Frederic Moisan | Carnegie Mellon University (original) (raw)
Papers by Frederic Moisan
Research Square (Research Square), Feb 24, 2023
Scientific Reports, Jun 28, 2023
Scientific Reports, Dec 2, 2022
Scientific Reports, Apr 4, 2023
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 10, 2020
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 10, 2020
We study a setting where individuals prefer to coordinate with others but they differ on their pr... more We study a setting where individuals prefer to coordinate with others but they differ on their preferred action. Our interest is in understanding the role of link formation with others in shaping behavior. So we consider the situation in which interactions are exogenous and a situation where individuals choose links that determine the interactions. Theory is permissive in both settings: conformity (on either of the actions) and diversity (with different groups choosing their preferred actions) are both sustainable in equilibrium. We conduct an experiment to understand how link formation affects equilibrium selection. Our experiment reveals the powerful effect of linking on equilibrium selection: with an exogenous complete network, subjects choose to conform on the majority's preferred action. By contrast, with endogenous linking-irrespective of the costs of linkingsubjects always opt for diversity of actions.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2012
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
European Economic Review, Nov 1, 2016
We study the impact of social ties on behavior in two types of asymmetric coordination games. Soc... more We study the impact of social ties on behavior in two types of asymmetric coordination games. Social ties are varied by making players interact with partners from different ingroups (fellow members of their own sports team, members of their sports club, students of their university). Subjective social ties are further measured by direct questionnaires. We find that smaller and more salient in-groups lead to significantly more group beneficial choices. The same effect is observed for players that report high values of their subjective social ties. We discuss the implication of these results for theories assuming that socially tied individuals follow some group beneficial reasoning.
Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Nov 1, 2011
The aim of this work is to propose a logical framework for representing interacting agents in the... more The aim of this work is to propose a logical framework for representing interacting agents in the context of extensive form games. Because of the importance of the temporal dimension provided by such games, we create a modal epistemic logic that allows to quantify over both strategies and vertices within the game tree. The first part of the article is devoted to the logic itself with the definition of its language and its semantics. In order to illustrate the use of this logic, we define, in the following part, the concept of rationality in the case of extensive form games and the backward induction concept, as they are defined by Robert Aumann. Based on these definitions, we then provide a syntactic proof of Aumann's theorem that states the following: "for any non degenerate game of perfect information, common knowledge of rationality implies the backward induction solution". We finally propose an in-depth formal analysis of the hypotheses that are needed to prove such a theorem.
Phenomenology and The Cognitive Sciences, Jun 14, 2013
This paper investigates the influence that social ties can have on behavior. After defining the c... more This paper investigates the influence that social ties can have on behavior. After defining the concept of social ties that we consider, we introduce an original model of social ties. The impact of such ties on social preferences is studied in a coordination game with outside option. We provide a detailed game theoretical analysis of this game while considering various types of players, i.e., self-interest maximizing, inequity averse, and fair agents. In addition to these approaches that require strategic reasoning in order to reach some equilibrium, we also present an alternative hypothesis that relies on the concept of team reasoning. After having discussed the differences between the latter and our model of social ties, we show how an experiment can be designed so as to discriminate among the models presented in the paper.
Management Science
Subjects observe a private signal and make an initial guess; they then observe their neighbors’ g... more Subjects observe a private signal and make an initial guess; they then observe their neighbors’ guesses, update their own guess, and so forth. We study learning dynamics in three large-scale networks capturing features of real-world social networks: Erdös–Rényi, Stochastic Block (reflecting network homophily), and Royal Family (that accommodates both highly connected celebrities and local interactions). We find that the Royal Family network is more likely to sustain incorrect consensus and that the Stochastic Block network is more likely to persist with diverse beliefs. These patterns are consistent with the predictions of DeGroot updating. It lends support to the notion that the use of simple heuristics in information aggregation is prevalent in large and complex networks. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: The authors thank the Keynes Fund (University of Cambridge), the Creative-Pioneering Researchers Program (Seoul National U...
