The 2/3rds Game

In-class survey

Inspired by: Nagel (1995), “Unraveling in guessing games: An experimental study”.

Imagine that a newspaper like the New York Times runs a contest. Readers can write in a guess of an integer from 0-100. The editor computes the average of the readers’ guesses. The winner is the reader whose guess is closest to 2/3rds of the average.

What number would you guess?

Email:

(i) Playing with New York Times readers, what number would you guess?

(ii) Playing with people in this class, what number would you guess?

(iii) Playing with a group of your friends, what number would you guess?

(iv) Playing with a group of economists, what number would you guess?

Submitted successfully!

An error occurred. Please try again.

References

Nagel, Rosemarie. (1995). Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study. The American Economic Review, 85(5), 1313–1326. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2950991