Background and interests
After finishing my undergraduate studies at University College Utrecht, I did the Econometrics MSc program at the University of Amsterdam. Currently, I am a PhD student at CREED under the supervision of Theo Offerman and Sander Onderstal. My research revolves around auctions. I am particularly interested in the application of bounded rationality models to auctions and testing such models in the laboratory.
WORKING PAPERS 2013
de Groot Ruiz, Adrian, Theo Offerman and Sander Onderstal (2013) Equilibrium Selection in Cheap Talk Games: ACDC Rocks When Other Criteria Remain Silent PDF-file In the past, many refinements have been proposed to select equilibria in cheap talk games. Usually, these refinements were motivated by a discussion of how rational agents would reason in some particular cheap talk games. In this paper, we propose a behavioral refinement and stability
measure that is meant to predict actual behavior in a wide range of cheap talk games. According to our Average Credible Deviation Criterion (ACDC), the stability of an equilibrium is determined by the frequency and size of credible deviations. ACDC organizes the results from cheap talk experiments well, even in cases where other criteria remain silent.
WORKING PAPERS 2012
De Groot Ruiz, Adrian, Theo Offerman and Sander Onderstal (2012) Power and the Privilege of Clarity: An Analysis of Bargaining Power and Information Transmission PDF-file People in inferior bargaining positions are often vaguer when they express their preferences. In this paper, we explain how power shapes clarity of communication. We analyze information transmission in a cheap talk bargaining game between an informed Sender and an uninformed Receiver. Our main result is that the maximum amount of information transmission is increasing in the relative power of the Sender. As a result, clarity is a privilege of the powerful. In our model, only Senders whose preferences are closely aligned with the Receiver can completely reveal their information in equilibrium. We discuss some testable implications of our model.
PUBLICATIONS 2016
de Groot Ruiz, Adrian, Roald Ramer and Arthur Schram (2016) Formal versus Informal Legislative Bargaining Games and Economic Behavior 96, PDF-file ; appendix Link to article We study how the formality of a bargaining procedure affects its outcome. We compare a formal Baron-Ferejohn bargaining procedure to an informal procedure where players make and accept proposals in continuous time. Both constitute non-cooperative games corresponding to the same bargaining problem: a three-player median voter setting with an external disagreement point. This allows us to study formality in the presence and absence of a core and provides a natural explanation for the effects of preference polarization. Our results show that polarization hurts the median player and that formality matters. The median player is significantly better off under informal bargain-ing.
PUBLICATIONS 2015
De Groot Ruiz, Adrian, Theo Offerman and Sander Onderstal (2015) Equilibrium Selection in Experimental Cheap Talk Games Games and Economic Behavior 91, 14-25 PDF-file Extended version In the past, many refinements have been proposed to select equilibria in cheap talk games. Usually, these refinements were motivated by a discussion of how rational agents would reason in some particular cheap talk games. In this paper, we propose a new refinement and stability measure that is intended to predict actual behavior in a wide range of cheap talk games. According to our Average Credible Deviation Criterion (ACDC), the stability of an equilibrium is determined by the frequency and size of credible deviations. ACDC organizes the results from several cheap talk experiments in which behavior converged to equilibrium, even in cases where other criteria do not make a prediction.
PUBLICATIONS 2014
De Groot Ruiz, Adrian, Theo Offerman and Sander Onderstal (2014) An Experimental Study of Credible Deviations and ACDC Experimental Economics 17, 173-199 PDF-file Extended version We test the Average Credible Deviation Criterion (ACDC), a stability measure and refinement for cheap talk equilibria introduced in De Groot Ruiz, Offerman & Onderstal (2011). ACDC has been shown to be predictive under general conditions and to organize data well in previous experiments meant to test other concepts. In a new experimental setting, we provide the first systematic test of whether and to which degree credible deviations matter for the stability of cheap talk equilibria. Our principal experimental result is that in a setting where existing concepts are silent, credible deviations matter and matter gradually, as predicted by ACDC. 