Implementation in Economic Environments with Incomplete Information: The Use of Multi-Stage Games

This paper shows that, in economic environments with incomplete information, incentive compatibility and a preference reversal condition are sufficient for implementation in sequential equilibrium.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C72, D71, D82.     

Fictitious Play in Extensive Form Games

This article analyzes the fictitious play process originally proposed for strategic form games by Brown (1951) and Robinson (1951). We interpret the process as a model of preplay thinking performed by players before acting in a one-shot game. This model is one of bounded rationality. We discuss how fictitious play should then be defined for extensive form games and conclude that this is somewhat problematic. We therefore study two alternative definitions. For either of these, under a weak condition of initial uncertainty, a convergence point of a fictitious play sequence is a sequential equilibrium. For generic games of perfect information initial uncertainty also implies convergence of fictitious play.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Number: C72.     

Subgame Monotonicity in Extensive Form Evolutionary Games

A theory of subgame monotonicity is developed for finite extensive form games to model evolutionary processes that respect the subgame structure of the game. It is shown how these evolutionary processes can be decomposed into their evolution on smaller games and also recombined to simplify the analysis of the original game. When applied to the replicator dynamic, a generalization of the Wright manifold from population genetics is a natural consequence of monotonicity. Subgame monotonicity and the Wright manifold are also shown to arise naturally in imitation models based on the extensive form. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C70, C72.     

Quantal Response Equilibria for Extensive Form Games

This article investigates the use of standard econometric models for quantal choice to study equilibria of extensive form games. Players make choices based on a quantal-choice model and assume other players do so as well. We define an agent quantal response equilibrium (AQRE), which applies QRE to the agent normal form of an extensive form game and imposes a statistical version of sequential rationality. We also define a parametric specification, called logit-AQRE, in which quantal-choice probabilities are given by logit response functions. AQRE makes predictions that contradict the invariance principle in systematic ways. We show that these predictions match up with some experimental findings by Schotter et al. (1994) about the play of games that differ only with respect to inessential transformations of the extensive form. The logit-AQRE also implies a unique selection from the set of sequential equilibria in generic extensive form games. We examine data from signaling game experiments by Banks et al. (1994) and Brandts and Holt (1993). We find that the logit-AQRE selection applied to these games succeeds in predicting patterns of behavior observed in these experiments, even when our prediction conflicts with more standard equilibrium refinements, such as the intuitive criterion. We also reexamine data from the McKelvey and Palfrey (1992) centipede experiment and find that the AQRE model can account for behavior that had previously been explained in terms of altruistic behavior. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Reciprocity, Trust, and Payoff Privacy in Extensive Form Bargaining

We report decision making in two-person extensive form game trees, using six treatments that vary matching protocol, payoffs, and payoff information. Our objective is to examine game theoretic hypotheses of decision making based on dominance and backward induction in comparison with the culturally or biologically derived hypothesis that reciprocity supports more cooperation than predicted by game theory. We find strong support for cooperation under complete information, even in single-play treatments and in games of trust, unreinforced by the prospect of punishment for defection from reciprocity. Only under private information do we observe strong support for noncooperative game theory.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C78, C92.     

Strategic Environmental Policy Under Incomplete Information

This paper introduces incomplete information into recent analyses of strategic environmental policy. It is shown how asymmetric information between planners and producers affects national incentives to impose strategic environmental standards on domestic industries in international oligopolistic competition. Relative to the full-information case, incomplete information is likely to mitigate allocative distortions originating from strategic behaviour. A countervailing effect, tending to raise distortion, is however revealed from the analysis. This effect is absent when governments intervene in free trade through direct production subsidies. The results suggest that incentives to capture foreign rents are less reduced due to private information, when environmental standards, rather than direct production subsidies, are the strategic instrument.     

A Blotto game with Incomplete Information

We consider a Blotto game with Incomplete Information. A pure-strategy symmetric monotonic Bayesian equilibrium is found and its properties are discussed.     

基于信息熵的不完备模糊信息系统属性约简

现实世界中广泛存在的信息不完备和模糊现象,限制了粗糙集理论在实际问题中的典型应用,目前在不完备模糊领域中基于分辨矩阵的算法时间复杂度较高,无法满足大规模数据的快速属性约简。针对这个原因,将完备信息系统中基于信息熵的快速属性约简算法推广到不完备模糊信息系统,通过相容关系及基于相容关系的近似集,给出计算条件信息熵的方法;在此基础上,设计出基于信息熵的不完备模糊信息系统的属性约筒算法。理论分析和实例结果表明了该算法的可行性和较好的时间优越性。     

Litigation with Symmetric Bargaining and Two-Sided Incomplete Information

We construct game-theoretic foundations for bargaining in theshadow of a trial. Plaintiff and defendant both have noisy signalsof a common-value trial judgment and make simultaneous offersto settle. If the offers cross, they settle on the average offer;otherwise, both litigants incur an additional cost and the judgmentis imposed at trial. We obtain an essentially unique Nash equilibriumand characterize its conditional trial probabilities and judgments.Some of the results are intuitive. For example, an increasein trial cost (or a decrease in the range of possible outcomes)reduces the probability of a trial. We obtain a precise nonlinearexpression for the relationship. Other results reverse findingsfrom previous literature. For example, trials are possible evenwhen the defendant's signal indicates a higher potential judgmentthan the plaintiff's signal, and when trial costs are low, middlingcases (rather than extreme cases) are more likely to settle.     

