Socially Subjective Equilibrium in Strategic Form Games

This study provides a new framework and a new equilibrium concept, which are able to describe the situation where people have various images of the society and have various solution concepts for social outcomes, and where people accept the social outcomes. In socially subjective equilibrium, people have a coherence of their own norms in two senses. One is the consistency of the norm itself. Imagined outcomes should satisfy a certain (subjective) solution concept. The other is the consistency between the imagined outcomes and realized one. These are the main features of our equilibrium concept. This paper forms a part of my doctoral thesis, which is titled “On socially subjective equilibrium”. The first person I would like to thank is my direct supervisor Professor Ken Urai (Osaka University). I obtained a basic idea of the main concept of my doctoral thesis, that is, the solution concept scheme, from Professor Urai. I am grateful to Professor Hiroaki Nagatani (Osaka University) and Professor Ken-Ichi Shimomura (Kobe University), who monitored my works and took efforts in providing me with valuable comments on earlier versions of my thesis. I also obtained a fruitful advice from Professor Kenichi Amaya (Kobe University). Lastly, I specially thank to Kozo Shiraishi (Osaka University).     

Strategic Trade Policy Under Uncertainty*

This paper extends the Brander-Spencer (1985) model by considering market uncertainty, exploring nonlinear policy, and examining firms' choices of strategic variables. By investigating the interrelationship between trade policy and market conduct, we find that unlike the often-studied linear policy, a nonlinear policy can influence the domestic firm's choice of strategic variables and hence alter the market conduct in favor of the domestic country. Therefore, a nonlinear policy proves strictly superior to a linear one.     

Equilibrium Selection inn-Person Coordination Games

This paper investigates several approaches to equilibrium selection and the relationships between them. The class of games we study aren-person generalized coordination games with multiple Pareto rankable strict Nash equilibria. The main result is that all selection criteria select the same outcome (namely the risk dominant equilibrium) in two-person games, and that most equivalences break for games with more than two players. All criteria select the Pareto efficient equilibrium in voting games, of which pure coordination games are special cases.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C70, C72, D82.     

环境不确定性、战略能力与企业战略导向选择

企业的战略导向选择是关系企业生存与发展的重大问题,它受到企业内外部因素的显著影响,集中体现为环境不确定性和企业战略能力的共同作用.不同的企业会依据这两方面因素的影响而做出各异的战略导向选择.在对环境不确定性和战略能力进行研究分析的基础之上,提出了企业战略导向选择的理论模型.     

Delegation versus Veto in Organizational Games of Strategic Communication

In organizations, principals use decision rules to govern a more informed agent's behavior. We compare two such rules: delegation and veto. Recent work suggests that delegation dominates veto unless the divergence in preferences between the principal and the agent is so large that informative communication cannot take place. We show that this result does not hold in a reasonable model of veto versus delegation. In this model, veto dominates delegation for any feasible divergence in preferences, if it induces the agent to shut down low quality proposals that he would otherwise implement and if such projects have sufficient likelihood.     

Uncertainty,Learning and International Environmental Policy Coordination

In this paper we construct a simple model of global warming which captures a number of key features of the global warming problem: (i) environmental damages are related to the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; (ii) the global commons nature of the problem means that these are strategic interactions between the emissions policies of the governments of individual nation states; (iii) there is uncertainty about the extent of the future damages that will be incurred by each country from any given level of concentration of greenhouse gases but there is the possibility that at a future date better information about the true extent of environmental damages may become available; an important aspect of the problem is the extent to which damages in different countries may be correlated. In the first part of the paper we consider a simple model with two symmetric countries and show that the value of perfect information is an increasing function of the correlation between damages in the two countries in both the cooperative and non-cooperative equilibria. However, while the value of perfect information is always non-negative in the cooperative equilibrium, in the non-cooperative equilibrium there is a critical value of the correlation coefficient below which the value of perfect information will be negative. In the second part of the paper we construct an empirical model of global warming distinguishing between OECD and non-OECD countries and show that in the non-cooperative equilibrium the value of perfect information for OECD countries is negative when the correlation coefficient between environmental damages for OECD and non-OECD countries is negative. The implications of these results for international agreements are discussed.     

An Experimental Study of Communication and Coordination in Noncooperative Games

This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to test the usefulness of alternative solution concepts to explain players' behavior in noncooperative games with preplay communication. In the experiment subjects communicate byplain conversationprior to playing a simple game. In this setting, we find that the presumption ofindividualisticandindependentbehavior underlying the concept of Nash equilibrium is inappropriate. Instead, we observe behavior to becoordinatedandcorrelated. Statistical tests reject Nash equilibrium as an explanation of observed play. The coalition proof correlated equilibrium of the game, however, explains the data when the possibility of errors by players is introduced.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C72, C92.     

Cooperation in Experimental Games of Strategic Complements and Substitutes

We conduct a laboratory experiment aimed at examining whether strategic substitutability and strategic complementarity have an impact on the tendency to cooperate in finitely repeated two-player games with a Pareto-inefficient Nash equilibrium. We find that there is significantly more cooperation when actions exhibit strategic complementarities than in the case of strategic substitutes. The difference is to some extent driven by a difference in the speed with which some pairs reach stable full cooperation, but mainly by differences in choices of pairs that do not succeed in reaching full cooperation.     

