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Finitely Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma with Small Fines: Penance Contract

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  • Hitoshi Matsushima

    (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo)

Abstract

We investigate the finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma with explicit contractual devices. We show that full collusion can be achieved by incentivizing the players' final period of play with small fines. Our incentivizing modality is the penance contract, by which a player is penalized if (and only if) he deviates from the penance strategy in the final period. We show that using this contractual agreement brings the penance strategy profile into unique subgame perfect equilibrium and achieves full collusion without being overturned by renegotiation.

Suggested Citation

  • Hitoshi Matsushima, 2010. "Finitely Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma with Small Fines: Penance Contract," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-720, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    • Handle: RePEc:tky:fseres:2010cf720
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    1. Malcolm Kass & Enrique Fatas & Catherine Eckel & Daniel Arce, 2015. "The UN in the lab," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(3), pages 625-651, October.

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