Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/70263 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 4138
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
We interpret the TV-show Come Dine with Me as a simultaneous non-cooperative game with evaluation levels as strategic variables, and show that it belongs to a class of strategic games which we label mutual evaluations games (MEG). Any MEG possesses a zero equilibrium - i. e. a Nash equilibrium where all players evaluate each other with the lowest available scores - as well as numberless non-zero equilibria. Since the former is an equilibrium in weakly dominant strategies, it may arguably be regarded as a focal point. Yet, in 212 rounds of the German format of Come Dine with Me contestants never got to this focal point, nor did they (with one exception) play any other equilibrium. We provide potential explanations for this off-equilibrium behaviour by considering the impact of social pressure and reputation mechanisms, bandwagon effects, inequality aversion and sequential voting effects.
Subjects: 
non-cooperative game
aggregative game
Nash-equilibrium
focal point
Come Dine with Me
mutual evaluation game
other regarding preferences
sequential voting effect
JEL: 
C72
D03
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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