We define and analyze a "strategic topology" on types in the Harsanyi-Mertens- Zamir universal type space, where two types are close if their strategic behavior is similar in all strategic situations. For a fixed game and action define the distance be- tween a pair of types as the di¤erence...

In the prisoners' dilemma game, the only evolutionary stable strategy is defection, even though nutual cooperation yields a higher payoff. Building on a paper by Robson (1990), we introduce mutants who have the ability to send a (costly) signal, i.e., the "secret handshake," before each round of...

This paper highlights connections between the discrete and continuous approaches to optimal auction design with single and multi-dimensional types. We provide an interpretaion of an optimal auction design problem in terms of a linear program that is an instance of a parametric shortest path...

We consider an environment where potential buyers of an indi- visible good have liquidity constraints, in that they cannot pay more than their `budget' regardless of their valuation. A buyer's valuation for the good as well as her budget are her private information. We derive...

Though some economic environments provide allocation rules that are implementable in dominant strategies (strategy-proof), a significant number of environments yield impossibility results. On the other hand, while there are quite general possibility results regarding implementation in Nash or...

For different purposes, economists may use different topologies on types. We char- acterize the relationship among these various topologies. First, we show that for any general types, convergence in the uniform-weak topology implies convergence in both the strategic topology and the uniform...

In Bayesian environments with private information, as described by the types of Harsanyi, how can types of agents be (statistically) disassociated from each other and how are such disassociations reflected in the agents’ knowledge structure? Conditions studied are (i) subjective independence...

We consider discriminatory auctions for multiple identical units of a good. Players have private values, possibly for multiple units. None of the usual assumptions about symmetry of players' distributions over values or of their equilibrium play are made. Because of this, equilibria will...

In models of non-deterministic contest, players exert irreversible effort in order to increase their probability of winning a prize. The most prominent functional form of the win probability in the literature is the so-called “logit” contest success function. We provide a simple...