A Note on Emissions Taxes and Incomplete Information

In contrast with what we perceive is the conventional wisdom about setting a second-best emissions tax to control a uniformly mixed pollutant under uncertainty, we demonstrate that setting a uniform tax equal to expected marginal damage is not generally efficient under incomplete information about firms’ abatement costs and damages from pollution. We show that efficient taxes will deviate from expected marginal damage if marginal damage is increasing and there is uncertainty about the slopes of the marginal abatement costs of regulated firms. Moreover, tax rates will vary across firms if a regulator can use observable firm-level characteristics to gain some information about how the firms’ marginal abatement costs vary.     

Reinforcement-Based Adaptive Learning in Asymmetric Two-Person Bargaining with Incomplete Information

The sealed bidk-double auction is a mechanism used to structure bilateral bargaining under two-sided incomplete information. This mechanism is tested in two experiments in which subjects are asked to bargain repeatedly for 50 rounds with the same partner under conditions of information disparity favoring either the buyer (Condition BA) or seller (Condition SA). Qualitatively, the observed bid and offer functions are in agreement with the Bayesian linear equilibrium solution (LES) constructed by Chatterjee and Samuelson (1983). A trader favored by the information disparity, whether buyer or seller, receives a larger share of the realized gain from trade than the other trader. Comparison with previous results reported by Daniel, Seale, and Rapoport (1998), who used randomly matched rather than fixed pairs, shows that when reputation effects are present this advantage is significantly enhanced. A reinforcement-based learning model captures the major features of the offer and bid functions, accounting for most of the variability in the round-to-round individual decisions.     

不完全信息下的进入和退出决策

本文用相机权益方法分析了在不完全信息下,企业如何做出进入和退出决策。     

An Example of Dynamic (In)Consistency in Symmetric Extensive Form Evolutionary Games

An example is developed to show that equilibrium selection via dynamic stability, when applied to the normal form of extensive form games, is inconsistent with the subgame structure. Alternative dynamic approaches are proposed and discussed to circumvent this inconsistency. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C70, C72.     

Bargaining and Search with Incomplete Information about Outside Options

This paper considers a model of bargaining in which the seller makes offers and the buyer can search (at a cost) for an outside option; the outside option cannot be credibly communicated, and the seller's offer is recallable by the buyer for one period. There are essentially two equilibrium regimes. For sufficiently high search cost, the game ends immediately; otherwise the search occurs in equilibrium. Compared to the case where the buyer can communicate his outside option, the seller is worse off, and the game results in search for a smaller set of values of the search cost, i.e., less equilibrium delay.C72.     

Endogenous Timing with Incomplete Information and with Observable Delay

This paper analyzes endogenous timing in a duopoly model with incomplete information. Firms announce the period in which they will move before choosing an action and are then committed to their choices. Endogenous Stackelberg equilibria, with either the informed or the uninformed firm as the Stackelberg leader, may emerge. For most parameters, the Cournot equilibrium in the first production period results endogenously. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72; C73; D82; L10.     

A Property of Nash Equilibria in Repeated Games with Incomplete Information

We consider two-person non-zero-sum infinitely repeated games with lack of information on one side. The characterization of Nash equilibrium payoffs obtained by Hart allows for complex strategies, which are actually required by some equilibrium payoffs in some games. We show that appropriate one-shot public communication mechanisms make Nash equilibrium payoffs achievable by means of simple strategies. Furthermore, these mechanisms satisfy a notion of self-fulfillment.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: D82, C72.     

Nonpoint Source Pollution Control under Incomplete and Costly Information

We analyze the efficient management of nonpoint source pollution (NPS) under a limited pollution control budget and incomplete information. We focus on the tradeoff between data collection and pollution abatement efforts by incorporating information acquisition into a NPS pollution control model. Comparative static results show conditions under which (i) a favorable change in the abatement costs at one source may lead to an increase in the treatment level at all sources, and vice versa, (ii) an increase in data collection cost leads to an increase in data collection level, and (iii) an increase in the efficiency of information acquisition leads to a decrease in the level of data collection. More importantly, the model simulations illustrate that acquiring and exploiting information on heterogeneity of sediment loading distributions across polluting sources leads to a more efficient budget allocation and hence a greater reduction in pollution damage than would be the case without such information.     

Patent Protection and R&D Incentives Under Incomplete Information

When tournament effect is negative, under complete information, whether patent protection increases the incentive for R&D is ambiguous. It depends on the extent of spillover of the new technology. In particular if that amount is less than a threshold value then patent protection increases the incentive for R&D, otherwise it does not. This note considers incomplete information framework where the spillover parameter is private information. In this framework it is shown that there are situations where patent protection unambiguously increases incentive for R&D. This happens if the distribution function of the spillover parameter is sufficiently skewed and the cost of doing research is sufficiently high even when tournament effect is negative.

     

不对称信息、不完全契约与中国的信用制度建设

本文对我国信用的信息经济学和制度经济学的分析表明，我国经济转轨时期信用关系的扭曲和普遍的道德风险行为，主要来自信用市场的信息不对称和信用契约的不完全，而其根源是不合理的信用制度安排和不健全的法治体系。在此基础上，本文提出了改善我国目前信用关系的制度安排和政策性建议。