Games of Two Halves: Non-Experimental Evidence on Cooperation, Defection and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

Authors

  • Stephen Dobson Hull University
  • John Goddard Bangor University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15353/rea.v10i3.1448

Abstract

We develop a stylized two-period game-theoretic model of the strategic choices made by soccer teams when selecting between defensive and attacking team formations, and between non-violent and violent styles of play. Cooperative behaviour during the early stages of matches is typically superseded by non-cooperation during the latter stages. The propensity for violent play to take place in the latter stages of soccer matches is interpreted as novel non-experimental evidence that players typically resort to mutually detrimental non-cooperative forms of behaviour when the payoffs assume a prisoner’s dilemma structure.

Author Biographies

Stephen Dobson, Hull University

John Goddard, Bangor University

Downloads

Published

2018-08-27

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 3 (2018)

Section

Articles

License

The Review of Economic Analysis is committed to the open exchange of ideas and information. 

Unlike traditional print journals which require the author to relinquish copyright to the publisher, The Review of Economic Analysis requires that authors release their work under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license. This license allows anyone to copy, distribute and transmit the work provided the use is non-commercial and appropriate attribution is given. 

A 'human-readable' summary of the licence is here and the full legal text is here.