In this paper I define an evolutionary stability criterion for learning rules. Using Monte Carlo simulations, I then apply this criterion to a class of learning rules that can be represented by Camerer and Ho's (1999) model of learning. This class contains perturbed versions of reinforcement and...

This paper examines the effects of search costs on prices in a Bertrand duopoly. It is shown that if the search cost is lowered, the expected price goes down in a single play of the stage game. However, if the game is repeated it may be easier to sustain collusion the lower the search cost. In...

We prove that, in all finite generic extensive-form games of perfect information, a continuous-time best response dynamic always converges to a Nash equilibrium component. We show the robustness of convergence by an approximate best response dynamic: whatever the initial state and an allowed...

In the text-book model of dynamic Bertrand competition, competing firms meet the same demand function every period. This is not a satisfactory model of the demand side if consumers can make intertemporal substitution between periods. Each period then leaves some residual demand to future...

In this paper we model an evolutionary process with perpetual random shocks where individual behavior is determined by imitation. Every period an agent is randomly chosen from each of n finite populations to play a game. Each agent observes a sample of population-specific past strategy and...

This paper characterizes the unique Markov equilibrium in the sequential move, finite horizon pricing duopoly with discounting. Simple, short cycles repeat until the last two periods. For discount factors above 0.75488, there are three-period reaction function cycles and below 0.75488,...

In Young (1993, 1998) agents are recurrently matched to play a finite game and almost always play a myopic best reply to a frequency distribution based on a sample from the recent history of play. He proves that in a generic class of finite n-player games, as the mutation rate tends to zero,...

Saez-Marti and Weibull [4] investigate the consequences of letting some agents play a myopic best reply to the myopic best reply in Young's [8] bargaining model. This is how they introduce ''cleverness'' of players. We analyze such clever agents in general finite two-player games. We show that...

We here develop a model of pre-play communication that generalizes the cheap-talk approach by allowing players to have a lexicographic preference, second to the payoffs in the underlying game, for honesty. We formalize this by way of an honesty (or truth) correspondence between actions and...

This paper analyzes a finite horizon, sequential move pricing duopoly, restricting attention to Markov-strategies. The solution yields stationary patterns, independent of initial conditions, where the reaction-functions follow cycles of three periods. The market price never settles down, and is...