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Copyright and Use of This Thesis This Thesis Must Be Used in Accordance with the Provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Copyright Service. sydney.edu.au/copyright KEEPING IT REAL: EXPERIMENTAL GAME THEORY AND SOCIAL ONTOLOGY CARMELA CAIRA CHIVERS SID: 311236758 Honours Thesis: Submitted as partial requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Political Economy, University of Sydney, 14 October 2015. i This work contains no material that has been accepted for the award of another degree or diploma in any university, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. ii Acknowledgements Thanks to mum, for teaching me to respect the written word, and to dad, for sharing his love of philosophy. A big thank you to Susan Schroeder, my supervisor, for the feedback and guidance along the way. Also to Tony Lawson, for the constructive discussion. To all the friends and family who so graciously accepted and understood the many last- minute cancellations, the frequent late arrivals, and my general absence: thank you. I can’t wait to see you properly when this is all over. *** Most especially, thank you to the wonderful Honours 2015 cohort. I am so proud to have been a part of such a loving and supportive group, and the productive conversations over burritos, beers, or coffee made this thesis what it is. Your ideas inspired me; your friendship sustained me. I look forward to seeing the great things you will all achieve in the years that follow. iii Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii INTRODUCTION 5 GAME THEORY, EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS, AND SOCIAL REALITY CHAPTER ONE 10 THE ULTIMATUM AND PUBLIC GOODS GAMES: THEORY AND EVIDENCE A Short Introduction to Experimental Economics 10 The Ultimatum Game: Theory 12 The Ultimatum Game: Evidence 13 The Public Goods Game: Theory 17 The Public Goods Game: Evidence 19 The Slave of the Passions: A First Look at Game Theory and Social Norms 22 CHAPTER TWO 26 CRITICAL REALISM AND MODERN ECONOMICS: LAWSON’S ONTOLOGICAL TURN Hammers and Nails: The Ontological Presumptions of Mathematical-Deductivist Models 26 Issues with Closed-Systems Ontology in an Open-Systems World 30 Game Theory and Social Expectations: The Ontology of Structure and Agency 34 CHAPTER THREE 39 GAME THEORY AND SOCIAL ONTOLOGY: SEEKING POINTS OF RECONCILIATION The Two ‘Souls’ of Behavioural Economics 39 Beyond Correlation: A Critical Realist Perspective on Experimental Results 43 Debates on the Nature of Openness and Closure: Formalism’s Role in Social Enquiry 47 CONCLUSION 53 IS GAME THEORY USEFUL? BIBLIOGRAPHY 58 APPENDIX 67 Figure 1. The Ultimatum Game: Extensive Form 67 iv Introduction GAME THEORY, EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS, AND SOCIAL REALITY To put it bluntly, understanding why game theory does not, in the end, constitute the science of society (even though it comes close) is terribly important in understanding the nature and complexity of social processes – Hargreaves-Heap and Varoufakis 2004: 2 This thesis will use experimental evidence on the ultimatum and public goods games to spark a discussion on the boundaries of game theory’s usefulness. To aid this project, a critical realist perspective on the nature of social reality will be contrasted with the ontological presumptions of mathematical-deductivist methodology. In this way, the divergence between predictions and outcomes in each of these games will be revealed as symptomatic of a fundamental mismatch between the type of reality that is presupposed by the model, and the real nature of the reality to which it is applied. This has significant implications for the use of game theory in the social sciences in general, suggesting in particular that a consideration of ontology is vital for any theorist seeking to understand human strategic action in the real world. This is not to reject the legitimacy of game theory as a potential tool for social enquiry. In defining its limits, this project seeks also to solidify the domain of game theory’s validity. Game theoretic modelling extends utility optimisation models in order to take account of the possibility for another individual’s choice making to impact upon one’s own, and the contradictions that arise from this – both empirical and theoretical – have the potential to become a starting point for theorising rational choice and human reasonableness outside of the confines of a singular mathematical framework. Drawing on the work of Shaun Hargreaves-Heap and Yanis Varoufakis (2004: 3), this paper argues that game theory has the potential to expose the limited scope of rational agent models, creating a space to bring philosophy and social theory into economics. As the authors note, “…game theory [speaks] to some of the fundamental disputes in social science and as such it should be an aid to all social scientists. Indeed, for those who are suspicious of economic imperialism within the social 5 sciences, game theory is, somewhat ironically, a potential ally” (Hargreaves-Heap and Varoufakis 2004: 4). Game theory will be used in this way in the chapters that follow, as results from the ultimatum and public goods games guide analysis towards deeper questions on how individuals can form a reasonable choice in accordance with their perceptions of those they are interacting with. It is therefore of primary concern for this thesis to fill a gap in the critical realist literature in regards to game theory. Critical realism holds most especially to the view that ontological neglect has led to ‘the by-now-widely-recognised generalized explanatory failures’ and ‘lack of realisticness’ pervasive in modern economics (Pratten 2014: 2). The school has developed particularly through the Cambridge Social Ontology Group, set up in part by Tony Lawson during the early nineties (Pratten 2014: 1). The group’s approach derives from the view that reality exists beyond the events and experiences that constitute human perception, and that these unobservable elements of reality must impact our understanding of it (Pratten 2014: 2- 3). Take, for example, an extract from a pamphlet circulated to advertise the group’s first meeting (then called the Cambridge Realist Workshop): All that is presupposed is a commitment to the view that there exists a knowable (under some description) social reality and that economics should primarily address such matters as identifying and understanding real world economic structures, mechanisms, processes, and events, etc… The nature of economic reality bears upon both the types of theories we can legitimately entertain, as well as the methods of theory assessment that can be rationally supported (cited in Pratten 2014: 2) Ontological questions therefore exist prior to, and inform, epistemological or methodological ones, the pamphlet continues. The heritage of Roy Bhaskar’s philosophy of science shines through particularly strongly in this foundational idea. Bhaskar sought to provide a realist theory of science, by describing what the world would need to look like for scientific knowledge to be possible (Benton and Craib 2011: 124). To do this, he asks himself: “What are the conditions of the plausibility of an account of science?”, prioritising the nature of reality from the outset (Bhaskar 2008: xxix). This is because for Bhaskar (1998: 25) the nature of one’s object of study must determine how it will be understood: “Thus it is because sticks and stones are solid that they can be picked up and thrown, not because they can be picked up and thrown that they are solid”. It follows that humanity is ‘contingent’, and 6 knowledge is ‘accidental’, as experience, research, and enquiry reach towards an understanding of a reality that exists beyond these processes (Bhaskar 1998: 25-6). This is why the pamphlet quoted above stresses the need to realign economic theory to economic reality. Using the foundations laid by Bhaskar, theorists from the Cambridge Social Ontology Group have argued that the insistence on mathematical formalism pervasive throughout modern economics has led to the primacy of methodology over ontology. Until this issue is rectified, economics will be prevented from realising its potential to be a truly scientific discipline (Lawson 2003: 22). In this sense, critical realism has significant potential for unifying heterodox voices that seek to bring pluralistic methodology into economics (Lawson 1994; see also Downward and Mearman 2002). Particularly powerful is the concept of open-systems, which argues that reality is “structured, dynamic and highly internally-related system, amongst other things, whilst the conditions for achieving a local closure [of the form ‘if x then y’] are seemingly rare” (Lawson 2003: 21). Using Bhaskar’s (1998, 2008, 2011) ideas as a springboard, theorists such as Lawson are able to describe reality as being stratified along various levels of irreducible structures, mechanisms, powers and tendencies, which may ‘underlie actual events and govern or produce them’, despite not necessarily being observable (Lawson 1994: 514).
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