Strategic commitment and cooperation in experimental games of strategic complements and substitutes

We study the impact of strategic commitment on cooperation in indefinitely repeated games ofstrategic substitutes (Cournot) and complements (Bertrand) using laboratory experiments. Overall,strategic commitment has no effect on cooperation with strategic substitutes and a negative onewith strategic complements. In the absence of strong strategic commitment, we find morecooperation in the complements game than in the substitutes game. However, when subjects are morecommitted to initial plans, a higher level of cooperation is achieved with strategic substitutes.These results cannot be explained by standard risk-dominance or renegotiation considerations, butare consistent with a notion of fear of miscoordination based on minmax regret.