PS135: Game Theory in the Social Sciences

Quiz 2

UC Berkeley Department of Political Science

Summer 2017 Professor Sean Gailmard

Scores are out of 100 points possible. Each lettered subpart

has equal weight in the point value of its question. There is an
implied duty to explain all answers, even if the question does
not say,Explain. Keep your answers as succinct as possible.

1. (10 points) True or false, and explain.

(a) A Nash equilibrium in mixed strategies will never assign positive

probability to strictly dominated pure strategies.
(b) If a player uses two pure strategies, A and B, in a mixed NE,
then the expected payoffs from A and B must be equal in this
equilibrium.

2. (15 points) In the game below, player 1 is the row player and player
2 is the column player. Would you expect this game to have a mixed
NE? Explain your reasoning. (Hint. You do not actually have to check
for any mixed NE to answer this.)

W X Y Z
A 6,4 4,2 3,2 4,6
B 1,4 0,5 1,6 1,1
C 2,1 8,8 2,7 3,1
D 3,1 1,2 2,2 3,1
E 4,6 3,2 5,0 6,4

3. (15 points) Find all Nash equilibria (pure and mixed, if any) for the
game below, where player 1 is the row player and player 2 is the column
player.

1
 W X Y Z
A 6,4 4,2 3,2 4,6
B 1,4 0,5 1,6 1,1
C 2,1 2,8 2,9 3,1
D 3,1 1,2 2,2 3,1
E 4,6 3,2 5,0 6,4

4. (20 points) Consider the following game, where player 1 is the row
player and player 2 is the column player.

W X Y Z
T 1,0 0,2 2,2 4,5
M 1,4 0,0 3,2 1,1
B 2,1 1,2 2,0 0,1

(a) Show that the pure strategy Y for player 2 is strictly dominated
by a mixed strategy that plays W and Z with probability .5 each.
Give this, should player 1 expect player 2 to use the strategy Y
with positive probability?
(b) Show that, if Y is deleted from the game, the pure strategy M for
player 1 is strictly dominated by a mixed strategy that plays T
and B with probability .5 each. Given this, should player 2 expect
player 1 to use the strategy M with positive probability?
(c) Does any player have a strictly dominated strategy in the reduced
game if Y and M are deleted?
(d) Find all the pure and mixed strategy Nash equilibria of this game.

5. (15 points) Consider a 2 player stag hunt in which a Stag is worth 5

jollies to each player and a Hare is worth 2 jollies to any player catching
one. What is the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium in this game?

6. (25 points) Consider a Speed Trap game between a police officer and
a motorist. For simplicity, assume the motorist has only two choices:
to drive the speed limit, or to speed. The police officer simultaneously
chooses whether to set a speed trap, or to browse dank Instagram
memes on his phone. If the motorist drives the speed limit, she obtains
2 jollies no matter what the police officer does. If the motorist speeds
and the officer sets a speed trap, the motorist is definitely caught, and

2
gets 0 jollies. But if the motorist speeds and the officer is browsing
memes, the motorist is definitely not caught, and gets 4 jollies. The
officer gets 2 jollies from browsing memes; 1 jolly from increased road
safety if the motorist observes the speed limit (on top of any payoff
from browsing memes); and 3 jollies from catching a speeding motorist
in a speed trap.

(a) What is the unique Nash equilibrium of this game?

(b) Suppose the motorists payoff from speeding and not getting caught
increases to 8 jollies, but the game is otherwise the same. What
is Nash equilibrium of the game now? How do you make sense of
the fact that this does not increase the motorists probability of
speeding in equilibrium?
(c) Suppose the officer gets 4 jollies for browsing memes instead of 2,
but the game is otherwise the same. Does this affect the probabil-
ity that the police officer sets a speed trap in equilibrium? Does
it affect the probability that the motorist speeds in equilibrium?
Why?