Prisoner’s dilemma games imply that cooperative behavior between two people or two
firms always breaks down. But reality teaches us that people and firms often cooperate
successfully to achieve their goals. Why do the results from prisoner’s dilemma games
fail to predict real world results?
A) Prisoner’s dilemma games do not keep people or firms from reneging on agreements,
which often occurs in real word situations.
B) The prisoner’s dilemma does not apply to most business situations that are repeated
over and over.
C) Prisoner’s dilemma games predict the behavior of people and firms that engage in
illegal activity; most people and firms do not resort to illegal activity.
D) Most real world situations involve more than two people or firms; the prisoner’s
dilemma is only applicable to situations that involve two parties.
Consider the stock of ocean tuna which is massively overfished. It is rational for an
individual to exploit the resource rather than to conserve the stock because
A) the private benefit of harvesting tuna is higher than the social benefit of harvesting
it.
B) the private benefit of harvesting tuna is lower than the social benefit of harvesting it.
C) the social cost of harvesting the fish is lower than the private cost.
D) the private cost of harvesting the fish is lower than the social cost.