Adaptive Play by Idiosyncratic Agents.

Equilibrium selection in coordination games has generated a large literature. Kandori, Mailath and Rob (1993) and Young (1993) studied dynamic models of aggregate behaviour in which agents choose best responses to observations of population play. Crucially, infrequent mistakes (“mutations”) allow ag...

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Main Authors: Myatt, D, Wallace, C
Format: Working paper
Language:English
Published: Department of Economics (University of Oxford) 2002
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author Myatt, D
Wallace, C
author_facet Myatt, D
Wallace, C
author_sort Myatt, D
collection OXFORD
description Equilibrium selection in coordination games has generated a large literature. Kandori, Mailath and Rob (1993) and Young (1993) studied dynamic models of aggregate behaviour in which agents choose best responses to observations of population play. Crucially, infrequent mistakes (“mutations”) allow agents to take actions contrary to current trends and prevent initial configurations from determining long run play. An alternative approach is offered here: Harsanyian trembles are added to agents’ payoffs so that with some probability it is optimal to act against the flow of play. The long run distribution of population behaviour is characterised — modes correspond to stable Bayesian Nash equilibria. Allowing the variance of payoff trembles to vanish, via a purification process, a single equilibrium is played almost always in the long run. Kandori et al and Young show that the number of contrarian actions required to escape an equilibrium determines selection; here, the likelihood that such actions are taken is of equal importance.
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spelling oxford-uuid:1f1fa2b6-6188-4462-ab42-27ff9a4abe462022-03-26T11:20:07ZAdaptive Play by Idiosyncratic Agents.Working paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:1f1fa2b6-6188-4462-ab42-27ff9a4abe46EnglishOxford University Research Archive - ValetDepartment of Economics (University of Oxford)2002Myatt, DWallace, CEquilibrium selection in coordination games has generated a large literature. Kandori, Mailath and Rob (1993) and Young (1993) studied dynamic models of aggregate behaviour in which agents choose best responses to observations of population play. Crucially, infrequent mistakes (“mutations”) allow agents to take actions contrary to current trends and prevent initial configurations from determining long run play. An alternative approach is offered here: Harsanyian trembles are added to agents’ payoffs so that with some probability it is optimal to act against the flow of play. The long run distribution of population behaviour is characterised — modes correspond to stable Bayesian Nash equilibria. Allowing the variance of payoff trembles to vanish, via a purification process, a single equilibrium is played almost always in the long run. Kandori et al and Young show that the number of contrarian actions required to escape an equilibrium determines selection; here, the likelihood that such actions are taken is of equal importance.
spellingShingle Myatt, D
Wallace, C
Adaptive Play by Idiosyncratic Agents.
title Adaptive Play by Idiosyncratic Agents.
title_full Adaptive Play by Idiosyncratic Agents.
title_fullStr Adaptive Play by Idiosyncratic Agents.
title_full_unstemmed Adaptive Play by Idiosyncratic Agents.
title_short Adaptive Play by Idiosyncratic Agents.
title_sort adaptive play by idiosyncratic agents
work_keys_str_mv AT myattd adaptiveplaybyidiosyncraticagents
AT wallacec adaptiveplaybyidiosyncraticagents