Strategic Behavior and Information Transmission in a stylized (so-Called Chinos) Guessing Game

A guessing game very popular in some European countries involves several players hiding in their hands a number of coins (or pebbles) between zero and three, then attempting to guess in turn the total number of coins in the hands of everyone, with the restriction that no player can repeat the guess issued by any predecessor. After a full round, the player, if any, who guesses correctly wins. Of course, rounds without a winner are also possible, in which case a new round is started afresh. The purpose of the present article is to present an analysis of this game (called Chinos in Spain, as a perturbation of "chinas", i.e. pebbles), and some of its possible variants. Our primary aim is to show its potential to shed light on some issues of strategic behavior and information transmission that seem very germane to some social and economic problems.