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Wishful Thinking in Strategic Environments

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  • Muhamet Yildiz

Abstract

Towards developing a theory of systematic biases about strategies, I analyse strategic implications of a particular bias: wishful thinking about the strategies. I identify a player as a wishful thinker if she hopes to enjoy the highest pay-off that is consistent with her information about the others' strategies. I develop a straightforward elimination process that characterizes the strategy profiles that are consistent with wishful thinking, mutual knowledge of wishful thinking, and so on. Every pure-strategy Nash equilibrium is consistent with common knowledge of wishful thinking. For generic two-person games, I further show that the pure Nash equilibrium strategies are the only strategies that are consistent with common knowledge of wishful thinking. My analysis also illustrates how one can characterize the strategic implications of general decision rules using the tools of game theory. Copyright 2007, Wiley-Blackwell.

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  • Muhamet Yildiz, 2007. "Wishful Thinking in Strategic Environments," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(1), pages 319-344.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:restud:v:74:y:2007:i:1:p:319-344
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1467-937X.2007.00423.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Eliaz, Kfir & Spiegler, Ran, 2009. "Bargaining over bets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 78-97, May.
    2. Kfir Eliaz & Ran Spiegler, 2007. "A Mechanism-Design Approach to Speculative Trade," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(3), pages 875-884, May.
    3. Edward Cartwright & Amrish Patel, 2010. "Public Goods, Social Norms, and Naïve Beliefs," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(2), pages 199-223, April.
    4. Frédéric Koessler & Marieke Pahlke, 2023. "Feedback Design in Strategic-Form Games with Ambiguity Averse Players," PSE Working Papers halshs-04039083, HAL.
    5. Sergei Izmalkov & Muhamet Yildiz, 2010. "Investor Sentiments," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 21-38, February.
    6. Guarino, Pierfrancesco & Ziegler, Gabriel, 2022. "Optimism and pessimism in strategic interactions under ignorance," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 559-585.
    7. Tang, Rui & Zhang, Mu, 2023. "Motivated naivete," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).

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