Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Discussion Papers on Economics,
University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics

No 12/2014: Strategic Behavior and Social Outcomes in a Bottleneck Queue: Experimental Evidence

Jesper Breinbjerg (), Alexander Sebald () and Lars Peter Østerdal ()
Additional contact information
Jesper Breinbjerg: Department of Business and Economics, Postal: University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark
Alexander Sebald: Department of Economics, Postal: University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, Building 26, DK-1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Lars Peter Østerdal: Department of Business and Economics, Postal: University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark

Abstract: We consider a class of three-player queuing games where players independently choose when to arrive at a bottleneck facility that serves only one at a time. Players are impatient for service but cannot arrive before the facility opens and they dislike time spent in queue. We derive the equilibrium arrivals under the first-in-first-out (FIFO), last-in-first-out (LIFO), and service-in-random-order (SIRO) queue disciplines and compare these equilibrium predictions to outcomes from a laboratory experiment. LIFO provides higher equilibrium welfare than FIFO and SIRO since the players arrive such that lower congestion is induced. Experimental evidence confirms that employing different queue disciplines indeed affects the strategic behavior of players and thereby the level of congestion. The experimental participants do not, however, behave as prescribed by the equilibrium predictions. They obtain significantly higher welfare than prescribed by equilibrium under all queue disciplines. Our results moreover suggest that people perceive LIFO as the most unfair of the three disciplines although the theoretical results suggest that it is welfare optimal.

Keywords: Queue disciplines; congestion; equilibrium; experiments; fairness

JEL-codes: C72; D62; D63; R41

35 pages, August 13, 2014

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