Symmetry
Previous research has discussed the effects of monetary incentives and prosociality on deceptive ... more Previous research has discussed the effects of monetary incentives and prosociality on deceptive behavior. However, research has not comprehensively investigated the relationship between these two factors. In the current research, we introduce a repeated two-player sender–receiver binary choice task, where players in the role of senders or receivers receive asymmetric information regarding payoffs, offering the opportunity to explore the effects of economic incentives to lie according to the players’ prosociality. In Experiment 1, players are paired to play the game as a sender or receiver online. We find that economic incentives determine the likelihood of deception from senders and the likelihood that receivers will deviate from the received suggestions. Moreover, prosociality is related to players’ behavior: Prosocial senders send less deceptive messages and prosocial receivers choose options that benefit senders more. Furthermore, senders display consistent behavior when interac...
SSRN Electronic Journal
The theory of network formation yields sharp predictions on network structure. Existing experimen... more The theory of network formation yields sharp predictions on network structure. Existing experiments on network formation generally reject these predictions. These findings raise a question mark about the validity of an economic approach to understanding networks. The present paper develops a new experimental platform to study network formation. The platform integrates a network visualization tool with interactive asynchronous choices in continuous time. The platform allows for large groups of up to 100 subjects in the laboratory. The platform is used to test a model of linking formation and efforts. This model predicts that equilibrium networks have a 'star' like structure and that individual efforts are highly specialized. Our experiments offer robust evidence in support of these predictions.
This paper presents a new platform for large scale networks experiments in continuous time. The v... more This paper presents a new platform for large scale networks experiments in continuous time. The versatility of the platform is illustrated through three experiments: a game of linking, a linking game with public goods, and a linking game with trading and
Individuals' decisions to behave prosocially (or the contrary) can often be observed by other... more Individuals' decisions to behave prosocially (or the contrary) can often be observed by other individuals, with no direct connection to them, but who may nevertheless be influenced by them (e.g. through social media). Does knowing that they may be viewed as role models by other, notably younger, people a ect the way individuals behave? Does it make them more likely to behave prosocially? We study how participants' behavior in an experimental public good game is affected when they know that information about their choices and outcomes, together with different sets of information about their identity, will be transmitted the following year to a set of new, unknown, younger participants - with no payoff linkages between the two sets of players. When subjects know their photo, choices and outcomes will be transmitted, they contribute significantly less. We consider different possible explanations, and argue that the most convincing is based on image concerns, but in a surprising...
Games, 2021
This research studied the strategies that players use in sequential adversarial games. We took th... more This research studied the strategies that players use in sequential adversarial games. We took the Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS) game as an example and ran players in two experiments. The first experiment involved two humans, who played the RPS together for 100 times. Importantly, our payoff design in the RPS allowed us to differentiate between participants who used a random strategy from those who used a Nash strategy. We found that participants did not play in agreement with the Nash strategy, but rather, their behavior was closer to random. Moreover, the analyses of the participants’ sequential actions indicated heterogeneous cycle-based behaviors: some participants’ actions were independent of their past outcomes, some followed a well-known win-stay/lose-change strategy, and others exhibited the win-change/lose-stay behavior. To understand the sequential patterns of outcome-dependent actions, we designed probabilistic computer algorithms involving specific change actions (i.e., to d...
arXiv: General Finance, 2019
Global supply networks in agriculture, manufacturing, and services are a defining feature of the ... more Global supply networks in agriculture, manufacturing, and services are a defining feature of the modern world. The efficiency and the distribution of surpluses across different parts of these networks depend on choices of intermediaries. This paper conducts price formation experiments with human subjects located in large complex networks to develop a better understanding of the principles governing behavior. Our first finding is that prices are larger and that trade is significantly less efficient in small-world networks as compared to random networks. Our second finding is that location within a network is not an important determinant of pricing. An examination of the price dynamics suggests that traders on cheapest -- and hence active -- paths raise prices while those off these paths lower them. We construct an agent-based model (ABM) that embodies this rule of thumb. Simulations of this ABM yield macroscopic patterns consistent with the experimental findings. Finally, we extrapol...
Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal, 2017
Intergenerational interactions play an important part in society with older generations often act... more Intergenerational interactions play an important part in society with older generations often acting as role models that influence younger ones. We investigate in a public good experiment how the behavior of more experienced and knowledgeable players (graduate students) is affected when they are informed that some of their personal and behavioral characteristics will be transmitted to future first-year undergraduates (enrolling the following year) playing the same game at the same university. In the "information" treatment, the history of behavior is transmitted with some personal characteristics (e.g. age and gender). In the "photo" treatment, a photo is also transmitted. Despite the absence of any monetary linkage between generations, our results show a significant effect of visibility by the future audience on initial contributions and dynamic behavior. Contrary to previous findings in the literature, contributions are lower in the presence of such personal id...
Experimental Economics, 2020
We study a setting where individuals prefer to coordinate with others but they differ on their pr... more We study a setting where individuals prefer to coordinate with others but they differ on their preferred action. Our interest is understanding the role of linking in shaping behavior. So we consider the situation in which interactions are exogenous and a situation where individuals choose links that determine the interactions. Theory is permissive in both settings: conformism (on either of the actions) and diversity (with different groups choosing their preferred actions) are both sustainable in equilibrium. Our experiments reveal that, in an exogenous complete network, subjects choose to conform to the majority's preferred action. By contrast, when linking is free and endogenous, subjects form dense networks (biased in favour of linking within same preferences type) but choose diverse actions. The convergence to diverse actions is faster under endogenous linking as compared to the convergence to conformity on the majority's preferred action under the exogenous complete network. Thus our experiments suggest that individuals use links to resolve the coordination problem.
Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2020
Objective We aim to learn about the cognitive mechanisms governing the decisions of attackers and... more Objective We aim to learn about the cognitive mechanisms governing the decisions of attackers and defenders in cybersecurity involving intrusion detection systems (IDSs). Background Prior research has experimentally studied the role of the presence and accuracy of IDS alerts on attacker’s and defender’s decisions using a game-theoretic approach. However, little is known about the cognitive mechanisms that govern these decisions. Method To investigate the cognitive mechanisms governing the attacker’s and defender’s decisions in the presence of IDSs of different accuracies, instance-based learning (IBL) models were developed. One model (NIDS) disregarded the IDS alerts and one model (IDS) considered them in the instance structure. Both the IDS and NIDS models were trained in an existing dataset where IDSs were either absent or present and they possessed different accuracies. The calibrated IDS model was tested in a newly collected test dataset where IDSs were present 50% of the time a...
Research Square (Research Square), Feb 24, 2023
Scientific Reports, Jun 28, 2023
Scientific Reports, Dec 2, 2022
Scientific Reports, Apr 4, 2023
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 10, 2020
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 10, 2020
We study a setting where individuals prefer to coordinate with others but they differ on their pr... more We study a setting where individuals prefer to coordinate with others but they differ on their preferred action. Our interest is in understanding the role of link formation with others in shaping behavior. So we consider the situation in which interactions are exogenous and a situation where individuals choose links that determine the interactions. Theory is permissive in both settings: conformity (on either of the actions) and diversity (with different groups choosing their preferred actions) are both sustainable in equilibrium. We conduct an experiment to understand how link formation affects equilibrium selection. Our experiment reveals the powerful effect of linking on equilibrium selection: with an exogenous complete network, subjects choose to conform on the majority's preferred action. By contrast, with endogenous linking-irrespective of the costs of linkingsubjects always opt for diversity of actions.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2012
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
European Economic Review, Nov 1, 2016
We study the impact of social ties on behavior in two types of asymmetric coordination games. Soc... more We study the impact of social ties on behavior in two types of asymmetric coordination games. Social ties are varied by making players interact with partners from different ingroups (fellow members of their own sports team, members of their sports club, students of their university). Subjective social ties are further measured by direct questionnaires. We find that smaller and more salient in-groups lead to significantly more group beneficial choices. The same effect is observed for players that report high values of their subjective social ties. We discuss the implication of these results for theories assuming that socially tied individuals follow some group beneficial reasoning.
Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Nov 1, 2011
The aim of this work is to propose a logical framework for representing interacting agents in the... more The aim of this work is to propose a logical framework for representing interacting agents in the context of extensive form games. Because of the importance of the temporal dimension provided by such games, we create a modal epistemic logic that allows to quantify over both strategies and vertices within the game tree. The first part of the article is devoted to the logic itself with the definition of its language and its semantics. In order to illustrate the use of this logic, we define, in the following part, the concept of rationality in the case of extensive form games and the backward induction concept, as they are defined by Robert Aumann. Based on these definitions, we then provide a syntactic proof of Aumann's theorem that states the following: "for any non degenerate game of perfect information, common knowledge of rationality implies the backward induction solution". We finally propose an in-depth formal analysis of the hypotheses that are needed to prove such a theorem.
