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The Financial times of London held a Beauty Contest game where it asked its readers to submit an integer between 0 and 100 (both inclusive), with the submission closest to twothirds of the average submission declared as the winner. The winning submission was 13 . Which of the following statements is true?

a. Those who submitted 0 overestimated the strategic sophistication of their rivals
b. The Financial Times made a mistake- the winning submission should always be 0
c. On average, the participants in this game exhibited level-1 reasoning
d. Everyone choosing 13 is the Nash equilibrium of this particular game

User Mchangun
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Final answer:

The true statement in the context of the Financial Times Beauty Contest game, where the winning submission was 13, is that on average, the participants exhibited level-1 reasoning. This level of reasoning indicates that players guessed the average submission and chose two-thirds of that, rather than recursively considering what others might guess.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Financial Times of London's Beauty Contest game is a classic example of game theory, where players are trying to predict what others will do to optimize their own strategy. The question essentially asks which statement is true when the winning submission was 13.

Option c, 'On average, the participants in this game exhibited level-1 reasoning', is likely the closest to the truth. Level-1 reasoning assumes that players are trying to guess what the average submission will be and then they strategically choose two-thirds of that average. If players were using level-0 reasoning, they would just guess randomly within the 0 to 100 range. If they were using level-2 reasoning, they would consider what a level-1 player would do and then calculate two-thirds of that average, and this would tend to result in an even lower number. Since the winning submission was 13, this indicates that most players likely did not anticipate many iterations of this recursive reasoning and thus exhibited level-1 thinking.

User Andrew  Nexintong
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