-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Wooders, J https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4206-7137	en_US
dc.date.issued	2010-05-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Econometrica, 2010, 78 (3), pp. 1143 - 1154	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0012-9682	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/15723
dc.description.abstract	Does expertise in strategic behavior obtained in the field transfer to the abstract setting of the laboratory? Palacios-Huerta and Volij (2008) argued that the behavior of professional soccer players in mixed-strategy games conforms closely to minimax play, while the behavior of students (who are presumably novices in strategic situations requiring unpredictability) does not. We reexamine their data, showing that the play of professionals is inconsistent with the minimax hypothesis in several respects: (i) professionals follow nonstationary mixtures, with action frequencies that are negatively correlated between the first and the second half of the experiment, (ii) professionals tend to switch between under- and overplaying an action relative to its equilibrium frequency, and (iii) the distribution of action frequencies across professionals is far from the distribution implied by minimax. In each respect, the behavior of students conforms more closely to the minimax hypothesis. © 2010 The Econometric Society.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Econometrica	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.3982/ECTA7970	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Econometrics	en_US
dc.title	Does Experience Teach? Professionals and Minimax Play in the Lab	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	3	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	78	en_US
utslib.for	1401 Economic Theory	en_US
utslib.for	1402 Applied Economics	en_US
utslib.for	1403 Econometrics	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business/Economics Discipline
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.issue	3	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	78	en_US

Abstract:

Does expertise in strategic behavior obtained in the field transfer to the abstract setting of the laboratory? Palacios-Huerta and Volij (2008) argued that the behavior of professional soccer players in mixed-strategy games conforms closely to minimax play, while the behavior of students (who are presumably novices in strategic situations requiring unpredictability) does not. We reexamine their data, showing that the play of professionals is inconsistent with the minimax hypothesis in several respects: (i) professionals follow nonstationary mixtures, with action frequencies that are negatively correlated between the first and the second half of the experiment, (ii) professionals tend to switch between under- and overplaying an action relative to its equilibrium frequency, and (iii) the distribution of action frequencies across professionals is far from the distribution implied by minimax. In each respect, the behavior of students conforms more closely to the minimax hypothesis. © 2010 The Econometric Society.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/15723