Phenomenology and The Cognitive Sciences, Jun 14, 2013
This paper investigates the influence that social ties can have on behavior. After defining the c... more This paper investigates the influence that social ties can have on behavior. After defining the concept of social ties that we consider, we introduce an original model of social ties. The impact of such ties on social preferences is studied in a coordination game with outside option. We provide a detailed game theoretical analysis of this game while considering various types of players, i.e., self-interest maximizing, inequity averse, and fair agents. In addition to these approaches that require strategic reasoning in order to reach some equilibrium, we also present an alternative hypothesis that relies on the concept of team reasoning. After having discussed the differences between the latter and our model of social ties, we show how an experiment can be designed so as to discriminate among the models presented in the paper.
Management Science
Subjects observe a private signal and make an initial guess; they then observe their neighbors’ g... more Subjects observe a private signal and make an initial guess; they then observe their neighbors’ guesses, update their own guess, and so forth. We study learning dynamics in three large-scale networks capturing features of real-world social networks: Erdös–Rényi, Stochastic Block (reflecting network homophily), and Royal Family (that accommodates both highly connected celebrities and local interactions). We find that the Royal Family network is more likely to sustain incorrect consensus and that the Stochastic Block network is more likely to persist with diverse beliefs. These patterns are consistent with the predictions of DeGroot updating. It lends support to the notion that the use of simple heuristics in information aggregation is prevalent in large and complex networks. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: The authors thank the Keynes Fund (University of Cambridge), the Creative-Pioneering Researchers Program (Seoul National U...
Symmetry
Previous research has discussed the effects of monetary incentives and prosociality on deceptive ... more Previous research has discussed the effects of monetary incentives and prosociality on deceptive behavior. However, research has not comprehensively investigated the relationship between these two factors. In the current research, we introduce a repeated two-player sender–receiver binary choice task, where players in the role of senders or receivers receive asymmetric information regarding payoffs, offering the opportunity to explore the effects of economic incentives to lie according to the players’ prosociality. In Experiment 1, players are paired to play the game as a sender or receiver online. We find that economic incentives determine the likelihood of deception from senders and the likelihood that receivers will deviate from the received suggestions. Moreover, prosociality is related to players’ behavior: Prosocial senders send less deceptive messages and prosocial receivers choose options that benefit senders more. Furthermore, senders display consistent behavior when interac...
SSRN Electronic Journal
The theory of network formation yields sharp predictions on network structure. Existing experimen... more The theory of network formation yields sharp predictions on network structure. Existing experiments on network formation generally reject these predictions. These findings raise a question mark about the validity of an economic approach to understanding networks. The present paper develops a new experimental platform to study network formation. The platform integrates a network visualization tool with interactive asynchronous choices in continuous time. The platform allows for large groups of up to 100 subjects in the laboratory. The platform is used to test a model of linking formation and efforts. This model predicts that equilibrium networks have a 'star' like structure and that individual efforts are highly specialized. Our experiments offer robust evidence in support of these predictions.
This paper presents a new platform for large scale networks experiments in continuous time. The v... more This paper presents a new platform for large scale networks experiments in continuous time. The versatility of the platform is illustrated through three experiments: a game of linking, a linking game with public goods, and a linking game with trading and
Individuals' decisions to behave prosocially (or the contrary) can often be observed by other... more Individuals' decisions to behave prosocially (or the contrary) can often be observed by other individuals, with no direct connection to them, but who may nevertheless be influenced by them (e.g. through social media). Does knowing that they may be viewed as role models by other, notably younger, people a ect the way individuals behave? Does it make them more likely to behave prosocially? We study how participants' behavior in an experimental public good game is affected when they know that information about their choices and outcomes, together with different sets of information about their identity, will be transmitted the following year to a set of new, unknown, younger participants - with no payoff linkages between the two sets of players. When subjects know their photo, choices and outcomes will be transmitted, they contribute significantly less. We consider different possible explanations, and argue that the most convincing is based on image concerns, but in a surprising...
