Research
Publications
Kloosterman, Andrew and Mago, Shakun. The Infinitely Repeated Volunteer's Dilemma: An Experimental Study Games and Economic Behavior, accepted.
Green, Ellen and Kloosterman, Andrew. Agent Sorting by Incentive Systems in Mission Firms: Implications for Health Care and Other Credence Goods Markets Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, 200, pp. 408-429.
Fanning, Jack and Kloosterman, Andrew. An Experimental Test of the Coase Conjecture: Fairness in Dynamic Bargaining The RAND Journal of Economics, 2022, 51(1) pp. 138-165.
Kloosterman, Andrew and Troyan, Peter. School Choice with Asymmetric Information: Priority Design and the Curse of Acceptance Theoretical Economics, 2020, 15(3), pp. 1095-1133.
Kloosterman, Andrew. Cooperation in Stochastic Games: A Prisoner's Dilemma Experiment Experimental Economics, 2020, 23(2), pp. 447-467.
Kloosterman, Andrew. Repeated Partnerships with Multiple Equilibria and Imperfect Monitoring: An Experimental Study Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2020, 172, pp. 1-16.
Troyan, Peter, Delacretaz, David and Kloosterman, Andrew. Essentially Stable Matchings Games and Economic Behavior, 2020, 120, pp. 370-390.
Kloosterman, Andrew. An Experimental Study of Public Information in the Asymmetric Partnership Game Southern Economic Journal, 2019, 85(3), pp. 663-690.
Kloosterman, Andrew and Paul, Stephen. Ultimatum Game Bargaining in a Partially Directed Search Market Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2018, 154, pp. 60-74.
Kloosterman, Andrew and Schotter, Andrew. Complementary Institutions and Economic Development: An Experimental Study Games and Economic Behavior, 2016, 99, pp. 186-205.
Kloosterman, Andrew. Directed Search with Heterogeneous Firms: An Experimental Study Experimental Economics, 2016, 19(1), pp. 51-66.
Kloosterman, Andrew. Public Information in Markov Games Journal of Economic Theory, 2015, 157, pp. 28-48.
Working Papers
Repeated Games
Cooperation to the Fullest Extent Possible? An Infinitely Repeated Games Experiment (2022 update: NEW treatments in this version)
I experimentally investigate a new game that modifies the prisoner's dilemma. In this game, as opposed to the regular prisoner's dilemma, there is no tradeoff between cooperation and strategic risk (uncertainty regarding the other player's strategy) that is the leading explanation for low cooperation rates found in past experiments with small discount factors. The main finding is that there is still not pervasive cooperation; the cooperation rate is less than 50% in both repeated game treatments. I argue that specific complexities inherent to repeated games and slightly more strategic uncertainty than traditionally modeled inhibit the emergence of full cooperation.
Signal Jamming in Repeated Games: An Experimental Study Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
In an infinitely repeated market entry game, an entrant does not know demand and actions are unobserved but signaled via profits. The incumbent may choose a predatory price (a signal jam) when demand is high to yield negative profits to the entrant and induce exit. Efficiency is only possible for impatient players. I test the theory with three experimental treatments differing by the discount factor. There is more signal jamming and less efficiency as the discount factor increases consistent with the theory, although entrants mistakenly stay out of the market even when the incumbent does not signal jam.
Matching
Rankings-Dependent Preferences: A Real Goods Matching Experiment (joint with Peter Troyan). Abstract in Proceedings of the 24th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC2023)
We investigate whether preferences for objects received via a matching mechanism are influenced by how highly agents rank them in their reported rank order list. We hypothesize that all else equal, agents receive greater utility for the same object when they rank it higher. The addition of rankings-dependent utility implies that it may not be a dominant strategy to submit truthful preferences to a strategyproof mechanism, and that non-strategyproof mechanisms that give more agents objects they report as higher ranked may increase market welfare. We test these hypotheses with a matching experiment in a strategyproof mechanism, the random serial dictatorship, and a non-strategyproof mechanism, the Boston mechanism. A novel feature of our experimental design is that the objects allocated in the matching markets are real goods, which allows us to directly measure rankings-dependence by eliciting values for goods both inside and outside of the mechanism. Our experimental results confirm that the elicited differences in values do decrease for lower-ranked goods. We find no differences between the two mechanisms for the rates of truth-telling and the final welfare.
Directed Search
Directed Search Until You Transact
In each period of a dynamic directed search market, agents who transact receive their payoffs and exit the game while agents who do not transact continue to search in the market in the next period. In an open market with entry by new agents too, equilibrium prices move in favor of the short side of the market as the discount factor increases. In both open and closed markets, there is efficiency loss. As agents become perfectly patient, the equilibrium outcomes converge to the benchmark frictionless and efficient Bertrand competition outcomes in the closed market but not in the open market.
Works in Progress
Testing the Coase Conjecture with a Real Good (joint with Jack Fanning)
Signal-Jamming vs. Intertemporal Incentives