IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_5089.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Observable Strategies, Commitments, and Contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Karl Wärneryd

Abstract

We consider rules (strategies, commitments, contracts, or computer programs) that make behavior contingent on an opponent’s rule. The set of perfectly observable rules is not well defined. Previous contributions avoid this problem by restricting the rules deemed admissible. We instead limit the information available about rules. Each player can only observe which class, out of a collection of classes smaller than the number of rules, the opponent’s rule belongs to. For any underlying 2-player, finite, normal-form game there is a game extended with coarsely observable strategies that has equilibria with payoffs arbitrarily close to any feasible, individually rational payoff profile.

Suggested Citation

  • Karl Wärneryd, 2014. "Observable Strategies, Commitments, and Contracts," CESifo Working Paper Series 5089, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5089
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp5089.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Levine, David K. & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 2007. "The evolution of cooperation through imitation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 293-315, February.
    2. Michael Peters & Balázs Szentes, 2012. "Definable and Contractible Contracts," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(1), pages 363-411, January.
    3. Tennenholtz, Moshe, 2004. "Program equilibrium," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 363-373, November.
    4. Kalai, Adam Tauman & Kalai, Ehud & Lehrer, Ehud & Samet, Dov, 2010. "A commitment folk theorem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 127-137, May.
    5. Vincent P. Crawford, 2003. "Lying for Strategic Advantage: Rational and Boundedly Rational Misrepresentation of Intentions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 133-149, March.
    6. Ockenfels, Axel & Selten, Reinhard, 2000. "An Experiment on the Hypothesis of Involuntary Truth-Signalling in Bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 90-116, October.
    7. Paola Manzini & Abdolkarim Sadrieh & Nicolaas J. Vriend, 2009. "On Smiles, Winks and Handshakes as Coordination Devices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 826-854, April.
    8. Stahl Dale O., 1993. "Evolution of Smartn Players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 604-617, October.
    9. Binmore, Ken, 1987. "Modeling Rational Players: Part I," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 179-214, October.
    10. Paola Manzini & Abdolkarim Sadrieh & Nicolaas J. Vriend, 2009. "On Smiles, Winks and Handshakes as Coordination Devices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 826-854, April.
    11. Vulkan, Nir, 2001. "Equilibria in Automated Interactions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 35(1-2), pages 339-348, April.
    12. Ken Binmore, 1994. "Game Theory and the Social Contract, Volume 1: Playing Fair," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262023636, April.
    13. Frank, Robert H, 1987. "If Homo Economicus Could Choose His Own Utility Function, Would He Want One with a Conscience?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 593-604, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan I. Block & David K. Levine, 2016. "Codes of conduct, private information and repeated games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 45(4), pages 971-984, November.
    2. Gorkem Celik & Michael Peters, 2016. "Reciprocal relationships and mechanism design," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(1), pages 374-411, February.
    3. Forges, Françoise, 2013. "A folk theorem for Bayesian games with commitment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 64-71.
    4. Françoise Forges & Ulrich Horst & Antoine Salomon, 2016. "Feasibility and individual rationality in two-person Bayesian games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 45(1), pages 11-36, March.
    5. Holm, Håkan, 2004. "Detection Biases in Bluffing - Theory and Experiments," Working Papers 2004:30, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 19 Jan 2005.
    6. Juan I. Block & David K. Levine, 2017. "A folk theorem with codes of conduct and communication," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 5(1), pages 9-19, April.
    7. Peters, Michael & Troncoso-Valverde, Cristián, 2013. "A folk theorem for competing mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(3), pages 953-973.
    8. Heller, Yuval & Mohlin, Erik, 2019. "Coevolution of deception and preferences: Darwin and Nash meet Machiavelli," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 223-247.
    9. Juan I Block & David K Levine, 2016. "A Folk Theorem with Codes of Conduct," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000001323, David K. Levine.
    10. Arieli, Itai & Babichenko, Yakov & Tennenholtz, Moshe, 2017. "Sequential commitment games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 297-315.
    11. Ishii, Ryosuke, 2012. "Observable Actions," ビジネス創造センターディスカッション・ペーパー (Discussion papers of the Center for Business Creation) 10252/4776, Otaru University of Commerce.
    12. Tóbiás, Áron, 2023. "Rational Altruism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 50-80.
    13. Wiebe Hoek & Cees Witteveen & Michael Wooldridge, 2013. "Program equilibrium—a program reasoning approach," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 42(3), pages 639-671, August.
    14. Ingela Alger & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2013. "Homo Moralis—Preference Evolution Under Incomplete Information and Assortative Matching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(6), pages 2269-2302, November.
    15. Güth, Werner & Ockenfels, Axel, 2005. "The coevolution of morality and legal institutions: an indirect evolutionary approach," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 155-174, December.
    16. Haruvy, Ernan & Stahl, Dale O., 2007. "Equilibrium selection and bounded rationality in symmetric normal-form games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 98-119, January.
    17. Attar, Andrea & Campioni, Eloisa & Mariotti, Thomas & Pavan, Alessandro, 2021. "Keeping the Agents in the Dark: Private Disclosures in Competing Mechanisms," TSE Working Papers 21-1227, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Dec 2023.
    18. Mohlin, Erik, 2012. "Evolution of theories of mind," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 299-318.
    19. Holm, Håkan J. & Kawagoe, Toshiji, 2010. "Face-to-face lying - An experimental study in Sweden and Japan," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 310-321, June.
    20. Benjamin Patrick Evans & Mikhail Prokopenko, 2021. "Bounded rationality for relaxing best response and mutual consistency: The Quantal Hierarchy model of decision-making," Papers 2106.15844, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cooperation; reciprocity; transparency; commitment; contract;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5089. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.