expecon-theory-model

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# Theory and Hypotheses (expecon-theory-model)

## When to trigger

- The design exists but the paper never states *which model predicts what* in each treatment
- Competing accounts (selfishness, inequity aversion, reciprocity, social image, level-k, QRE, confusion) all rationalize the same data and you cannot tell them apart
- A referee asks for "the theoretical prediction" and the draft only has informal intuition
- You need the equilibrium/point predictions that your pre-analysis plan will commit to *before* data collection

## Theory here is a hypothesis generator, not the headline

At a method-defined journal, the model earns its place by **producing the predictions your treatments adjudicate**. You do not need a new theorem (that is GEB). You need a transparent map: *given this game and these parameters, model A predicts X in treatment T1 and Y in T2; model B predicts the reverse.* Build that map in four steps.

1. **State the game precisely.** Players, action sets, information, payoffs in **experimental currency units (ECU) and their money conversion**, matching protocol, and horizon. This is the object subjects actually face — write it as they experience it.