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  1. Free, publicly-accessible full text available May 24, 2024
  2. null (Ed.)
    Justified communication equilibrium (JCE) is an equilibrium refinement for signaling games with cheap-talk communication. A strategy profile must be a JCE to be a stable outcome of nonequilibrium learning when receivers are initially trusting and senders play many more times than receivers. In the learning model, the counterfactual “speeches” that have been informally used to motivate past refinements are messages that are actually sent. Stable profiles need not be perfect Bayesian equilibria, so JCE sometimes preserves equilibria that existing refinements eliminate. Despite this, it resembles the earlier refinements D1 and NWBR, and it coincides with them in co-monotonic signaling games. (JEL C70, D82, D83, J23, M51) 
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  3. null (Ed.)
    Abstract We introduce a new model of repeated games in large populations with random matching, overlapping generations, and limited records of past play. We prove that steady-state equilibria exist under general conditions on records. When the updating of a player’s record can depend on the actions of both players in a match, any strictly individually rational action can be supported in a steady-state equilibrium. When record updates can depend only on a player’s own actions, fewer actions can be supported. Here, we focus on the prisoner’s dilemma and restrict attention to strict equilibria that are coordination-proof, meaning that matched partners never play a Pareto-dominated Nash equilibrium in the one-shot game induced by their records and expected continuation payoffs. Such equilibria can support full cooperation if the stage game is either “strictly supermodular and mild” or “strongly supermodular,” and otherwise permit no cooperation at all. The presence of “supercooperator” records, where a player cooperates against any opponent, is crucial for supporting any cooperation when the stage game is “severe.” 
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  4. ABSTRACT Some host species of avian obligate brood parasites reject parasitic eggs from their nest whereas others accept them, even though they recognize them as foreign. One hypothesis to explain this seemingly maladaptive behavior is that acceptors are unable to pierce and remove the parasitic eggshell. Previous studies reporting on the force and energy required to break brood parasites' eggshells were typically static tests performed against hard substrate surfaces. Here, we considered host nest as a substrate to simulate this potentially critical aspect of the natural context for egg puncture while testing the energy required to break avian eggshells. Specifically, as a proof of concept, we punctured domestic chicken eggs under a series of conditions: varying tool shape (sharp versus blunt), tool dynamics (static versus dynamic) and the presence of natural bird nests (of three host species). The results show a complex set of statistically significant interactions between tool shapes, puncture dynamics and nest substrates. Specifically, the energy required to break eggs was greater for the static tests than for the dynamic tests, but only when using a nest substrate and a blunt tool. In turn, in the static tests, the addition of a nest significantly increased energy requirements for both tool types, whereas during dynamic tests, the increase in energy associated with the nest presence was significant only when using the sharp tool. Characterizing the process of eggshell puncture in increasingly naturalistic contexts will help in understanding whether and how hosts of brood parasites evolve to reject foreign eggs. 
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  5. Indirect reciprocity is a foundational mechanism of human cooperation. Existing models of indirect reciprocity fail to robustly support social cooperation: Image-scoring models fail to provide robust incentives, while social-standing models are not informationally robust. Here we provide a model of indirect reciprocity based on simple, decentralized records: Each individual’s record depends on the individual’s own past behavior alone, and not on the individual’s partners’ past behavior or their partners’ partners’ past behavior. When social dilemmas exhibit a coordination motive (or strategic complementarity), tolerant trigger strategies based on simple records can robustly support positive social cooperation and exhibit strong stability properties. In the opposite case of strategic substitutability, positive social cooperation cannot be robustly supported. Thus, the strength of short-run coordination motives in social dilemmas determines the prospects for robust long-run cooperation.

     
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