Learning and Applying Cooperative Solutions: A Classroom Experiment on Transportation Games

In a trade experiment, groups of students were taught how to bargain over pie generated in transportation game. Data collection and detailed group reports the bargaining process allowed us identify type followed its correspondence with cooperative game theory concepts. Explicit coalitions rather scarce (17%), although coalition stability was implied by 47.8% agreements. Efficiency achieved vast majority (82%) cases, whereas 34.8% agreements, used lexicographic ordering multiple solutions before choosing among them. Regarding procedure, 40% quantities traded decided profit sharing rules negotiated, 16% cases they simultaneously agreed upon. Our findings suggest that procedures often do not imply explicit coalitions. Moreover, efficiency can be even absence processes.