Games, 2021
This research studied the strategies that players use in sequential adversarial games. We took th... more This research studied the strategies that players use in sequential adversarial games. We took the Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS) game as an example and ran players in two experiments. The first experiment involved two humans, who played the RPS together for 100 times. Importantly, our payoff design in the RPS allowed us to differentiate between participants who used a random strategy from those who used a Nash strategy. We found that participants did not play in agreement with the Nash strategy, but rather, their behavior was closer to random. Moreover, the analyses of the participants’ sequential actions indicated heterogeneous cycle-based behaviors: some participants’ actions were independent of their past outcomes, some followed a well-known win-stay/lose-change strategy, and others exhibited the win-change/lose-stay behavior. To understand the sequential patterns of outcome-dependent actions, we designed probabilistic computer algorithms involving specific change actions (i.e., to d...
arXiv: General Finance, 2019
Global supply networks in agriculture, manufacturing, and services are a defining feature of the ... more Global supply networks in agriculture, manufacturing, and services are a defining feature of the modern world. The efficiency and the distribution of surpluses across different parts of these networks depend on choices of intermediaries. This paper conducts price formation experiments with human subjects located in large complex networks to develop a better understanding of the principles governing behavior. Our first finding is that prices are larger and that trade is significantly less efficient in small-world networks as compared to random networks. Our second finding is that location within a network is not an important determinant of pricing. An examination of the price dynamics suggests that traders on cheapest -- and hence active -- paths raise prices while those off these paths lower them. We construct an agent-based model (ABM) that embodies this rule of thumb. Simulations of this ABM yield macroscopic patterns consistent with the experimental findings. Finally, we extrapol...
Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal, 2017
Intergenerational interactions play an important part in society with older generations often act... more Intergenerational interactions play an important part in society with older generations often acting as role models that influence younger ones. We investigate in a public good experiment how the behavior of more experienced and knowledgeable players (graduate students) is affected when they are informed that some of their personal and behavioral characteristics will be transmitted to future first-year undergraduates (enrolling the following year) playing the same game at the same university. In the "information" treatment, the history of behavior is transmitted with some personal characteristics (e.g. age and gender). In the "photo" treatment, a photo is also transmitted. Despite the absence of any monetary linkage between generations, our results show a significant effect of visibility by the future audience on initial contributions and dynamic behavior. Contrary to previous findings in the literature, contributions are lower in the presence of such personal id...
Experimental Economics, 2020
We study a setting where individuals prefer to coordinate with others but they differ on their pr... more We study a setting where individuals prefer to coordinate with others but they differ on their preferred action. Our interest is understanding the role of linking in shaping behavior. So we consider the situation in which interactions are exogenous and a situation where individuals choose links that determine the interactions. Theory is permissive in both settings: conformism (on either of the actions) and diversity (with different groups choosing their preferred actions) are both sustainable in equilibrium. Our experiments reveal that, in an exogenous complete network, subjects choose to conform to the majority's preferred action. By contrast, when linking is free and endogenous, subjects form dense networks (biased in favour of linking within same preferences type) but choose diverse actions. The convergence to diverse actions is faster under endogenous linking as compared to the convergence to conformity on the majority's preferred action under the exogenous complete network. Thus our experiments suggest that individuals use links to resolve the coordination problem.
Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2020
Objective We aim to learn about the cognitive mechanisms governing the decisions of attackers and... more Objective We aim to learn about the cognitive mechanisms governing the decisions of attackers and defenders in cybersecurity involving intrusion detection systems (IDSs). Background Prior research has experimentally studied the role of the presence and accuracy of IDS alerts on attacker’s and defender’s decisions using a game-theoretic approach. However, little is known about the cognitive mechanisms that govern these decisions. Method To investigate the cognitive mechanisms governing the attacker’s and defender’s decisions in the presence of IDSs of different accuracies, instance-based learning (IBL) models were developed. One model (NIDS) disregarded the IDS alerts and one model (IDS) considered them in the instance structure. Both the IDS and NIDS models were trained in an existing dataset where IDSs were either absent or present and they possessed different accuracies. The calibrated IDS model was tested in a newly collected test dataset where IDSs were present 50% of the time a...