Introduction and Elementary Theoretical Background

As in market exchange studied in Part II, cooperation has also emerged, if unexpectedly, in anonymous two-person extensive form games in laboratory experiments. This behavior is still actively being investigated.

Although the behavior was found to be contrary to the traditional view (underlying the predictions) of “rational” prescriptions, further examination suggests that the results are not inconsistent with our examples of spontaneous order without externally imposed law in the evolution of behavior in human cultures in which rights to take action (“property rights”) emerge endogenously by mutual implicit consent. Hence, there is no necessary contradiction between what we reported in the previous chapter (and in Part II) and what we will be reporting in this chapter and in the next two chapters following.