Prisoner's Dilemma
Prisoner's Dilemma: a device used to demonstrate that apparently rational micro-level decisions do not necessarily lead to rational macro-level outcomes. It is often used in game theory to explain the virtue of collective action as practiced under the multilateral trading system. The dilemma, which occurs in many variations, has in outline the following features. Several prisoners face separate interrogation. Each knows that if none of the others confess, it will result in freedom for all. Each also knows that if one of them confesses, but none of the others do, the one making the confession will get freedom. All of the others will receive severe sentences. If all confess, they will all be punished, but less severely than if only one confessed. The apparently rational decision by each individual prisoner therefore is to confess without bothering too much about the others. The moral is that they all are worse off by confessing than if they had been able to agree among themselves not to confess at all.
Source: http://ctrc.sice.oas.org/trc/WTO/Documents/Dictionary%20of%20trade%20%20policy%20terms.pdf
Web site to visit: http://ctrc.sice.oas.org
Author of the text: W. Goode
If you are the author of the text above and you not agree to share your knowledge for teaching, research, scholarship (for fair use as indicated in the United States copyrigh low) please send us an e-mail and we will remove your text quickly. Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, search engines, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use)
The information of medicine and health contained in the site are of a general nature and purpose which is purely informative and for this reason may not replace in any case, the council of a doctor or a qualified entity legally to the profession.
The following texts are the property of their respective authors and we thank them for giving us the opportunity to share for free to students, teachers and users of the Web their texts will used only for illustrative educational and scientific purposes only.
All the information in our site are given for nonprofit educational purposes
The information of medicine and health contained in the site are of a general nature and purpose which is purely informative and for this reason may not replace in any case, the council of a doctor or a qualified entity legally to the profession.
www.riassuntini.com