Iterated Regret Minimization: A More Realistic Solution Concept

For some well-known games, such as the Traveler’s Dilemma or the Centipede Game, traditional game-theoretic solution concepts—and most notably Nash equilibrium—predict outcomes that are not consistent with empirical observations. In this paper, we introduce a new solution concept, iterated regret minimization, which exhibits the same qualitative behavior as that observed in experiments in many games of interest, including Traveler’s Dilemma, the Centipede Game, Nash bargaining, and Bertrand competition. As the name suggests, iterated regret minimization involves the iterated deletion of strategies that do not minimize regret.