Strategic behavior and social outcomes in a bottleneck queue: Experimental evidence

Jesper Breinbjerg Breinbjerg; Alexander Christopher Sebald; Lars Peter  Østerdal

doi:10.1007/s10058-016-0190-4

Strategic behavior and social outcomes in a bottleneck queue: Experimental evidence

Jesper Breinbjerg Breinbjerg, Alexander Christopher Sebald, Lars Peter Østerdal

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We theoretically and experimentally study the differential incentive effects of three well known queue disciplines in a strategic environment in which a bottleneck facility opens and impatient players decide when to arrive. For a class of three-player games, we derive equilibrium arrivals under the first-in-first-out (FIFO), last-in-first-out (LIFO), and service-in-random-order (SIRO) queue disciplines and compare these predictions to outcomes from a laboratory experiment. In line with our theoretical predictions, we find that people arrive with greater dispersion when participating under the LIFO discipline, whereas they tend to arrive immediately under FIFO and SIRO. As a consequence, shorter waiting times are obtained under LIFO as compared to FIFO and SIRO. However, while our theoretical predictions admit higher welfare under LIFO, this is not recovered experimentally as the queue disciplines provide similar welfare outcomes.

Original language	English
Journal	Review of Economic Design
Volume	20
Issue number	3
Pages (from-to)	207–236
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10058-016-0190-4
Publication status	Published - 1 Sept 2016

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title = "Strategic behavior and social outcomes in a bottleneck queue: Experimental evidence",

abstract = "We theoretically and experimentally study the differential incentive effects of three well known queue disciplines in a strategic environment in which a bottleneck facility opens and impatient players decide when to arrive. For a class of three-player games, we derive equilibrium arrivals under the first-in-first-out (FIFO), last-in-first-out (LIFO), and service-in-random-order (SIRO) queue disciplines and compare these predictions to outcomes from a laboratory experiment. In line with our theoretical predictions, we find that people arrive with greater dispersion when participating under the LIFO discipline, whereas they tend to arrive immediately under FIFO and SIRO. As a consequence, shorter waiting times are obtained under LIFO as compared to FIFO and SIRO. However, while our theoretical predictions admit higher welfare under LIFO, this is not recovered experimentally as the queue disciplines provide similar welfare outcomes.",

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T1 - Strategic behavior and social outcomes in a bottleneck queue

T2 - Experimental evidence

AU - Breinbjerg, Jesper Breinbjerg

AU - Sebald, Alexander Christopher

AU - Østerdal, Lars Peter

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Y1 - 2016/9/1

N2 - We theoretically and experimentally study the differential incentive effects of three well known queue disciplines in a strategic environment in which a bottleneck facility opens and impatient players decide when to arrive. For a class of three-player games, we derive equilibrium arrivals under the first-in-first-out (FIFO), last-in-first-out (LIFO), and service-in-random-order (SIRO) queue disciplines and compare these predictions to outcomes from a laboratory experiment. In line with our theoretical predictions, we find that people arrive with greater dispersion when participating under the LIFO discipline, whereas they tend to arrive immediately under FIFO and SIRO. As a consequence, shorter waiting times are obtained under LIFO as compared to FIFO and SIRO. However, while our theoretical predictions admit higher welfare under LIFO, this is not recovered experimentally as the queue disciplines provide similar welfare outcomes.

AB - We theoretically and experimentally study the differential incentive effects of three well known queue disciplines in a strategic environment in which a bottleneck facility opens and impatient players decide when to arrive. For a class of three-player games, we derive equilibrium arrivals under the first-in-first-out (FIFO), last-in-first-out (LIFO), and service-in-random-order (SIRO) queue disciplines and compare these predictions to outcomes from a laboratory experiment. In line with our theoretical predictions, we find that people arrive with greater dispersion when participating under the LIFO discipline, whereas they tend to arrive immediately under FIFO and SIRO. As a consequence, shorter waiting times are obtained under LIFO as compared to FIFO and SIRO. However, while our theoretical predictions admit higher welfare under LIFO, this is not recovered experimentally as the queue disciplines provide similar welfare outcomes.

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DO - 10.1007/s10058-016-0190-4

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JO - Review of Economic Design

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Strategic behavior and social outcomes in a bottleneck queue: Experimental evidence

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