CAN SUBGAME PERFECT EQUILIBRIUM THREATS FOSTER COOPERATION? AN EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF FINITE‐HORIZON FOLK THEOREMS

This paper considers extended prisoners' dilemma games in which a second pure strategy equilibrium in the stage game allows for mutual cooperation in all but the last round of the finitely repeated game as an equilibrium outcome. We distinguish a strict and a weak extension of the prisoners' dilemma game in a long and a short horizon treatment. A comparison with the corresponding finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma games shows that the strict additional equilibrium increases cooperation rates while the weak does not. This result is robust to the variation of the time horizon. (JEL C73, C91)     

Editorial Note: Referees

As the volume of UK social research addressing ethnicity grows, so too do concerns regarding the ethical and scientific rigour of this research domain and its potential to do more harm than good. The establishment of standards and principles and the introduction of guidance documents at critical points within the research cycle might be one way to enhance the quality of such research. This article reports the findings from the piloting of a guidance document within the research commissioning process of a major funder of UK social research. The guidance document was positively received by researchers, the majority of whom reported it to be comprehensible, relevant and potentially useful in improving the quality of research proposals. However, a review of the submitted proposals suggested the guidance had had little impact on practice. While guidance may have a role to play, it will need to be strongly promoted by commissioners and other gatekeepers. Findings also suggest the possibility that guidance may discourage some researchers from engaging with ethnicity if it raises problems without solutions; highlighting the need for complementary investments in research capacity development in this area.     

Testing the Equality of Covariance Operators in Functional Samples

Abstract. We propose a non‐parametric test for the equality of the covariance structures in two functional samples. The test statistic has a chi‐square asymptotic distribution with a known number of degrees of freedom, which depends on the level of dimension reduction needed to represent the data. Detailed analysis of the asymptotic properties is developed. Finite sample perfo‐rmance is examined by a simulation study and an application to egg‐laying curves of fruit flies.