Speaker: Associate Professor Zheng Jiwei (Lancaster University Management School)

Host: Assistant Professor Yang Cheng(Li Anmin Institute of Economics, Liaoning University)

Guest introduction: Associate Professor Li Yongtao(School of Economics, Liaoning University)

Time: May 22, 2024 (Wednesday) 14:00-15:30 (Beijing time)

Location: Conference Room, 1st Floor, Wuzhou Park, Chongshan Campus, Liaoning University

Online Venue: Tencent Meeting:792-235-998

Language: Chinese/English

abstract：Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling proposed that bargainers can use their shared knowledge of theoretically irrelevant aspects of the situation to concert their expectations on one of the agreements, which becomes the ‘focal point’ of that situation. In this study, we report an experiment exploring how player labels - that is, irrelevant but commonly-known characteristics of the bargainers themselves - affect their behaviour in the Battle of the Sexes. We find that when players are labelled as ‘male’ and ‘female’, those with the female label play more hawkishly than those with the male label. Similarly, when players are labelled as ‘king’ and ‘duke’, the ‘king’ plays more hawkishly than the ‘duke’. We conclude that player labels, as strategy labels, can significantly change behaviour in tacit bargaining games such as the Battle of the Sexes, and they should be taken into consideration when analysing individuals’ behaviour in tacit bargaining situations.

Introduction to the speaker:

Zheng Jiwei, a native of Dalian, Liaoning Province, has a Ph.D. in Behavioral Economics from the University of East Anglia, a Postdoctoral Fellowship from Warwick Business School and the University of Leeds, and a long term Associate Professor and Doctoral Supervisor from Lancaster University Management School, a PhD supervisor, and the Director of External Relations of the Department of Economics.His research results have been published in the Journal of Political Economy, Management Science, Games and Economic Behavior, European Economic Review and other top international journals.He is the recipient of the 2020 Lancaster University School of Management Teaching Excellence Award. He has served as an anonymous reviewer for a number of internationally recognized journals.