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The positive foundation of the common prior assumption

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  • HEIFETZ, Aviad

Abstract

The existence of a common prior is a property of the state space used to model the players' incomplete information. We show that this property is not just a technical artifact of the model, but that it is immanent to the players' beliefs. To this end, we devise a condition, phrased solely in terms of the players' mutual beliefs about the basic, objective issues ofpossible uncertainty, which is equivalent to the existence of a common prior. This condition specifies a procedure of enquiry addressed to the players, which detects when there is no common prior among them.

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  • HEIFETZ, Aviad, 2003. "The positive foundation of the common prior assumption," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2003052, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cor:louvco:2003052
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Heifetz, Aviad & Samet, Dov, 1998. "Topology-Free Typology of Beliefs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 324-341, October.
    2. MERTENS, Jean-François & ZAMIR, Shmuel, 1985. "Formulation of Bayesian analysis for games with incomplete information," LIDAM Reprints CORE 608, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    3. Giacomo Bonanno & Klaus Nehring, 1999. "How to make sense of the common prior assumption under incomplete information," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 28(3), pages 409-434.
    4. Cave, Jonathan A. K., 1983. "Learning to agree," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 147-152.
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    Cited by:

    1. Lipman, Barton L., 2010. "Finite order implications of common priors in infinite models," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 56-70, January.

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