Equilibrium Tariff Schedules In Commercial Policy Games Under Uncertainty

Abstract A partial two country equilibrium model is built in which two different exogenous random shocks may occur. the governments simultaneously choose tariff functions relating their specific tariff to the level of an observable variable (volume of trade or international price). In the case of a “volume of trade shock” the Nash equilibria of this game are more protectionist the larger the possible trade swings and autarky is always an equilibrium outcome. In the case of a “terms of trade shock”, constant tariffs, at their Nash equilibrium in specific tariff levels are the only sensible equilibrium outcome.     

基于不确定性的EVA战略模型研究

“财务战略矩阵”以财务为视角,为企业战略的定位及决策提供了一种极具可行性的定量方法。在时其基本思想作以借鉴的基础上,保留了模型中反映价值创造能力的变量、反映企业资源利用效率的变量,并增添了第三因素,即反映企业未来面临的不确定性的波动率指标,提出了“基于不确定性的EVA战略模型”,为企业战略定位与决策提供了更具柔性的方法选择。     

技术创新与战略性新兴产业的协调发展

论述了战略性新兴产业的定义、内涵和特征,分析了战略性新兴产业的发展路径。在此基础上,运用物理学中的耦合理论,分析了技术创新与战略性新兴产业的互动耦合发展关系,并构建了两者间耦合协调度评价指标体系。利用我国高技术产业的统计数据,计算了技术创新与5大战略性新兴产业的耦合协调度。最后给出了促进两者耦合协调发展、培育和发展战略性新兴产业的政策建议。     

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.     

Reciprocity and Cooperation in Repeated Coordination Games: The Principled-Player Approach

Two long-lived players play a repeated coordination game. I show the restrictions on players' beliefs which imply that cooperation is optimal play. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: D83.     

Modelling International Policy Games: Lessons from European Monetary Coordination

Most international monetary policy games are modelled as prisoners' dilemma games. Political scientists suggest however that other game-theoretic structures (chicken, stag-hunt and deadlock games) could be more appropriate to describe international monetary coordination. This paper provides some empirical evidence on this issue, by studying the case of European monetary coordination from 1979 to 1989. First, central banks' and governments' preferences are revealed through an analysis of their actual behaviour. Then, the dynamic game describing policymakers' interactions is simulated under alternative institutional arrangements: coordination, defection, sub-group coalitions, etc. The main conclusion is that the stylised facts derived from those experiments seem not to be consistent with the implications of the prisoners' dilemma framework. Consistency is instead found with the features of a stag-hunt game. CEPR and FEEM This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Strategic Manipulation in Voting Games When Lotteries and Ties Are Permitted

A Gibbard-Satterthwaite type theorem is established for random decision rules and rules that permit ties. The rules use full information on how individuals rank lotteries and sets of outcomes. The theorem allows restrictions on the domain of rankings. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D7, C7.     

经济政策不确定性对公司战略差异的影响

本文利用我国2005～2018年A股上市公司年度数据,运用经济政策不确定指数实证检验了经济政策不确定性对公司战略差异的影响,研究结果发现:经济政策不确定性对公司战略差异具有显著正向影响;当行业竞争越激烈,公司融资约束程度越低时,该正向影响效果更加显著;与民营企业相比,国有企业更有能力和资本改变原有的战略定位,实行偏离行业常规的战略模式。本文研究结论不仅丰富了经济政策不确定性的经济后果研究,而且对于探索转型经济背景下经济政策不确定性带来的机遇预期效应更具现实支撑。     

Strategic Foreign Direct Investment and Exchange‐Rate Uncertainty

We investigate how exchange‐rate uncertainty affects the foreign direct investment decision of a risk‐neutral multinational firm (MNF). We assume the firm can open plants, each with decreasing average costs, in two different countries. Under certainty, the MNF would open only one plant. We demonstrate that with sufficient exchange‐rate volatility, the firm can increase expected profits by opening several plants. We also show that if the MNF faces a competitor in the foreign market, the exchange risk, by inducing the MNF to open plants in both markets, may prevent entry by the local competitor.     

国际协调与博弈:金融危机下国家利益的考量

国际协调是不同国家间的合作与博弈,体现的是国家利益的最大化.全球金融危机爆发以来,世界各国为应对金融危机的持续蔓延和深化,加大了经济、金融领域国际协调的力度,拓宽了协调的范围.然而,世界各国在货币政策的协调上存在着巨大的分歧,应对金融危机的协调与人们的期望值相差甚远,国际协调与国家利益独立的矛盾也进一步显现出来.在经济衰退和金融危机面前,国家利益与世界各国共同利益的博弈与碰撞中,如何处理好世界各国共同利益与国家利益的关系,把握政策的导向是世界各国面临的严峻挑战.     

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.     

Timing and Virtual Observability in Ultimatum Bargaining and “Weak Link” Coordination Games

Previous studies have shown that simply knowing one player moves first can affect behavior in games, even when the first-mover's moves are known to be unobservable. This observation violates the game-theoretic principle that timing of unobserved moves is irrelevant, but is consistent with virtual observability, a theory of how timing can matter without the ability to observe actions. However, this previous research only shows that timing matters in games where knowledge that one player moved first can help select that player's preferred equilibrium, presenting an alternative explanation to virtual observability. We extend this work by varying timing of unobservable moves in ultimatum bargaining games and “weak link” coordination games. In the latter, the equilibrium selection explanation does not predict any change in behavior due to timing differences. We find that timing without observability affects behavior in both games, but not substantially.