Evolution of Interdependent Preferences in Aggregative Games

We study the evolution of preference interdependence in aggregative games which are symmetric with respect to material payoffs but asymmetric with respect to player objective functions. We identify a class of aggregative games whose equilibria have the property that the players with interdependent preferences (who care not only about their own material payoffs but also about their payoffs relative to others) earn strictly higher material payoffs than do the material payoff maximizers. Implications of this finding for the theory of preference evolution are discussed. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D62.     

Intermediate Preferences and Behavioral Conformity in Large Games

Motivated by Wooders, Cartwright, and Selten (2006) , we consider games with a continuum of players and intermediate preferences. We show that any such game has a Nash equilibrium that induces a partition of the set of attributes into a bounded number of convex sets with the following property: all players with an attribute in the interior of the same element of the partition play the same action. We then use this result to show that all sufficiently large, equicontinuous games with intermediate preferences have an approximate equilibrium with the same property. Our result on behavior conformity for large finite game generalizes Theorem 3 of Wooders et al. (2006) by allowing both a wider class of preferences and a more general attribute space.     

Simple Flow Games

This paper considers simple flow situations. We introduce the minimum cut solution and characterize it in terms of one-person efficiency, consistency, and converse consistency. Furthermore, we give several relations between the core of a simple flow game and four other solution concepts: the minimum cut solution, the least core, the kernel, and the bargaining set.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C71.     

Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in Bargaining Games

Research on ultimatum and dictator games has found that because of "fairness" first movers in such games offer more than noncooperative game theory predicts. We find that if the right to be the first mover is "earned" by scoring high on a general knowledge quiz, then first movers behave in a more self-regarding manner. We also conducted dictator double blind experiments, in which the experimenter could not identify the decision maker. The results yielded by far our largest observed incidence of self-regarding offers, suggesting that offers are due to strategic and expectation considerations. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C78, C91.     

Four Simple Tests of Campaign Contributions and Trade Policy Preferences

This paper uses campaign contribution data to examine trade policy preferences among political action committees. With perfect factor mobility, as the Heckscher–Ohlin (HO) model assumes, interest group trade positions should depend on their factor of production but not on their industry. We show, consistent with the 2 × 2 HO model, that capital groups consistently back representatives supporting trade liberalization while labor groups favor protectionists. Unlike previous work, we also measure the variation in trade policy preferences within capital and labor groups. We find evidence that the industry net export position significantly affects labor unions' trade policy preferences. Industry characteristics have no impact on capital group lobbying. The former result suggests that empirical analyses of labor PAC contributions that exclude industry characteristics may be misspecified.     

Reference Points and Negative Reciprocity in Simple Sequential Games

We investigate experimentally whether preferences over an outcome depend on what other possible outcomes of the situation under consideration are, i.e., whether choices are “menu dependent.” In simple sequential games we analyze whether reactions to a certain benchmark outcome are influenced by changes in the payoffs of another outcome, not attainable at that time, called the “reference point.” Our data provide evidence that is favorable to the notion of menu dependence. Alterations of the reference point can lead to quantitatively significant changes in behavior at the benchmark outcome. The behavior we observe can be interpreted in terms of negative reciprocity. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C91, C92, C72.     

Perfect Information and Potential Games

Games with perfect information giving rise to potential normal forms are described. For agent normal forms, a potential is defined such that a strategy profile is a maximizer for the potential if and only if it is a subgame perfect equilibrium. In the normal form of any game with perfect information, every better reply path where the players do not change their choices at irrelevant nodes leads to an equilibrium. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: C72.     

Quasi-weightings, Trading, and Desirability Relations in Simple Games

We investigate the problem of simultaneously characterizing various classes of simple games in three different ways: (i) the existence of “quasi-weightings” in which smaller numerical values are assigned to losing coalitions than are assigned to winning ones, (ii) the robustness of “winningness” with respect to trades involving groups of players, and (iii) the acyclicity of certain strict “orderings” that intuitively correspond to the idea of one player being more desirable than another.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Number: C71.     

家族企业中的信任机制、效用与信息成本

近年来,有些针对家族企业的研究对传统的家族企业治理持完全否定的态度,文章以剖析不同类型的家族企业内部的信任机制为基础,通过数理模型的构建说明信任机制对于家族企业的重要作用,并在分析家族企业内部信息成本的基础上揭示:传统的家族企业治理结构,如家族业主式的企业和家族合伙制的企业由于"信任度"更高而具有信息成本上的优势,因此,在当前中国社会信用体系欠缺的条件下,不失为一种适应性的制度选择.     

