A Few Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: An Anti-Folk Theorem for Anonymous Repeated Games with Incomplete Information
<jats:p> We study anonymous repeated games where players may be “commitment types” who always take the same action. We establish a stark anti-folk theorem: if the distribution of the number of commitment types satisfies a smoothness condition and the game has a “pairwise dominant” action, this...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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American Economic Association
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145249 |
| _version_ | 1826200226481831936 |
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| author | Sugaya, Takuo Wolitzky, Alexander |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics Sugaya, Takuo Wolitzky, Alexander |
| author_sort | Sugaya, Takuo |
| collection | MIT |
| description | <jats:p> We study anonymous repeated games where players may be “commitment types” who always take the same action. We establish a stark anti-folk theorem: if the distribution of the number of commitment types satisfies a smoothness condition and the game has a “pairwise dominant” action, this action is almost always taken. This implies that cooperation is impossible in the repeated prisoner's dilemma with anonymous random matching. We also bound equilibrium payoffs for general games. Our bound implies that industry profits converge to zero in linear-demand Cournot oligopoly as the number of firms increases. (JEL C72, C73, D83) </jats:p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:33:10Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/145249 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:33:10Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | American Economic Association |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1452492023-02-08T19:41:30Z A Few Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: An Anti-Folk Theorem for Anonymous Repeated Games with Incomplete Information Sugaya, Takuo Wolitzky, Alexander Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics <jats:p> We study anonymous repeated games where players may be “commitment types” who always take the same action. We establish a stark anti-folk theorem: if the distribution of the number of commitment types satisfies a smoothness condition and the game has a “pairwise dominant” action, this action is almost always taken. This implies that cooperation is impossible in the repeated prisoner's dilemma with anonymous random matching. We also bound equilibrium payoffs for general games. Our bound implies that industry profits converge to zero in linear-demand Cournot oligopoly as the number of firms increases. (JEL C72, C73, D83) </jats:p> 2022-09-01T12:46:32Z 2022-09-01T12:46:32Z 2020 2022-09-01T12:39:27Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145249 Sugaya, Takuo and Wolitzky, Alexander. 2020. "A Few Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: An Anti-Folk Theorem for Anonymous Repeated Games with Incomplete Information." American Economic Review, 110 (12). en 10.1257/AER.20200068 American Economic Review Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Economic Association American Economic Association |
| spellingShingle | Sugaya, Takuo Wolitzky, Alexander A Few Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: An Anti-Folk Theorem for Anonymous Repeated Games with Incomplete Information |
| title | A Few Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: An Anti-Folk Theorem for Anonymous Repeated Games with Incomplete Information |
| title_full | A Few Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: An Anti-Folk Theorem for Anonymous Repeated Games with Incomplete Information |
| title_fullStr | A Few Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: An Anti-Folk Theorem for Anonymous Repeated Games with Incomplete Information |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Few Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: An Anti-Folk Theorem for Anonymous Repeated Games with Incomplete Information |
| title_short | A Few Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: An Anti-Folk Theorem for Anonymous Repeated Games with Incomplete Information |
| title_sort | few bad apples spoil the barrel an anti folk theorem for anonymous repeated games with incomplete information |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145249 |
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