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Khadjavi, M. and Lange, A. (2013). Prisoners and their dilemma Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 92:163--175.

  • Journal
    Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
View publication

We report insights into the behavior of prisoners in dilemma situations that so famously carry their name. We compare female inmates and students in a simultaneous and a sequential Prisoner's Dilemma. In the simultaneous Prisoner's Dilemma, the cooperation rate among inmates exceeds the rate of cooperating students. Relative to the simultaneous dilemma, cooperation among first-movers in the sequential Prisoner's Dilemma increases for students, but not for inmates. Students and inmates behave identically as second movers. Hence, we find a similar and significant fraction of inmates and students to hold social preferences.