Public Information, Private Information, and the Multiplicity of Equilibria in Coordination Games

I study coordination games with incomplete public and private information and relate equilibrium convergence to convergence of higher-order beliefs. As the players' signals become more and more precise, the equilibrium manifold converges to the correspondence of common knowledge equilibria, whenever the variance of the public signal converges to 0 at a rate faster than one half the rate of convergence of the variance of private signals. The same condition also determines the convergence of common p-belief to common knowledge, which leads to a simple intuition for its origin and an immediate generalization of the former results about equilibrium convergence. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D82.     

信息经济学视角的诚信建设（2002年12月27日于北京大学光华管理学院的演讲）

概而言之,我的想法就是借用信息经济学和产业组织理论的委托代理框架。变非强制性的参与约束为最终意义上强制性的参与约束,作为我们建设信誉社会的第一推动。政府的角色责无旁贷。     

Iterated Weak Dominance in Strictly Competitive Games of Perfect Information

We prove that any strictly competitive perfect-information two-person game with n outcomes is solvable in n−1 steps of elimination of weakly dominated strategies— regardless of the length of the game tree. The given bound is shown to be tight using a variant of Rosenthal's centipede game. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C70, C72.     

Coordination and Information in Critical Mass Games: An Experimental Study

We present experimental results on a repeated coordination game with Pareto-ranked equilibria in which a payoff from choosing an action is positive only if a critical mass of players choose that action. We design a baseline version of the game in which payoffs remain constant for values above the critical mass, and an increasing returns version in which payoffs keep increasing for values above the critical mass. We test the predictive power of security and payoff-dominance under different information treatments. Our results show that convergence to the payoff-dominant equilibrium is the modal limit outcome when players have full information about others' previous round choices, while this outcome never occurs in the remaining treatments. The paths of play in some groups reveal a tacit dynamic coordination by which groups converge to the efficient equilibrium in a step-like manner. Moreover, the frequency and speed of convergence to the payoff-dominant equilibrium are higher, ceteris paribus, when increasing returns are present. Finally, successful coordination seems to crucially depend on players' willingness to signal to others the choice of the action supporting the efficient equilibrium.     

Merging, Reputation, and Repeated Games with Incomplete Information

We relate and unify several results that appeared in the following domains: merging of probabilities, perturbed games and reputation phenomena, and repeated games with incomplete information. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D83.     

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.     

B2C电子商务信任信息共享进化博弈分析

B2C 电子商务近年来受到广大顾客欢迎,除了商家自营商店外,也不断吸纳了越来越多的商家进驻而丰富市场,形成了商家与 B2C 电子商务的合作网络。目前对 B2C 电子商务信任研究侧重于研究商家信任相关的某些方面,如影响 B2C 电子商务信任的因素、信任的计算模型等。本文针对当前 B2C 电子商务网站中加盟店信任问题进行探讨, B2C 电子商务平台共享加盟商的信任信息可以最大程度地提高电子商务平台对加盟商信任度的评估。从进化博弈论角度进行分析,建立一种信任信息共享模型,并利用动态复制方程分析了其稳定状态及演化趋势,最后分析了信任信息共享的影响因素并讨论相应的对策。     

Law and Preferences

Legal rules do more than provide incentives, they change people.When preferences and norms are endogenously determined via aprocess of imitation and learning, legal rules, by affectingthe market outcome, may affect the dynamics of preference formation.Analyzing the effect of different legal rules should thereforego beyond the analysis of the incentives they provide. It shouldalso include an analysis of their effect on the distributionof preferences and norms of behavior. We illustrate this claimby considering a simple market game in which individuals mayhave preferences that include fairness concerns. We show thatdifferent legal rules change not only the pattern of trade ina market game, but also individuals' fairness concerns. Thatis, different rules may eventually make individuals care more(or less) about a fair outcome. Specifically, our model suggeststhat enhanced remedies for breach of contract may reduce equilibriumpreferences for fairness.     

基于博弈机制的物流信息共享研究

供应链通过物流信息共享可以有效地促进资源共享与资源整合,从而提高服务的附加价值,增强持续增值能力。供应链相邻节点企业之间没有进行物流信息共享的主动性,往往表现为信息不共享。利用博弈模型的触发策略分析相邻节点在完全信息共享、部分信息共享、不进行信息共享以及存在信息共享率与节点企业长远期望等情况下的成本、收益状况,探讨物流信息共享机制有效地降低运作成本,提高服务效益,实现供应链的共生与双赢。     

Racial Preferences in Dating

We examine racial preferences in dating. We employ a Speed Dating experiment that allows us to directly observe individual decisions and thus infer whose preferences lead to racial segregation in romantic relationships. Females exhibit stronger racial preferences than males. The richness of our data further allows us to identify many determinants of same-race preferences. Subjects' backgrounds, including the racial composition of the ZIP code where a subject grew up and the prevailing racial attitudes in a subject's state or country of origin, strongly influence same-race preferences. Older subjects and more physically attractive subjects exhibit weaker same-race preferences.