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Instability of Belief-free Equilibria

Author

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  • Yuval Heller

    (Bar-Ilan University)

Abstract

Various papers have presented folk theorem results for repeated games with private monitoring that rely on belief-free equilibria. I show that these equilibria are not robust against small perturbations in the behavior of potential opponents. Specifically, I show that essentially none of the belief-free equilibria is evolutionarily stable, and that in generic games none of these equilibria is neutrally stable. Moreover, in a large family of games (which includes many public good games), the belief-free equilibria fail to satisfy even a very mild stability refinement.

Suggested Citation

  • Yuval Heller, 2017. "Instability of Belief-free Equilibria," Working Papers 2017-01, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:biu:wpaper:2017-01
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Jonathan Newton, 2018. "Evolutionary Game Theory: A Renaissance," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-67, May.
    3. Srinivas Arigapudi & Yuval Heller & Amnon Schreiber, 2023. "Heterogeneous Noise and Stable Miscoordination," Papers 2305.10301, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Belief-free equilibrium; evolutionary stability; private monitoring; repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma; communication;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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