Second mover advantage
Moving second pays when seeing what the other side has done is worth more than tying their hands would have been.
Often misread asLooking for a general rule about whether it is better to move first or second, then carrying that answer across from one game to another.
How to see it
Sometimes seeing beats being seen
Moving second pays when what you learn by watching is worth more than the commitment you gave up by waiting. That happens when your best action depends heavily on what the other side did and when moving first would not have tied your hands anyway. Moving first pays in the opposite case, where your move genuinely constrains the response.
The checkNeither position has a general advantage. Work out whether observing the rival helps you more than committing against them would.
Try itIn matching pennies, decide whether you would rather choose first with your choice seen, or choose second having seen theirs. Then ask the same question in a Stackelberg quantity game. The answers come out differently, and the reason is which of information or commitment is scarce.
Games that show it
Know these first
Easily confused with
Sources
- Tirole, J. (1988). MIT Press.
- Dixit, A. & Nalebuff, B. (1991). W. W. Norton.